No. The chunks I did here are spaced more than I normally would space them because I thought I had two bags of the cheese sticks but when I went to get them out, I discovered my kids had devoured one of the bags. Eye twitch. So, I only had one bag to do. So I spread the cheese stick chunks out on the lined trays.
Prefreezing cheese stick chunks isn’t necessary. Most solids aren’t needed to prefreeze. With some of the program updates Harvest Right has for the freeze dryers, you don’t need to prefreeze most things. I do because I’m a little more on the cautious side than most people lol. And I’ve had some pretty ugly experiences with messes that I don’t want to take any more chances with.
You’re going to need different amounts depending on which machine you have. If you go according to the weight restrictions from Harvest Right, you’ll want to load the trays up with the following amounts.
Every machine is going to be different because of the size, how you pack the trays, the other variables of where you live and other time of year. But cheese sticks shouldn’t take as long as a load of eggs or soup. Cheese sticks are dense but not full of water like a vegetable or fruit.
As you can see in the picture above, the cheese stick sections are not as shiny as in the picture before that one. They’re lighter and crunchy like a cheese puff. As you chew them, they become reconstituted which is just fascinating and slightly addicting. I can easily eat a tray by myself.
You can definitely use them in a wet recipe – like lasagna, spaghetti, soup, etc. You just add them as is and let them reconstitute as the dish cooks.
If you want to slowly reconstitute them, you can do it by spraying water on them and letting them sit for a while or soaking them in a bowl of water until they feel like you want them to feel.
Then a vacuum pump turns on and creates a vacuum inside the drum. This is the drying stage and will vacillate the heat of the tray up and down to a pretty warm temperature. This makes the frozen items release any water in them in vapor form. The vacuum sucks the moisture to the drum. This collects in ice form on the inner circle of the drum.
I LOVE cookies. I don’t think there is a big enough font for that. But I’m also trying to the keep weight off that is always trying to creep on. Even with a great food storage, I’m not going to want to gain weight if I’m in a survival situation. No clothing store to run off to to buy bigger pants. When you do freeze dried oatmeal it makes them into a cookie like version of itself. Keep reading.
If you’re a person who is watching your health or your weight, you’re probably someone who also wants to watch either in a survival situation. No one wants to get sick when they’re trying to stay alive. Well, what if you could have freeze dried cookies OR delicious oatmeal from the same product?
Before we get into the how, let me breakdown the why. I believe a lot of people who prep long term want to still be healthy or HAVE TO be. If you’re a diabetic, that’s not going to go away just because the food supply chain is down or the power is out more than it’s on.
Eating healthy shouldn’t only be a priority when we’re living a convenient lifestyle. This is why you’ll see me featuring keto recipes/dishes as well as other diet options – like paleo, WW, or low glycemic index. In this post, I’m specifically covering a Weight Watchers friendly version because my mom is a WW member and I like to try to have things on hand for her in case of emergency.
This has oats, apples, milk. All low, low points. If you want to keep sweeteners out of it or use a no sugar sweetener, use Truvia brown sugar substitute, or unsweetened apple sauce in place of the sweetener.
Well, first, I prefer my oatmeal to be prepared. This is an ongoing debate across most freeze drying communities. There are some great debates on why all over the place.
Cooked oatmeal is finished oatmeal. It won’t give you a stomach ache if you eat it right out of the freeze dry container. Some times raw oats will give me a belly ache and it feels like a rock in my stomach. Plus, it’s not flavored well. Raw oats taste like… well, raw oats.
If you have your oats prepared, then when you add water to reconstitute it, it doesn’t have to cook. Or, better yet, you can just eat it like a cookie and have it recon in your mouth. I love freeze dried ice cream for this very reason!
When I freeze dry this recipe, it’s been completely cooked and cooled. I also pre-freeze in my freezer overnight. Since doing the video below, I’ve started using silicone molds to make the cookies in better shapes and to have a better presentation, but if you know me at all, you know that usually doesn’t matter to me. No time.
When you freeze dry this recipe, you’ll end up with cookies you can eat as is or an awesome apple oatmeal dish you can serve for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or any other name for a meal you can come up with.
I use apples in the recipe below, but let’s be clear. Any fruit you like with your oatmeal would be delicious. Just keep in mind, it will get soggy. I highly prefer apples, but I’ve done blueberries, strawberries (not my favorite, but a lot of people love freeze dried strawberry oatmeal), peaches, bananas (pass), and raisins. I’ve even added raisins to the apple ones because, YUM.
Freeze Dried Meal RecipesAlso, any milk is fine. If you’re lactose intolerant or prefer not to use cow milk, then use almond milk, cashew milk, whatever you prefer. If you’re a huge milk fan, then by all means, go for the whole milk, 2% or skim. I wouldn’t do buttermilk or heavy cream because of the increased fat content, but other than that, you have a lot of leeway in what you use for your milk.
Oats can be interchanged as well. I love rolled oats, but steel cut are delicious here, too. You can even use instant, but you won’t want to do a crockpot with those.
Okay, so now that we’ve covered all of that, let’s talk about the importance of not putting too much liquid in your crockpot fruit oatmeal. When you’re cooking it – especially with apples, you’re going to have extra liquids as the apples cook on the bottom of the crockpot. This is the best, because your oats are absorbing all that yumminess. If you have too much liquid, it will make it difficult to add to the molds or even to load onto a tray. Let’s not even talk about the easily breakable parts AFTER it’s been freeze dried. The last thing you want to do is have a ruined freeze dried oatmeal product.
I’ll add more pictures as I work my way through my calendar and do oatmeal again. There’s a video below on how to reconstitute this delicious treat.
On the Harvest Right freeze drier – this works on all sizes – after putting the trays inside the drum on the shelves, I put in the drum cover (if you don’t have a drum cover, no worries) and then tighten the handle as I lock it shut. On the computer touch screen, I selected START > LIQUID > NOT-FROZEN > CONTINUE. After inputting the settings and making sure my drain tube is closed, I walk away.
I have a habit of saying it’s going to take as long as it takes, because it’s true. Mine typically take about 36 hours – but that was back in Idaho. I live in Missouri now and things are supposed to be a whole lot more humid. The times haven’t changed much since we got here, though, so I’ll update you as needed. This also depends on how dense you pack your oatmeal and how much liquid is in it. So, long answer short – it’s going to take as long as it takes.
Oh, I love this question. Ultimately, I love mylar bags. They’re my favorite way to store anything freeze dried, but a lot of people make great cases for mason jars. As long as you have the item completely freeze dried and stored in a lightless, airless, air tight container with an O2 absorber, your item will be just fine.
Eggs are an essential staple that most food storages need and try to have. I’ve found multiple reasons to keep freeze dried eggs in my pantry every day and this is without having any real reason to stock up.
If you asked me how many eggs I have on my counter right now? I’d have to be honest and say 17 dozen. Yep. You read that right. SEVENTEEN DOZEN.
I have 6 kids – 5 of which are boys and they are hungry eaters. We eat eggs in the things we bake, in breakfast dishes with hashbrowns, lunches, dinners, and even snacks (my kids are obsessed with hard boiled eggs and all the things you can make with them).
Unfortunately, I can’t freeze dry hard boiled eggs… wait, I haven’t tried that yet. I’ll let you know how they turn out (I’m adding them to my list of items I want to try as we speak!).
Egg prices are transient. Some weeks I can get 5 dozen for $3.27 and some weeks they’re priced at $8.97. I’m not going to lie. On those weeks I’ve been known to ask if the eggs come from golden chickens. The weeks where eggs are under $5 for 5 dozen, I buy 4 boxes. This is because we go through 5 to 7 dozen on a light week.
When I was going through my food storage needs, I realized I had hashbrowns, meat, peppers, flour, sweeteners, candy, ice cream, fajitas, and pizza – and more! but for the things I needed to put together like cakes, scrambled eggs, omelettes, bread, and casseroles I was going to need the binding power of eggs. Raw eggs. Not those rubbery pre-cooked scrambled eggs, either. I was going to need raw eggs.
Reconstituting freeze dried egg powder is easy. The ratio of water to powder is simple to remember – 1:1. For whatever amount of egg powder you mix in a bowl you’ll add the same amount of water. One tablespoon of each. One cup of each. Nothing is easier than that!
Super light. When you package the freeze dried eggs in Mylar, it doesn’t get any lighter! Well, unless it’s an empty bag, but that’s just weird.
***I use the medium freeze dryer from Harvest Right, so these measurements are specific to those trays. You’ll need to make adjustments according to your own freeze dryer tray sizes and what you’re comfortable doing.