My garden is ripe! In fact, I can’t keep up with it, which is a good thing that I am grateful for! I know in just a short time, a frost will bring all this luscious late summer nutrition to a screeching halt, and the source of all our delicious garden-fresh meals will be gone. So I am trying to lay up in store, right now, while the harvest is abundant!
I’ve talked before about drying my garden veggies: kale, chard, tomatoes, summer squash, basil, oregano, and more. Right now, I am laying up green beans as fast and furiously as I can pick them, dry them and get them into containers. They are so easy to dry and taste so fresh!
Just snip off the ends of the beans, rinse off, and lay on dryer trays. You don’t need to line them up perfectly, just dump them on and smooth into a layer. Even if they overlap, they shrink so incredibly much in the food dryer, it won’t matter. They will end up looking like “green strings”. . . which probably accounts for the slip I made in labeling them! Either that or my brain couldn’t decide whether to call them green beans or string beans. Anyway, I was talking to my daughter while I wrote out the label and it ended up saying: ”Green Strings”. I left it. It will make us smile in the winter, when we are shaking them into soups, stews and casseroles.
Big, over-mature beans. These aren’t very tasty to eat fresh and usually get relegated to the compost pile, but stop! You can dry those big, bumpy beans and buzz them in the blender to make a nutritious powder to thicken soups or stews, giving them added health and tastiness! I put these old guys all on the same dryer tray, as they are hard to distinguish once dried. Then they go right from that dryer tray into the blender to be powdered.
For normal-sized, tender beans—the kind you’d like to eat—just dry them until brittle and then snap the dried “green strings” into pieces with your fingers. It is easy: much easier than cutting them fresh before you dry them. Dried beans are amazingly compact to store, and their garden freshness enhances the taste any dish you add them to.
Running out of jars and big spice containers, I turned to recycling my empty metal cans with the plastic lids—that once held dried food storage. When I filled them up, I realized that I had made my own dried food storage, only brimming with organically grown goodness! And with only a little labor and electricity for my food dryer.
Winter is coming. We’ll be glad for the fresh tasting “green strings”, and other garden product we’ve dried. Drying is so much easier than canning, takes a fraction of the space on your pantry shelf, and can be stored long-term without electricity (freezer). Dried veggies are simple to reconstitute, or better yet, just add to your cooking pot. It feels great to me to have my jars full of dried foods from my garden!
Fresh green beans (top), dried green beans (left), dried "snapped" beans (right)
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I'd sure love to hear your comment!
I’m going to do this today! Great tip.
If you go back in my blog and type "recipe" in the search, you'll see all the dishes I've made this summer, and they ALL have dried veggies in them (except the desserts). I just add the dried veggies and herbs to my food all the time, just like you add salt while you are cooking. It adds nutrition and tastes great!
Do you know those little "Cup o' Soup" mixes that you just add boiling water to and it turns into soup? Or other dried soup mixes? Same idea. Just add boiling water and it will turn back into the state that it was in when you dried them—fresh green beans, not cooked. The easiest and tastiest way to use dried foods is to add them to other foods that are cooking. I keep jars of dried foods on the top of my stove, and I shake them into whatever I am cooking. So, when I make chili, I shake in my dried kale, dried yellow squash, dried herbs, and let them cook along with the beans. If they are powdered, they instantly melt into the soup, thickening it. If they are in pieces, they will reconstitute and cook and taste just like the fresh veggies (almost) in your finished soup or casserole. I have never reconstituted them and served them like fresh green beans, because I don't care for canned food. They are going to taste somewhat like canned beans, in their firmness/limpness. Best success! Today I am drying basil, green beans, yellow squash, and peppers!
Hello Diane,
I am wondering the same thing as Valerie. I am just starting out so I am also trying to "sell" my husband on dehydration. I would like for him to let me go ahead and get an Excalibur instead of the little round tray model I am using now. Do you have any pictures of the actual dishes and foods you make with the dried vegetables? I think he will like the idea about thickening with vegetable powder. He is not a fan of watery soups. Thanks for your help!
Hi Diane,
This idea is intriguing…I have a question though. What are the best ways to prepare these dried "strings" when you want to eat them? I'm assuming you wouldn't just boil them and serve as a side dish would you? Do they mostly go in casseroles and soups?
Thanks,
Valerie