Dehydrate Vegetable “Waste” to make healthy flavorings!
I love finding ways to save money, reduce waste and reuse things. At least a couple times a day I found myself throwing away large pieces of food that I thought I should have a use for.
I saved a bunch of stuff up for a few days – just the greens. After 4 days I had quite a bit of broccoli ends, leek greens and kale stems. All very healthy stuff that no one eats!
So I dehydrated it.
It certainly didn’t look appetizing to start with. I trimmed off the ends and other undesirable spots I found, then washed everything and dried it all with a couple of tea towels.
I had planned to do this the normal human way (lol) of cutting thin slices, dehydrating that, and grinding it all up afterwards. But I had the food processor out for another reason and not even thinking about it, I ground it all up! LOL.
So I went with it. But I decided against pictures!
Luckily I had planned on mixing them together!
I spread the now processed greens mix of broccoli, kale and leeks in thin layers on 2 baking sheets and placed them in the oven at 200F. I left the door open just slightly to allow moisture to escape.
I regularly flipped the greens with a spatula, and shook the baking sheets to even it out and help it dehydrate more evenly.
After the first 3 hours, I reduced the heat to 170F (the lowest setting on my oven) and continued the process for another 3 hours until the greens were completely dehydrated.
This is what I ended up with:
I let it cool in the oven (with door still open) before using a funnel to pour it into a reused spice container.
My house smelled wonderful all evening!
Not only do we LOVE this stuff for adding to soups and using as a spice, but this is a great survival food. Pack a very light weight bag of this with you on your next hike. If the unexpected happens, just add water for a vegetable packed soup.
This was only green vegetable ‘waste’ from a few days, imagine how much you are throwing away that could be used for healthy spice mix in soups, meat and vegetables, dressings and dips, even sandwiches!!
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