Monday, February 17, 2014

Dehydrated Pesto and Ratatouille. Monday February 17th 2014

After making my bulk lot of pesto on Saturday, I got to thinking about whether Pesto might dehydrate to be able to take it on a hiking trip in a couple of weeks time. Best way to find out was to try it. While I had the dehydrator whirring away in the background, I thought I would dehydrate some vegetable concoctions to supplement some other hiking food I had done already. With a little packet of dehydrated bolognaise sauce on the menu, I thought some ratatouille might be a great accompaniment, especially as now it the time of year for zucchini and tomato glut.

There a few bits if dried spaghetti sitting on the top of the pesto having fallen through from the tray above.
The  pesto remained a bit oily but this gave it a crumbly texture. Time will tell, but I think it might be just right with a bit of water added to rehydrate it before spreading on a cracker.

The ratatouille turned out more like a leather.
Looking forward to tasting both out in the wilds soon!

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Pesto. Saturday February 15, 2914

It is at this time of year when I regret not replacing my food processor after it stopped working a couple of years ago. I have heaps of basil in the garden and to make pesto without a food processor is so much more difficult. Eventually I got a half decent mix after using the blender and stab mixer . I like to try pesto with afew different nuts rather than the tradional pine nuts. I have made it several times using walnuts but today made it with almond meal as that was one less thing to blend. The almond meal adds a less strong flavour to the pesto but it is still quite nice. We had some on our pizza cooked on the barbecue tonight. This is just a blend of basil, almond meal, garlic, olive oil and a little salt. I forgot to add grated Parmesan but it still tastes ok.