Cabbage Chips for Romeo

I discovered that my pooch, Romeo, likes to eat raw cabbage. So I thought , what about dehydrated cabbage? Here are the instructions for dehydrating cabbage that you can use as cabbage chips or save to reconstitute.
Dehydrating or Drying CABBAGE (RED OR GREEN)
Instructions for Dehydrating Cabbage:
1. Wash the cabbage heads and trim away the outer leaves.
2. Remove the core
3. Shred/grate the cabbage head.
4. Steam blanch vegetables for 2 minutes. For Chips, Salt to taste.
5. Dehydrate cabbage at 100 degrees (F) for 18 hours or until crisp. Note: I use my dehydrator, followed the same time rule
6. Store dried cabbage in a clean, dry, airtight container, in a cool dark location. (Light can cause discoloration) Dried cabbage can be added directly to soups or stews without rehydrating.
 Note: Red cabbage loses some of its color when rehydrated. To rehydrate, soak in cold water with a little lemon juice for 30 minutes and drain.

Make your own Jam Labels

Over at How about Orange, Ms. Jessica blogged about Andy Bigg's Beer Labelizer, a unique Label making application for your computer. Now Andy has come out with the Jam Labelizer The labels dont' have to be for just jam, you can make labels for boxes of cookies, homemade presents, bookplates, and more. Let your imagination guide you! I used the Beer Labelizer for my homemade ginger syrup, that I use to make ginger ale. And of course the jam labelizer for - jam. And if you don't have label paper, regular paper and a glue stick work just as well!

Happiness is a New Freezer!

On the truck and ready to go!

I just found out that to buy something for an energy star rating is not necessarily the best solution. Example- I broke down and bought a new freezer to freeze a lot of my harvestable bounty this year. This decision, like any other appliance or major purchase is not easy for me as I am somewhat of a tightwad and hate giving my money to box stores. So, I did some research and a new Energy Star rated freezer, the smallest I could find at 14.9 Cubic feet, would have cost $499, and the energy guide says it would use an estimated 357 kWh per year.

The small, (5.0 Cubic foot- but big enough for me) model I bought cost 179.00 and uses only 240kWh to run for a year.

So, since I figure that math is good and 117 kWh less is better as well, so I bought it and put it in the studio closet for know. What fun to be able to pick veggies and freeze them again. Okay now I gotta go out to the garage and unplug the spare Reefer. That to me is a waste- to use a reefer for the small freezer, then cooling all big refrigerator space . Wouldn’t be a problem if I drank that much soda, but since I use a soda stream for soda, get rid of it.