Peppers and Celery

Years ago, I started dehydrating bell peppers and storing them in jars. I find that I use a lot of bell peppers but I’m not going to pay $1 for a single pepper. My father-in-law grows them every year, as do I, and I dehydrate all the excess. All year rounds, I have bell peppers without having to pay a premium.

For most things, it’s unnecessary to reconstitute the diced, dried peppers. I can simply add them to soups, casseroles along with the meat, or omelette fixings and they reconstitute really well on their own. Yet, I use them so often, I still have run out of dried peppers a time or two. For every full jar I keep available to use throughout the year, I try to have another stored for long term. Several times recently, I’ve been making something, like a roast with potatoes and carrots, when I really needed celery to add another taste profile. Celery is something I almost never buy, primarily because I use it rarely and, in between uses, it just rots and has to be thrown out. But, on those occasions where I need it, I REALLY need it. I can substitute celery salt in small amounts or celery seed, again in small amounts, but nothing beats finely chopped celery leaves added to potato salad. Then, when I began planning actual menus during an emergency, I realized we will probably have soup one night every week and almost all soups are better with celery. I bought a couple of bunches, diced them, and threw them on the dehydrator, then began doing research. Not very many sources carry long shelf life celery. I found a couple of vendors that carry celery flakes, which is dehydrated celery that’s been cut in small pieces, resulting in flakes instead of chunks. Walmart carried this product, but it’s surprisingly pricey for very little product. I also found an online seller that advertises cans of freeze-dried celery. The can costs $15 and contains 2 cups of celery. For comparison purposes, I diced and measured a single bunch of celery. It produced 8 cups of diced celery, which shrunk to about 2 cups after dehydration. Two cups - the same amount of celery in the $15 can from the online vendor. But my bunch of celery only cost $1.30.

I’ve now dehydrated 8 bunches of celery and have 5 more waiting to be diced. I figure 1/4 cup of dehydrated celery will be sufficient for a kettle of soup, 1/2 cup at the most, so a single batch of celery should last me between a month and two months, using it once a week. I watched a video recently about foraging. It was a blog by a medical doctor. Her opinion was that, if a catastrophic emergency alters our way of life, it will take 2 years to normalize, and used the Great Depression as her example. If she’s right, I need to plan, as best I can, to provide for my family for 2 years. That means I need at least 12 bunches of celery dehydrated and stored. Anything more than that can be kept for daily use. I’ve put the bottoms in bowls of water to try and root. If I succeed, I’ll then plant them outdoors and hope to be able to grow my own celery, which would be the best solution for the need. Meanwhile, my dehydrator is getting a good work out.