Veggie powders---plan for making your own this year!!
Feb 19, 2017 10:37:43 GMT -5
treatlisa and elnini like this
Post by cdmoi on Feb 19, 2017 10:37:43 GMT -5
So, I adore this man, his mission and his intellect and "outside-the-box" way of thinking. We heard him speak when he launched his new business, one other than a holistic M.D., and this concept has changed our lives. Here's his page:
www.drcowansgarden.com/pages/about-us
...and you can roam about the site, and read about Miron jars, veggie powders, etc. But what I wanted to tell you was how easy they are to make yourselves, as you are all big gardeners/homesteaders (and even Dr. Cowan encourages that sulf-sufficiency and gives directions and benefits to each powder in his blog/newsletter. Good info there.)
By adding veggie powders to our lives/diets, we have eaten tons of veggies as well as more variety every day this past winter and I see our health improving. I would have to say that outside of lacto-fermented foods, this is the one other idea that has changed our lives health-wise the most dramatically. Basically, whatever you grow, you can dehydrate and pulverize (we start with our food processor and then finish with a coffee grinder to get a really powdery finish) and then store them in Miron jars (which are very pricey, so we add a couple each year as Christmas gifts or some such). Then, come winter, we have such an amazing variety of veggies available to eat and to use to build a much more complex gut biome. We just make eggs, say, and top them off with kale, bok choi, tomato, leek (omg, the leek powder is AMAZING!!!), celeriac, summer squash--and instead of just having eggs, you have eggs and veggies. You can add more to soups, or meatloaf, etc., etc. (The website offers great recipes, too)
Because I tried this last year and found them so easy to make myself, I am really looking differently at my garden this year---growing more of what doesn't store well so that I can dehydrate it and have it year round. Like summer squash (which you can also lacto-ferment, esp. the scalloped ones picked very young). But he did eggplant roasted and dried, which I'm going to try. Takes no freezer space, no jar space really, other than the jars you store it in, and no electricity to keep once they're dehydrated. For the veggies I didn't have enough Miron jars for, I put them in Ball jars and kept them out of sunlight in my very dark kitchen cupboard.
Anyways, wanted to share the concept and perhaps inspire some of you to think about trying this this coming year. You will need a good dehydrator as you have to do it around 125 degrees, and few modern ovens go that low. Also, you dehydrate said veggie as you would consume it---i.e., first blanch kale, then cool and dehydrate (kale done this way dehydrates very quickly). Pumpkin would be steamed or baked, cooled, then dehydrated. I haven't done that one as I can just store pumpkins. I tend to dehydrate the ones I can't keep well. Then again, I did dehydrate my celeriac when it started to turn in the basement recently. Makes a great powder!
www.drcowansgarden.com/pages/about-us
...and you can roam about the site, and read about Miron jars, veggie powders, etc. But what I wanted to tell you was how easy they are to make yourselves, as you are all big gardeners/homesteaders (and even Dr. Cowan encourages that sulf-sufficiency and gives directions and benefits to each powder in his blog/newsletter. Good info there.)
By adding veggie powders to our lives/diets, we have eaten tons of veggies as well as more variety every day this past winter and I see our health improving. I would have to say that outside of lacto-fermented foods, this is the one other idea that has changed our lives health-wise the most dramatically. Basically, whatever you grow, you can dehydrate and pulverize (we start with our food processor and then finish with a coffee grinder to get a really powdery finish) and then store them in Miron jars (which are very pricey, so we add a couple each year as Christmas gifts or some such). Then, come winter, we have such an amazing variety of veggies available to eat and to use to build a much more complex gut biome. We just make eggs, say, and top them off with kale, bok choi, tomato, leek (omg, the leek powder is AMAZING!!!), celeriac, summer squash--and instead of just having eggs, you have eggs and veggies. You can add more to soups, or meatloaf, etc., etc. (The website offers great recipes, too)
Because I tried this last year and found them so easy to make myself, I am really looking differently at my garden this year---growing more of what doesn't store well so that I can dehydrate it and have it year round. Like summer squash (which you can also lacto-ferment, esp. the scalloped ones picked very young). But he did eggplant roasted and dried, which I'm going to try. Takes no freezer space, no jar space really, other than the jars you store it in, and no electricity to keep once they're dehydrated. For the veggies I didn't have enough Miron jars for, I put them in Ball jars and kept them out of sunlight in my very dark kitchen cupboard.
Anyways, wanted to share the concept and perhaps inspire some of you to think about trying this this coming year. You will need a good dehydrator as you have to do it around 125 degrees, and few modern ovens go that low. Also, you dehydrate said veggie as you would consume it---i.e., first blanch kale, then cool and dehydrate (kale done this way dehydrates very quickly). Pumpkin would be steamed or baked, cooled, then dehydrated. I haven't done that one as I can just store pumpkins. I tend to dehydrate the ones I can't keep well. Then again, I did dehydrate my celeriac when it started to turn in the basement recently. Makes a great powder!
