Today I share with you a great tool to avoid wasting vegetables: the clothes dryer. It often happens that I have a harvest in the garden that exceeds family consumption, when I get carried away at sowing time and maybe the vegetables all come together. In this case, I dry them all at the same time.
Dried vegetables can be kept for months, their drying reveals different culinary uses and new flavors, but above all it avoids wasting leftover vegetables. As always, throwing the crop away is unpleasant and that’s where the drying comes in. I use a Domus Biosec from Tauro Dryers, which I’ve already told you about. Now I will tell you four good ideas for using it with garden products.
Contents [Ocultar]
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dried vegetables
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Vegetable flours
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Chips of dried vegetables
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Granulated vegetable nut
Contents
dried vegetables
Certain types of dried vegetables become real delicacies. Sun-dried tomatoes are a must. If you put them in whole, they take forever to dry, so it’s best to cut them in half. I use cherries, although you can potentially dry any variety. Once dry, they can be kept for months in a simple glass jar. I use them as a sauce for pasta, mixing them with almonds and cheese spread, or I revive them by blanching them and putting them in oil. Hot peppers are another garden fruit that dries very well. Pepper skin is even worse than tomato skin, so if you want them whole, prepare them for long waits (even 2 days of drying), if you cut them they are less aesthetic but you do it much sooner . Once they’re ready, just shred them to use as a spice to make your dishes spicier. To know more I refer you to an article taken from the beautiful site Essiccare.com :
vegetable flour
Flour can be made from virtually any vegetable, preferring the tastiest and those that are eaten cooked. The result will be wonderful in the kitchen and can be used in many recipes. Making a flour in the dryer is very simple, just cut or cut the vegetables into very thin slices, dry them and chop them. It will keep for months in a screw-top glass jar. I use a lot of pumpkin flour and potato flour, which I usually put in soups, I also like beetroot flour, which has a lot of color and can be used in cooking to not only add flavor but also a touch of original color. Some recipes:
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husk flour
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pumpkin flour
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Potato flour (freeze-dried mash)
Chips of dried vegetables
Some vegetables can be dried by cutting them into thin slices, resulting in crisps to eat right away. To make them, simply slice the vegetables with a mandolin, brush them with oil, lemon juice or soy sauce, and dry them for about ten hours. The result is a healthy and original sandwich. I made fries, Jerusalem artichokes, eggplant, parsnips (the best!), carrots, beets and zucchini. Some recipes:
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Garlic aubergine fries
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Zucchini fries
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Jerusalem artichoke fries
Granulated vegetable nut
The nut you buy at the supermarket contains more waste than vegetables, I prefer to produce it myself with my own organic vegetables. With the dryer you can make a good granulated walnut in a very simple way: just mix the pulses with coarse salt, the weight of the salt must be half the weight of the vegetables. The full recipe:
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How to make the walnut with the dryer