0 Zucchini Flour

Yes, you now have a purpose for all that zucchini that is growing like crazy in the garden.  Make zucchini powder/flour.  I call it flour because it is ground up to the texture of a multigrain flour.  It can be used like a gluten-free flour.  AMAZING.

 Cut up your zucchini and dehydrate the disks until they are bone dry.  Add the dried zucchini to your blender and blend until a fine powder is formed.  I am using the dry canister for the Vitamix.  I am sure that any food processor/blender would do just fine.  This isn't a hard substance to grind.

 And you are all done! This is a super low carb vegetable flour.  I estimate that it will be about one gram of carbohydrates for one tablespoon.  That is what I arrived at after estimating how many mid sized zucchinis I dehydrated divided by how many tablespoons of powder I came up with.  

Another note, you need lots and lots of zucchini to make a good quantity of zucchini powder.  This jar is full of powder from at least 5 medium sized zucchini. WOW.  So it is only cost effective if you are growing your own, and growing lots.

Well, how do you use this flour????? 

You can add this flour to muffin recipes, pancake batters, and zucchini breads of course.  Simply replace 1/4 cup flour for the zucchini powder. 

Add this powder to smoothies, stews, and soups to thicken them.

It has a bland taste that is easily disguised in the recipe. 

Detail: Zucchini Flour

0 Crock Pot Beans

I have made beans from scratch in the past without success.  This recipe looked easy enough and promised success.  CLICK HERE to visit the site with the original recipe. Dry bulk beans are cheaper and easy to store.  The best part is that you can make a whole pot of these beans and freeze the extra portions for an easy meal in the future.

 

For this demonstration I am soaking about 4 cups of black beans.  I added 8 cups of water.

At about two hours later the beans were at the top of the bowl and the water was almost completely absorbed.  I changed out the water, it was pretty black.  Six hours later the beans had absorbed some more water and were ready to go into the crock pot.  I rinsed the beans out in a colander.  I put the beans into the empty crock pot and added enough clean new water to cover them.  For a tiny bit of flavor I added 4 cloves of crushed garlic and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Now the beans just cook away into the crock pot for about 8 hours on low.  This is something you have to plan ahead for dinner the night before.

If you like having beans on hand for dinner right away try freezing them.  I froze my in an ice cube tray.  Whenever you want beans simply throw some bean cubes into a microwave safe bowl or heat over the stove top carefully stirring through the whole process.

CHECK IT OUT!  I dehydrated a few cups of crock pot cooked beans.   Here is how I did it.

 

First you do the soak, cook in the crock-pot and cool, then spread your beans on a dehydrator tray.  Dehydrate on medium for about 4 hours or until they are completely dry. 

CONCLUSION:

Just because they can be dehydrated doesn't mean that they taste great.  It would work in a cataclysmic disaster as food but I would rather have them thawed out from frozen than re-hydrated.  The taste is lacking, Just say-en. It could possibly work in a soup mix if the beans weren't the main flavor carrier.  

Detail: Crock Pot Beans

0 Strawberry Power Powder

Q:What do you get when you leave your strawberry fruit leather in the dehydrator too long?
A: You get strawberry fruit powder! 

At first I was devastated, then angry that all my hard work making these fruit leathers had gone to waste.  I was making some granola on the counter at the same time and a brilliant idea came into my head (thank you Lord) fruit powder in the granola mix!

If you don't have a dehydrator or want to save some time I have seen fruit powder for sale CLICK HERE to see the variety of fruit powders and prices.  I also found some for sale on AMAZON CLICK HERE to see the strawberry fruit powder for sale.  To make this jar of goodness all you have to do is over-dehydrate some fruit leather then blend up the shards. 

I am just so glad that my unfortunate mistake with my strawberry fruit leathers turned out so well. The best thing about this discovery is that you can do this with any fruit.  Imagine getting lots of fruit in season and dehydrating it into fruit powder for use all year long! 

Add fruit powders to smoothie mixes, muffin or cake recipes, honey, milk, the list is endless.
Never fear, I will experiment for you, this is what I tried and this is what did and didn't work so well:

STRAWBERRY GRAIN FREE GRANOLA 

All I had to do was to add 1/4 cup of this strawberry powder to my grain free granola mix. CLICK HERE for the original recipe.  It left as slight hint of strawberry flavor but nothing big.  If you want a lot of flavor, add a lot of strawberry powder.

STRAWBERRY ALMOND MUFFINS

I substituted 1/4 cup of strawberry powder for 1/4 of the flour mixture.  The muffins turned out great but I didn't taste too much of the strawberry flavor.  It adds nutrition but not a lot of taste.  

STRAWBERRY SMOOTHIE

 

This is one of the easiest was to take advantage of the powder.  Simply add 1/4 cup to a 2-3 cup smoothie.  It will give a rich consistency to your drink, and pack in a lot of strawberry flavor.

HONEY STRAWBERRY SYRUP

 

Add 1 tablespoon of strawberry powder to 2 tablespoons honey.  This didn't work too well. My son and I liked it. You have to keep it warm and melted in order to pour it.  Who has got time for that? We put it on our pancakes and it did taste good.

 

I am sure there are lots more uses for this vitamin packed strawberry powder, let me know if you come across some good ones.
The carb count on this is about 8g for one tablespoon. There is a lot more information on this great product ZNaturalFoods.com check it out.

Detail: Strawberry Power Powder

0 Dehydrated Carrots

Go out and buy a whole bunch of carrots.

I bought five pounds of organic carrots from COSTCO the other day and made 3 cups of dehydrated carrot.......holy cow that was fast!  It wasn't too much work to get this vitamin packed carrot powder.  Let me show you. 

 STEP# 1 & 2 - Use a powerful blender or food processor to puree your washed and diced raw carrots.  Spread the puree over the dehydrator sheet.

 STEP #3 dehydrate on high for about 5 hours or until the carrot puree is crispy.

 STEP #4 gather up your dehydrator sheet and pour the dry puree back into the blender.

 

TA-DA all done.  Now what can you use this stuff for?

 

WAYS TO USE YOUR DEHYDRATED CARROTS

#1 add it to your smoothies

#2 add it to carrot cake, muffins, cookies

 When I made Elena's Pantry GF Almond Carrot Cake , I added one cup of dehydrated carrots and one cup of applesauce to replace the 3 cups of raw shredded carrots.  That carrot cake recipe makes the best muffins.  Give it a try.

#3 add it to your favorite waffle recipe 

 I added about 1/2 cup of the carrot powder to replace a half cup of the almond flour in my waffle recipe.  If you would like to give my waffle recipe a try CHICK HERE.

I figured the carbohydrates out to be about 4g per Tablespoon of carrot powder.

I am sure you can think of many more uses for this wonderful vegetable powder.  Let me know what you come up with.  I tried doing this with other starchy vegetables with great success.  Beets worked brilliantly.  I bet you could do this with spinach or kale?  Sky is the limit.  GO GET A DEHYDRATOR!

Detail: Dehydrated Carrots