Saucy Saves

It all started when I had a West Coast Clam Chowder that was too thin….

I learned how to make clam chowder from my mom. And she started her chowder with a roux. Nothing says “please give me a headache” more than trying to fix a roux based sauce or soup than your sauce being too thin. It’s not like you can add more flour because it’s not cooked out. And you can’t make corn starch slurry to thicken it up. I mean technically you can, but it’s not the same. The flavor gets thrown off and the texture is also not the same.

That’s when I had the brilliant idea of adding instant potato flakes. I put diced potatoes in my chowder and so the potato flakes made sense because it’s dehydrated powder that absorbs your excess liquid AND you get to keep the potato flavor.

Over the years, from this dehydrated potato beginnings, I have started dehydrating more and more of my vegetables.

It just made more and more sense, because if you really look at all the seasonings in the seasoning aisle in the grocery store, just about all of it comes from plants, herbs, and their seeds. We already season our food with produce. It’s not a far leap to move to use vegetables as seasoning.

From my chowder I moved to thickening my brown sauce made in my caste iron pan when I once again added too much water. This sauce the water evaporates relatively quickly. But this time I added dehydrated mushroom powder. It added an earthy note to my brown sauce and thickened up in just a few minutes instead of the several minutes that cooking off the water takes. Once again, the flavor improved.

And to be honest, I’ve hated working out the lumps of flour when I tried to re-thicken with flour like my mom use to. Depending on the day, I’m convinced that the flour was giving me attitude, “I’m just going to stay lumpy because there’s nothing you can do about it!”

So my comeback to my lippy flour has become, “Oh yeah? Well I’m going to use vegetables then. They don’t lump up like you do.”

I’m still waiting on some of my produce to finish growing in my garden to replenish some of my vegetable powders, but I’d like to introduce you to some of my favorite powdered veg.

From left to right you Zucchini, Spinach, Mushrooms, and sliced Mushrooms. The orange powder on top is the combination of yellow, orange, and red sweet peppers. You know that bag of small peppers in the produce department? Those are the ones that I dehydrated and turned to a powder.

I’m all out of my powdered Butternut Squash. This one is actually my work horse. It has a nice sweet flavor that my boys don’t know that I’m adding vegetables into a meal.

Not only does my powdered veg work as a thickener, it doubles as my mom hack of hiding vegetables from my children who don’t want to see certain vegetables on their plates. Peas and Carrots are still acceptable on the plate, but all the others, I have to get pretty creative. And instead of renaming vegetables to some weird name, like my mom did, I just prefer seasoning everything with it.

Do you have a recipe that your family is always asking for?

Do you always tell them “Absolutely not!” because it’s your recipe and you don’t want anyone else to have it?

If you want to be generous this Christmas, you can dehydrate and turn your secret ingredients into a powder and make a seasoning pack or bag of instant soup.

This is particularly a great idea for loved ones who live across the country from you and shipping out a sauce or soup just isn’t practical! You don’t have to ship glass containers, liquid, or even have the weight of the ingredients that still contain their water content.

Maybe the person you’re gifting is a hiker or camper. But gifting them dehydrated food, in the form of seasoning, you’re able to give them the nutrition they need and taking up a fraction of their pack space.

Not sure about that statement?

Take another look at the pictures of my powdered vegetables. The Spinach is contained in a 9 oz jar and is currently holding two bunches of spinach. Yes, that is two grocery store bunches of spinach.

Looking for a funny gift for your cook or baker this Christmas?

Here’s a design that can take on many different meanings. It’s perfect for your secret recipe cook, a white elephant present, or for that home cook whose mystery meals are not exactly the best surprises to hit the dinner table.