I had extended the dry time on batch 23 so it would finish in the morning and once I was ready I shut it off to pull the trays. This is now the second run on the ginger pieces and they are still pliable so I am going to keep putting them through on runs where I have space. The pineapple came out perfect as always.
The veggies all came out perfectly dried and they all stayed either the same size or shrunk in the processing. I was a bit surprised to feel the difference in weights between them with the beans being the lightest and the corn holding more of its.
Since I have a bunch more of each veggie in the freezer I bagged each of these up into the mylar and sealed them for storage.
With the batch done I washed up all the trays and let the machine defrost for a while. I had to change out a breaker for a circuit in the kitchen, (increase to 30 amp) and when I took the face off the panel I tripped the breaker for the freeze dryer. When I checked it it had quit the defrost cycle but I was able to manually turn on the heater to finish the defrost.
Once the defrost was done I filled the 5 trays with pumpkin puree. 2 trays of cooked and 3 trays of raw which exactly finished off what I had left.
I'm pretty stoked to be able to process the pumpkin into a super long term shelf stable form that doesn't take up valuable freezer space. I may end up pulling the various frozen pumpkin from the freezer to run through to free up more space.
In the afternoon the boys were seeming a bit bored so I went to the attic and found a couple of puzzles, both 500 piece ones. R has been putting together a 100 piece that was mine as a kid so I figured it would be good to bring out a harder one. R was not as interested as J who did good with the border pieces. I chose the Los Angeles cityscape one as it is cartoony enough and a bit easier.
By the time they went to bed we had managed to get a bunch of it complete.
R has school today but first I have to deliver a 15 pound box of butternut squash to the co-op.
^Affiliate/Referral Link^
Signup With my Link and we BOTH get 25K RBN
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!
