Monday, July 21, 2008

Onions Revisited

There were a couple of questions on my last post about onions. First of all, Sharri, I use a quick spray of olive oil on my trays before I put the onions down. This keeps them from sticking. I wash them in warm soapy water and have never had a problem with a lingering odor. Theresa asked me how long they last in their dehydrated form. I keep mine in a sealed jar. It does not seem to matter how many I do, I am always out of them by early March. They kept that long without any problems. Beyond that, I don't know.

Here is a picture of the onions still on the tray after they are dehydrated. These trays were full. You can see how much they have shrunk. It is really humid here right now. I turned off the dehydrator several times but did not get to the onions right then. When I would go to take them off, they were a bit moist, so I turned it back on for awhile.

I finally got to them immediately after turning the dehydrator off. I put all 9 trays worth in a gallon ziplock baggy and did not even fill it up.

I normally put them through the food processor and I get nice big chunks a little larger than the minced onions you buy in the store. I tried my blender this time. It made them a lot more like powder with a few small chunks. I will use the food processor next time. I did not weigh all of my onions before I started, but it was between 10 and 15 pounds. This is not a huge jar. I know it is not a half gallon size. You can see how much I got.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Marci,
Somehow this makes me so much more appreciative of those little bottles of onion powder!
At least you know what went into your onions.
Michelle

Mary said...

Marci,

The nice thing about processing your own food, you definitely know you are not being overloaded with filler and chemicals.

Great job with the onions.
Blessings,
Mary

Unknown said...

Boy, those onions look really good in the bag. I'm sure they taste good, too. :-D

Kelly said...

I have a love hate relationship with onions. I have never been able to chop them with out shedding tears. We use them alot though and now that I have seen your post I want to try it. proccessing a bunch of onions at once would make buying these worth while.

http://www.stacksandstacks.com/track/rd.html?id=176&product_page=11575_onion-goggles-three-colors-to-choose-from&sku=11577&utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase

Goggles are the only thing that I have found that work.