I went back to the haymarket "farmer's" market today and bought 10 pineapples for $5. That's not $5 each, but total. I also got 25 big carrots (I'll weigh them later) for another $5. I got home by 7 and spent the next two and a half hours working on produce. I zested almost 40 lemons, added the zest to 2 jugs of vodka (totaling a bit over 3 liters) for limoncello, juiced all the lemons, strained it through 3 successively finer strainers, and then got to work on the pineapples. 9 of them got cut up into chunks, dipped in lemon juice water, and put into the dehydrator. The tenth got made into sticks, which were also added to the dehydrator. About half the cores also went into the dehydrator, and the rest into the freezer (the dehydrator was full). I'm not sure what will become of the cores; perhaps fruit vinegar.
The carrots will keep until the pineapple is all dehydrated. Then they will all get peeled, grated/diced/chopped into coins, and dehydrated. I'll probably favor dicing, but a few should probably get made into other shapes. In the future, I hope to add celery, cabbage, and tomatoes to my stock of dried vegetables, and to also add some more fruits; bananas seem strangely affordable for what they are, but peaches, pears, and apples are also good candidates. There seems to be a good balance between what I can carry and what I can reasonably dehydrate in a week.
I should spend some time focusing on stored food recipes. I should be able to develop at least a dozen each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner without too much effort. Ideally, they should be achievable with solar cooking, or at least simple boiling or frying; ovens are, after all, a culinary luxury in many scenarios.
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