Making crabby food (meal mix & oven dehydrating foods)

[soilentgringa]

A coffee grinder!!! Duh! That would be perfect for dried beans. I'll have to keep an eye out in the Housewares section at Goodwill.

You could totally use a Magic Bullet or Nutribullet...

[Asheka]

I would love a bullet, and it'd work for all foods really. Maybe I can find a cheap one online or used...coffee grinder would be good too. Thanks for the ideas and definitely let us know how it goes!

[fantasybookworm]

I hadn't thought about a Magic Bullet! I think I might go that route...it sounds a bit more versatile than a coffee grinder. I'm going to ban myself from some other purchases I'd like to make (storage containers for crabby supplies & more tank decor), so maybe I'll let myself get one of those, then stop my crabby spending (outside of what's needed to make the tote crabitat livable for them) for a while. My bank account is seriously hurting!

[Asheka]

My credit card has been extremely helpful Although it's certainly about time to stop and pay it back up again.

[Edit] Found Canadian Tire right by me has the bullet in stock for only $45, so might just pick myself up one tomorrow. I'll use it all the time really so it's worth it. May label one of the cups for crab use only or something heh [/Edit]

[fantasybookworm]

I spent a good part of today working on animal food! Lots of dehydrating for the crabbies, and I also had to do some food prep for my dog.

First up was parsley, which I didn't take a picture of. It was pretty boring. Didn't take long either, only an hour or less. Next was red chard -



They went quickly (as expected), only took 1-1.5 hours. I did learn a lesson though - only do the leaf part, take the stem off beforehand unless you want to leave them in long enough for that to dry (which would take quite a while, especially for the big stalks). I caught on about 2/3 of the way through & started cutting the stem out before I put the leaves in.

I also applied that lesson when I started the kale -



I also went ahead & tore them into smaller leaves before putting them in, which worked out very nicely. Same thing for kale, only 1-1.5 hours. I have the rest of it in now that I'm home from spending time with a friend who just lost her ferret last night. I didn't take a picture, but I put the dried parsley & half of the chard & kale through my food processor to make powdered greens. I'm going to be adding watercress and basil to it as well, once I get those dried. That'll be used to just put in the dry food dish once in a while, not part of the dry meal mix I'm making. The other half of the chard and kale I kept in whole leaves (though they crumble easily, so we'll see how long that lasts :roll:) so I can add them to the leaf bowl occasionally.

Here's a picture of the rest of the kale, plus the half of a papaya that I put in (I chopped the other half up to be frozen) -



I'm expecting the papaya to take at least a couple hours. Hopefully not much more than 3 hours though...I have to be up early for wildlife rehab volunteering.

And just for funsies, the dog's food all thawing out in our tub.

[Asheka]

Very cool, and thanks for the tip with the stems! I noticed sort of the same thing when I was doing dandelions at my mom's.

[fantasybookworm]

I haven't been taking many pictures recently, but I did get a couple today of my finished (or mostly finished) flower & leaf mixes.



This is what's in each. The starred items are ones I don't have yet, and I haven't made up the fourth leaf mix yet since I'm still missing most of the stuff for it. I need to get out & collect some maple leaves, more oak leaves, and I'm waiting for birch leaves to come back in stock on Mountain Rose Herbs.

Flower Mix #1
- peony
- sunflower
- dandelion
- violet
- borage
- elderberry

Flower Mix #2
- chamomile
- comfrey
- fireweed
- tulip
- cherry

Flower Mix #3
- hibiscus
- honeysuckle
- jasmine
- rose
* passionflower


Leaf Mix #1
- kale
- chard
- dandelion
* watercress
- basil

Leaf Mix #2
- clover
- raspberry
* pear
- blackberry
- crabapple

Leaf Mix #3
- chickweed
- nettle leaf
- plaintain leaf
- alfalfa leaf

Leaf Mix #4
- oak
* maple
* birch leaf
- birch bark

And this is the container I'm storing the mixes in, though I'm not sure if the last leaf mix will fit into it.



I'm hoping to (at some point) finish getting everything into the storage containers I want them in & have the food area all organized so I can take some pictures to share.