Freeze Drying Kale, Fermenting Pickles

I recently listened to a homesteading podcast about freeze drying. The interviewee said she loved freeze drying kale and then using it in lasagna as a layer (letting the sauce rehydrate it). Seemed interesting to try, and kale does happen to be growing in our garden. 

It's a pretty quick cycle, just a few hours - not much moisture to take out. 

The hardest part is putting it into jars without it crumbling. 

G brought home a ton of cucumbers, purchased at an Amish produce auction by his boss/coworker. They were a larger size than I typically like to eat, but they weren't bitter. We also happen to be running out of my homemade sliced pickles, so I decided to pickle as many of the cucumbers as I could... 

These pickles are actually made from cucumbers from our garden before the squash bugs destroyed them. 

I tried this recipe first. 

G wasn't a fan of the flavor. So I tried a different recipe from a fermentation cookbook. Actually, two recipes. 

I like them both a lot. G hasn't sampled those yet. I made a gallon of whole pickles, a gallon of spears , and a gallon of slicers. 

There were still cucumbers left, so I made half gallons each of spears, slicers, and pennies of the recipe I know G likes. That one uses vinegar. 

It wasn't until I mixed up the last batch that I realized what I thought was a bottle of vinegar was actually water. 🤦‍♀️ I had saved distilled water in a vinegar bottle to use in our chicken incubator. Ugh! 

Thankfully they had only been in the fridge a few hours and the spices hadn't leeched all their flavor into the liquid. I strained the not-brine out and remixed up the vinegar salt brine. 

It actually was resolved quicker than I thought. The strainer worked perfectly to keep the spices inside. Back into the fridge for pickling. 

A neighbor of ours gave me a gigantic tub of dill (before we got all the cucumbers). I collected quite a bit of it, more than I thought I would use. And it ended up being just enough for all these pickles! 

The same thing happened with coriander, except those were from cilantro plants that had gone to seed in our garden. At the time, I had no clue what I was going to do with it all. I just collected it and tucked it with our spices. And it ended up being just enough for all the pickle recipes!

All together we have five gallons of pickles at our house right now. 😵‍💫 Now I need to remember to eat them! 

We still have some fresh cucumbers lingering in the fridge. I wanted to give them to the chickens and ducks. G says he's going to eat them. As for me, I am pickled and cucumbered out. 😅