Dried, Candied and Frozen Fruit and Vegetables

Slow Roasted, Dehydrated Tomatoes

Slow Roasted, Dehydrated Tomatoes

If you have an excess of half-ripened slicing tomatoes, you may wonder what to do with them. They seldom ripen on the vine, and even if you bring them in to ripen on the windowsill, they lack sweet summer tomato taste.

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Dark Chocolate Covered Orange Peel

Dark Chocolate Covered Orange Peel

  Surprise your Valentine with homemade candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate. As a thrifty Yankee I find it difficult to throw away perfectly good food. Leftover spinach salad gets added to frittatas, dried up cheese ends flavor soup, and even citrus...

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Technique Tuesday: How to Make Candied Peach Bits

Technique Tuesday: How to Make Candied Peach Bits

Turn fresh summer peaches into candied bits for later fruitcakes and other baked goods. Candying fruit is basically a process that replaces the water in fruit with sugar. Sugar keeps the fruit from spoiling, a preserving method that has been around since ancient...

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How to Blanch and Freeze Garden Peas

How to Blanch and Freeze Garden Peas

It’s time to freeze the garden peas. This year’s crop of garden peas has come and gone. It’s always a tough crop to grow here in the Mid-Columbia. The peas actually grow quite well, but sometimes mature and get too old in a matter of days. Garden, or English peas,...

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Make Your Own Tea Mixes

Make Your Own Tea Mixes

Homemade tea blends make wonderful gifts for the tea lovers on your list. As a New England native, I grew up drinking tea. There was tea in the morning. Tea during dinner. Tea in the afternoon. Tea and toast before bed. There wasn't much a good cup of tea couldn't...

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Homemade Peach Granola

Homemade Peach Granola

Gain control over your food! Make your own healthy granola. Granola is one of those foods that should be healthy. After all, most of us were introduced to granola as a health food. But then granola became an everyday item, a victim of its own success. You know once...

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How to Make Apricot Paste

How to Make Apricot Paste

Apricot paste, a thick fruit leather-like confection, is a popular Middle Eastern treat. There is a family story that my mother ate tons of fresh apricots from the German market across the street while pregnant with me. Maybe that's why I have always loved apricots....

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Make Your Own Candied Orange Peel

Make Your Own Candied Orange Peel

It's easy to make homemade candied orange peel. Use it in fruitcake or dip it in chocolate for a decadent treat. If you, like me, have a great affinity for oranges, there are probably plenty of orange peels hanging out on your counter. It seems like such a waste to...

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the confident canner