My absolutely insane life

  Today is the day I am going to try and freeze dry rotisserie chicken.  I bought three good sized chickens yesterday at Walmart and deboned it and spread them over four trays.  Honestly, I probably could have done four, but they were a little over $6 a piece so I struck with just three of them.   I then put them in the freezer overnight so they could freeze and this morning I realized the kids tossed groceries on top yesterday and dumped the trays over.  Thankfully I had tray covers on them, but that also meant all the chicken froze on one side of the pans, so I had to hack away at the chicken to separate it and spread it back over the trays evenly.  What a chore.  Then in the freeze dryer they went.  Many people say these turn out really good, so I am hoping that is the case.  

  Yesterday I decided to freeze dry fruits (bananas and strawberries), and some green beans.  I had a huge container of strawberries that I had just purchased the night before at the store, and noticed by the morning they were going bad.  What a huge bummer since we weren’t going to eat them fast enough…..oh well, guess they need to go in the freeze dryer.  They went in towards the morning and got done around midnight again.  In the end I had two pint sized containers of strawberries, one pint sized container of bananas, and one pint sized container with the green beans.  I had a little bit of leftover strawberries and bananas that I couldn’t get to fit in the smaller jars, so I combined them and am going to let the kids eat them today.  

  Last night as I waited up for my bread to be done I noticed around midnight the freeze dryer with the ice cream sandwiches was done, so off I went to package those up.  I filled three large mason jars with them, and then filled three Mylar bags with sandwiches to save for future use (no one needs to eat 36 ice cream sandwiches LOL).  Finally went to bed well after midnight, and then woke early this morning to get the freeze dryer going again.   I decided to do strawberries this morning because I saw the container I just bought yesterday was going bad already, so cut up what was still good and tossed those on a tray.  Cut up two trays worth of bananas, and then last night Cassandra brought me some green beans from her garden so I decided to toss those on a tray.  I think Brad might like the freeze dried green beans as a snack.   The lasagna and pasta I decided to leave in the freezer for the full 48 hours to make sure everything is really frozen solid, so that will go into the freeze

Today I decided I wanted to try my hand at making homemade bread.  I bought all the ingredients, and was hesitant to actually make them because bread normally doesn’t turn out for me.  That being said I also have not baked bread in more years than I can think.  I think the last time I baked bread I did it in a bread machine, but not today.   When I took them out of the oven I was amazed at how good they looked.  When I cut them open I was even more excited because they were so nice and light and fluffy.   I did bake two more loaves of bread trying to replace flour with cassava flour and those didn’t turn out as nice.  They are a lot smaller and seem more dense.  I might have to give it a second try tomorrow and see if I can leave them rise longer, or perhaps only have them rise once.  

  I did my bread run last night in my new freeze dryer and everything went very smoothly (with the exception of me accidentally pulling out the plug and causing it to have a power failure…..uggh).  It got done very late last night, so I decided to just prep the ice cream bars and start the process this morning. I decided to cut the ice cream bars into three pieces because I had seen online that if you do that they get done faster and it also helps them to freeze more solid.  So I cut them all into threes and put them into the freezer over night.  This morning I woke up and turned on the machine…..waited 15 minutes for it to tell me to load the trays, and then loaded them.  At this point we are at the drying stage, so hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly.  I have read online that if they are not fully frozen they would kind of explode and make a mess (not explode in a dangerous way, but explode as in a messy way).  So far what I can see from looking through the door is that

  This whole meal prep thing is really starting to get expensive.  I started by ordering a freeze dry machine and was told it would take 8-10 weeks for it to come, so I decided I should start gathering supplies so when it comes I will be all ready to go.  My first purchase was a table to put the freeze dryer on.  I then when on to order all the other stuff that I was going to need.  Being prepared to go when it came was so important to me. I bought the following items: Sealer Mylar bags Canning jars Canning jar sealer Extra trays with covers Labels Then I decided while I was waiting I would buy a better dehydrator.  I put the dehydrator on the table that I already purchased, and then I found a freeze dryer that I could pick up immediately so off we went to go get it.  When we got home with it I realized I can’t have both the dehydrator and freeze dryer on the same table, so I ordered a second one.  The second table came today and I quickly realized I need a table specifically for the s

   I couldn’t be more excited if I tried!!!  Today I found out that a Fleet Farm about 30 minutes from my home had the freeze dryers in stock.  I called to double check and had them put one on the side for me, and we rushed out there to get it.  The best part was the price was less than what I was going to pay by ordering straight from the company.  Even though I have to pay a 3% restocking fee it will still leave me cheaper off by getting it on my own.   I really didn’t want to have to wait 8-10 weeks to get mine, and then I have been reading online that they were having a lot of issues with shipping.  They were recommending people thoroughly check their machines when dropped off because once you accept it if it is damaged it is on you.  I don’t like that because I know darn well the delivery person isn’t going to want to stand there while I crack the thing open and double check it.  Then on top of that issue a lot of people have been receiving theirs without two necessary hoses, and

Today I decided to try my hand at doing a vlog (video blog) and putting it on youtube.  The reason I wanted to do this is because I have been watching a lot of videos about dehydrating, canning, and freeze drying and everyone has these amazing set ups and perfect videos and they know what they are doing.  Most of them don’t have videos up of themselves when they were just starting out.  I wanted to share that with people.  I wanted people to be able to see an every day person starting from the very beginning.  I wanted to share the journey from the very start on.  I wanted to share the successes, my failures, and everything in between.