Freeze Dried Meal Recipes

 That glossy dark coloring is evidence that they’re still wet, but frozen. I like how you can kind of see the egg shapes in there. Once they’re all ready, I put them onto the shelves in the freeze dryer.

 Then there’s the final dry which is essentially the same thing, but with a time associated with it as it gets closer to being finished.

 For eggs, I don’t press pre-frozen when the option comes up. I select not frozen, but I definitely select the liquid option. These eggs were dangerously liquid when they were unfrozen.

 The reason this saves time is because the pre-frozen setting demands 30 minutes of pre-freezing. I’m not the biggest fan of waiting for anything. I figure eggs frozen solid aren’t going to thaw in the 30 minutes it will take during a normal session to freeze. Your choice how you go forward, though. Harvest Right recommends pre-freezing and I’m not one to tell others to buck the rules. I do that on my own.

 I do roughly two dozen large eggs on each tray, because that’s about four and a half cups. The eggs take approximately 28 hours to go through the freeze drying process in the freeze dryer. This DOES NOT include the time in your freezer.

 Press your hand along the top of the eggs and feel for any cool spots before you pull it out of the freezer dryer. This will tell you if it’s finished the freeze drying process or not. You can also run your hand along the bottom of the pan to feel for the same thing. Any cold spots or even spots where you’re not sure means you need to keep the drying process going.

 To continue your batch, you would put everything back in (trays and the cover), close the door, close the drain valve, and then press MORE DRYING TIME on the screen of your freeze dryer. It will give you an hour to let the vacuum pump cool and then it will start up a default of two more hours to dry. You can add or subtract time as you see fit on that screen.

 I used these metal spatulas to cut them out. Cutting down, I created a cut out line and then lifted up the large chunks of freeze dried eggs and put them into a Mylar.

 As I added more and more, I crunched the wafers into powder which makes more room in the bags. I generally put half a tray’s worth into a quart Mylar bag.

 You can see I didn’t put a liner in these trays. It’s a liquid and can just go under the liner which would make things difficult when you’re trying to bag them.

 Wow, planning on freeze dried food storage options can be kind of overwhelming. Life can sometimes be a little bit of a battle! And it’s not always between the classic Good vs. Evil. Often times it’s just with being SO human! I make check lists….and yes, I do sticky notes. You try to be organized and then things just get busy!

 If you’re new to this I need to let you know, freeze drying can be addictive. The machines are expensive, so I know I want to keep mine working for me around the clock as much as possible–that keeps me busy. So, you do need to think ahead, create good habits and routines so that when distractions come along, you’re alerted that something is missing.

 Bonnie told me right in the beginning to always put your Oxygen Absorbers in the Mylar bags FIRST! If you don’t develop that habit and a definite routine of packaging your items, you WILL sometimes forget or second guess yourself and end up having to open up the bag just to double check. Been there, done that! Ugh!

 So, now I always write on the bag first in permanent Sharpie, usually on the side where it’s been sealed commercially (then you know it won’t permeate the Mylar). Then I put in the oxygen absorber before any food goes in.

 If they are Mylar Zip Seal Bags (which I prefer), you can fill them full, then zip close. This helps hold them flat for sealing. Zip seal bags that you seal from the bottom are best, but they don’t seem to be available right now. Maybe everyone is building their freeze dried food storage!

 After I’ve finished filling them all, I seal them with the Harvest Right Impulse Sealer that comes with the machine. My husband takes over from there putting them into the nice yellow/black Costco storage containers and labeling them. (You cannot buy these bins online).

 For now, I’ve just labeled what is in each container, but I’ll organize each bin in categories of: Meats, Veggies, Fruits & Berries, Candies & Desserts, etc. I noticed that Bonnie has one labeled “READY TO EAT” –I love that!

 In case you didn’t know, Mylar bags are NOT mouse-proof! Yes, I learned that the hard way too, and so did Bonnie recently. Costco’s storage containers are virtually mouse-proof, they are a heavy duty plastic and they stack! They also go on coupon about every 6 months, so ask and they’ll let you know when. ($2 – $3 off each one is great!). Freeze dried food storage is a huge way to save money in the long run, but it has definite costs initially.

 Early on, I had a problem with my HarvestRight Freeze Drier but customer service was amazing in helping to resolve it! They sent me some complimentary gallon Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers for my trouble. I noticed that they were 900cc and the ones with my quart Mylar bags were 300cc. Knowing absolutely nothing about them or their sizes, I figured I better learn!

Freeze Dried Meal Recipes

 These little packets are basically filled with iron! Really, they are! They look similar to the little silica packets you find in shoe boxes, but they are completely different.

 As oxygen and moisture touch the iron inside the packet, the iron oxidizes (or rusts) inside the packet and forms iron oxide. As that forms, it pulls out the oxygen and produces nitrogen. Ultimately, nitrogen keeps food from spoiling, keeps mold from growing on dairy items and reduces browning of fruits and vegetables. Amazing little critters!

 They range from 20cc to 2000cc. A size 300cc can remove 300cc of oxygen. Generally, you can expect to use a 300cc absorber per gallon of food. But something like flour is very dense compared to say, chopped freeze dried onions, so a 200cc packet would work for the flour. Don’t use Oxygen absorbers with sugar or salt–they’ll get rock hard!

 It seems that HarvestRight knows their stuff and they do a little bit of over-kill to make sure our foods are well cared for, so I’m okay with sticking with 900cc for gallon and 300cc for quart.

 While my freeze dryer was busy this week with all the fresh garden produce, I wanted to put away some Egg Noodles in my gallon Mylar bags and Lemonade Drink Powder packets in my quart Mylar bags for long term storage.

 Of course I used the 900cc for the pasta and 300cc for the lemonade packets (yeah, I just left them in the pre-measured packets). Two of these packets make a gallon of drink. So, I put enough for 9 gallons in each of 2 Mylar bags.

 Something that’s important as you seal your bags, make sure to lay them as flat as possible on your sealer. Then seal a second time and sometimes I have done a third if there are puckers. Oxygen Absorbers don’t create an oxygen free environment if there is any air leaking in.

 I also like to use the FoodSaver Jar Sealers to use for my freeze dried food storage. They will vacuum seal well even using an already used lid. I used to keep things like nuts and chocolate chips in the freezer. But, after I learned about vacuum sealing I put them all in jars and save my freezer space. People who don’t have the vacuum sealer can use oxygen absorbers in jars too and they’ll get a good seal.

 One more thing for your freeze dried food storage! When you open your packet of oxygen absorbers, just cut a slit long enough to take out what you need right then. Squeeze out excess air, fold over & stick a Chip Clip on the opening as you load up a couple of bags (or a Bag Clip works well). Then you can easily open it back up to grab a couple more.

 There’s a little bit to learn and remember, but isn’t it fun! Go ahead and use your sticky notes or whatever it takes to keep yourself organized and on track and you’ll win the battle!

 Lean. This is as lean as you can get. Game meat is leaner than the 93/7 lean meat they sell in the store. In fact, some times, I have to add fats to the meat that I use because it’s too lean to do much with, like make meatloaf, meatballs, etc. Lean is good for the freeze dryer. Less fat is better product to avoid anything possibly going rancid later.

 Organic. Yeah, there’s nothing more organic than the way we get our meat. My husband hunts them down, not on a ranch or anything else. Not guided hunts. He does his own. He takes the boys out and they hike and sit in the snow and cold and sometimes rain. They earn every ounce of that meat and we’re grateful for it.

 Controlled butchering. We butcher our own meat and package it. We double wrap it and stack it in 1 to 1.5 lb packages. My husband and his family prefer 1 lb packages, and I used to. Lately, though, I prefer larger packets because I do have a large family to feed and it takes less butcher paper to wrap a two-pound packet in one versus two packets of one-pound burger. We also know what is in the product, as well. There is no extra bone, ligament, or other unidentified body parts.

 This is what we eat. We want to be able to keep our food good over a long period of time, so we freeze dry the food that we store or want to store. Freeze drying our the meat we get is a great way to extend the life of the meat we take.

 No matter what kind of meat you buy, you can get it leaner than what you have in the package. We like to cook all meat that we freeze dry. Not everyone feels this way. But here are some arguments why this is what we prefer.

 If we do pork chops, pork sausage, bear sausage, antelope, hot dogs, burger that is not as lean as we can get, or something else that is a little bit higher in fat than we’d want to freeze dry, we cook the product to get the most fat out of the meat that we can.