FREEZE DRIED RECIPES

 I’ve tried various sizes because my kids don’t like them and they always get a TON when they trick-or-treat. They add them to my freeze drying pile and let me experiment with just about anything.

 I separated them on the tray because as you’ll see later in this post, salt water taffy blew up, taking more space than they originally did. I didn’t want to have Tootsie Rolls stuck to each other. So I gave them plenty of space. Same as the Dots.

 As you can see here, the Tootsie Rolls after being freeze dried are more like a wafer in a matte brown color. They’re extremely light and when you bite into them, they’re like biting the inside of a Whopper – almost like a malt ball, but not.

 The Dots were unimpressive. There was no change. They underwent the full 16 hours with the Tootsie Rolls and they didn’t hold onto their temperature even though they hadn’t changed. Usually if something isn’t finished freeze drying, they maintain the chill of the frozen water. These Dots did not have any temperature change.

 You can pull them and twist them. They come in a bunch of different flavors and colors. My kids don’t adore them like I do, but that’s only because I haven’t had a chance to take them to the salt water taffy store in Seaside, Oregon. When I do, they’ll fall in love with them in their natural state.

 These suckers are on parchment paper. I didn’t account for expansion and that was a surprise when I opened the machine after 15 hours to find them ballooned up.

 When you bite into them they’re hard but then dissolve in your mouth like cotton candy but also kind of stringy. The flavors and color are still intact. There are little pockets of air inside, too, extremely small.

 They were eccentric to eat and try, but we probably won’t do them again, either. Why? Because I like my salt water taffy stretchy and moldable. If I wanted to eat hard cotton candy, I’d consider the Tootsie Rolls above – they at least pretend to be chocolate.

 When my son tried them he claimed they hurt his throat as he was trying them. Not always a good thing! But the flavor was enhanced. So there’s that.

 Their insides split the sweet candy shell. Definitely made them interesting. If you’re looking to try some without freeze drying them, you can check out this place that ships a fun package of them to your place. Freeze Dried Skittles.

 Something I’m highly addicted to but can’t seem to keep from going bad in the bag (I get bags and bags when they go on sale and we don’t eat them nearly fast enough) are marshmallows.

 I seriously can’t get enough. When my daughter and I went off sugar, these were the hardest things to continue having in the house. I figure if something happens, I won’t care what size jeans I’m in. You know, I’ll want a bag of these puffy pieces of heaven for comfort food. To be clear, I’m good with that.

 Before: you can see these ones are fresh. They don’t stick to each other and they’re plump and fluffy. I want to eat one right now!

 Then they went through the freeze dryer. I was a little skeptical. I’d heard that they actually turn out really good, but I love a good soft marshmallow.

 When they came out slightly wrinkly, I doubted everything I’d heard. But when I tried one, they reminded me of the Lucky Charm marshmallows! Crunchy but flavorful without the artificial crazy flavors. Just the terrifically subtle marshmallow flavor. These marshmallows are like the ones that you find in the hot cocoa mixes with added mini marshmallows but bigger!

 They’re a little wrinkly, but they don’t stick to each other and they won’t. Whew! I have to admit they’re perfect and I can’t wait to try them later!

 The Great Value Brand marshmallows at Walmart was NOT good. They were chewy even though they were done. It was weird. But the generic brand at WinCo was awesome. Perfect and delicious. That’s what the ones pictured below are. And Winco has some great prices on their marshmallows most of the time – especially as it gets close to holidays.

 Many people think it’s next to impossible to do the freeze drying for themselves. This is far from factual. Freeze drying at home is made easy by Harvest Right. They sell three different sizes of freeze-drying machines that do everything in the machine – except prep and package.

 For all intents and purposes, here at Freeze Drying Mama we use the medium sized freeze dryer. You can check out the sizes offered at Harvest Right here.

Freeze Dried Pears

 What this machine does is first freeze the items on stainless steel trays to -41 degrees or lower. This takes about 10 hours or so.

 Then a vacuum pump turns on and creates a vacuum inside the drum. This is the drying stage and will vacillate the heat of the tray up and down to a pretty warm temperature. This makes the frozen items release any water in them in vapor form. The vacuum sucks the moisture to the drum and this collects in ice form on the inner circle of the drum.

 I love freeze dried cheese sticks. One of my favorite snacks that comes out of the freeze dryer are these cheese stick puff balls. That’s my official name for them. Hahaha. Because the short answer to the question above is yes, you can definitely freeze dry cheese sticks. So much yes, that I buy bags and bags of all kinds of cheese sticks to freeze dry for both long term and short term food needs.

 If you don’t know this already, cheese is a friendly food for more people who are health conscious. Especially the lighter on the fat options and those seeking more protein in their diet. Cheese is also phenomenal for flavor and has a wide range of uses that keep our dishes varied and out of the mundane department.

 If you have cheese sticks in your food storage, you’re setting yourself up for success should things get rough in a “SHTF” type of way.

 Not to mention, they’re a filling and nutritious mainstay for most people with health conditions who need to follow specific eating restrictions – keto, diabetic, low carb, high protein, etc. Definitely not the same as cheesecake!

 The easiest part is just picking out your favorite cheese sticks. I prefer the white string cheese because it’s my favorite of all the cheese sticks. My husband, however, prefers pepper jack. Some of the kids love cheddar and my daughter likes the colby jack. All of them freeze dry awesome. Check out shredded cheese and how to freeze dry it here.

 Then, you’ll decide how you want to potentially use them in the future. In the stick form, it makes it hard to do much with them. I prefer them in the small pieces, less than an inch in length. At this size, you can pop them like crackers or you can incorporate them into recipes.

 Open all of your cheese sticks. This is a tedious job and the manufacturers must think we all have extremely dexterous fingers because the wrappers are sometimes super hard to open. I usually have my kids helping me. At my age, I need help when I’ve been on the computer all day working and these little wrappers just don’t want to do what I tell them to.

 All you need to do is unwrap all of the cheese sticks and place them on a cutting board. You can use any kind of knife. I like steak knives but when my youngest help me, I give them the butter knives to cut.

 Then you cut them into smaller pieces. Usually I go smaller than an inch in length, but I’ve tried them as big as half stick size. They freeze dry just fine but aren’t easy to store.

 I do. I prefer parchment paper cut to size over the silicone liners from Harvest Right. I do use my silicone liners but not for items that might have a little bit more fat content than other products. Sometimes, on the silicone trays, there will be a fine layer of oil left from the food that the food is lying in when I pull the food out. I’ve noticed this grease tends to be absorbed by the parchment paper.

 No. The chunks I did here are spaced more than I normally would space them because I thought I had two bags of the cheese sticks but when I went to get them out, I discovered my kids had devoured one of the bags. Eye twitch. So, I only had one bag to do. So I spread the cheese stick chunks out on the lined trays.

 Prefreezing cheese stick chunks isn’t necessary. Most solids aren’t needed to prefreeze. With some of the program updates Harvest Right has for the freeze dryers, you don’t need to prefreeze most things. I do because I’m a little more on the cautious side than most people lol. And I’ve had some pretty ugly experiences with messes that I don’t want to take any more chances with.

 You’re going to need different amounts depending on which machine you have. If you go according to the weight restrictions from Harvest Right, you’ll want to load the trays up with the following amounts.

 Every machine is going to be different because of the size, how you pack the trays, the other variables of where you live and other time of year. But cheese sticks shouldn’t take as long as a load of eggs or soup. Cheese sticks are dense but not full of water like a vegetable or fruit.