Dried Veg

[pol76]

Lil I was thinking about dried veg myself the other day I now have a lot of rice and pasta so was thinking about getting some veg but could only find small bags

I'm off to birmingham the weekend so will have a look at what the asian / chinese shops have to offer in the way of dried veg

I might also get some more tins of gee

max

[preservefreak]

going back to the veggie burgers this recipe is really good:

450g approx dried split peas
50g dried beans
200g lentils.
200g breadcrumbs, (for cooking and at least the same for coating) .
150g of crushed nuts and seeds: add more for a more nutty burger but this is the major cost. However you can use hulled pumpkin, sunflower, squash seeds or wild hazelnut etc.
2 onions
4 cloves of garlic.
100g mushrooms
1 large carrot.
1 teaspoon each of cumin, cayenne pepper and turmeric.
salt & pepper

Method/procedure:

Put the peas and beans into a large bowl (they expand) and soak over night.
Empty the water and put the peas and beans into the large pan and boil them for at least 2 hours (watch out for the interesting coloured scum! And you may need to top up water!). The peas need to be really mushy. About 30 minutes before you finish add the lentils (these also need to be mushy).
Towards the end of the boil chop onions, garlic and mushrooms and fry them so there just cooked (onions nice and sweaty).
Add the spices, the nuts/seeds and breadcrumbs into a large mixing bowl that can take all of the ingredients. Grate the carrot into the bowl as well.
Drain the peas lentils and beans well but try to save as much of the water as you can.
Add the mush of peas into the bowl with the breadcrumbs. Now MIX! This can take quiet a while. It needs to quite doughy. If the mixture becomes too stiff and dry to work add a little of the water from the peas.
Once mixed part of the dough can be turned out onto a board that’s had breadcrumbs spread over it. Sprinkle some more breadcrumbs over the top and press flat~ish. The dough should not stick once you’ve sprinkled the breadcrumbs.
Roll the dough out till it’s about ¼ to ½ an inch thick. Then take a pint glass and start cutting out circles (I mean burgers). You’ll probably need to use a flat spatula to move the burgers (they harden up on cooling a bit). Move the cut burgers to a place to cool (like a cooling tray?). When they're cool you can put them in the freezer.
To cook (from frozen as well) treat just like other burgers, under a grill i.e. cook till brown and piping hot in the middle, fry them or stick them on a barbeque. Always ensure that they are piping hot before you serve.

not my recipe but they are amazing on the bbq, plus everything needed is in my food storage/garden/kitchen!

[Attack Warning Red]

Preservefreak - I think recipe will give you the wind of the Gods...

Talking of dried veg - I guess you can de-hydrate your own if you have the right kit?

[preservefreak]

I have that anyway I'm not vegetarian but we eat a lot of beans in our house. we probably only have meat 2-3 times a week. I prefer to eat good meat from the butchers rarely rather than eat bad supermarket stuff ever day. But seriously, think about all those beans, lentils and peas you have in your food storage, when TSHTF you're going to want to have an open window

in terms of dehydrating food yourself you can do it but you can't get a lot of food in those machines and they're quite expensive. I know this has been linked before but I'll be looking at building one of these when summer comes around: http://www.youtube.com/user/rickvanman# ... B2DGXPOk4Q

a couple of those should have a decent amount of space though you are going from 6-8 hours to 2-3 days for fruit/veg. not sure if it's worth it but dehydrators run from 50-200 pounds!

[Red Doe]

I have the Whitworths ones - wish they were bigger Lisa. Thanks for that Hobo - could you mix that veggie burger stuff with a small amount of real meat to beef it up a bit ? LOL ! Off to look at that site ta.

I got a whole pile, once, of burger mix (veggie) in an Approved Foods order, and mixed some of it with a wee drop beef mince I had to make lasagne. Was great! You couldn`t really tell where the `real` mince left off and the veg mince began.

[Red Doe]

Don`t know how good this shop is, haven`t used them yet, but they look pretty good.
Might be able to find dried veg here?

http://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/index.asp

[diamond lil]

That's really handy to know, thanks - anything to make meat go further and cut the food bill!

[Red Doe]

Has anyone tried drying veg in their ovens? Last winter I dried apple rings. The thing that puts me off is, even though it`s on the lowest heat setting, according to some instructions you have to leave the oven on that setting for as much as 24 hours!
I can`t afford a dehydrator, and we surely don`t get enough sun and heat up this way to do it naturally so really, the oven is `it`.
Am going to try, later in the year, drying parsnip chips, beets, neeps and onions, to see if I can make my own veg broth mix. If it works, I`ll jar it up with some dried barley and lentils in with it all and voila! Instant soup mix.

[diamond lil]

This is what I'm after as well. Soup mix that will taste good and keep. Is there not a way to dehydratre with a lightbulb in a box, or soemthing ? I would use up all my gas doing it in the oven.