Chives are the smallest species of the onion family and are native to Europe, Asia and North America. Chives are also the only species of Allium native to both the New and the Old World and it is a perennial (So that’s why it came up again and I swore I hadn’t planted it again… I’m not going crazy.)

Culinary uses for chives involve shredding its leaves (straws) for use as condiment for fish, potatoes and soups. Because of this, it is a common household herb, frequent in gardens as well as in grocery stores. It also has insect-repelling properties which can be used in gardens to control pests from your other plants.  A plus is that they attract bees, a plus if you want your garden well pollinated.

The medical properties of chives are similar to those of garlic, but weaker; the faint effects in comparison with garlic are probably the main reason for its limited use as a medicinal herb. Chives are reported to have a beneficial effect on the circulatory system. As chives are usually served in small amounts and never as the main dish, negative effects are rarely encountered.

Chives are also rich in vitamins A and C, contain trace amounts of sulfur, and are rich in calcium and iron.

Cultivation

Chives are cultivated both for their culinary uses and their ornamental value; the violet flowers are often used in ornamental dry bouquets.

Chives thrive in well drained soil, rich in organic matter, with a pH of 6-7 and full sun.

Chives can be grown from seed and mature in summer, or early the following spring. Typically, chives need to be germinated at a temperature of 15 °C to 20 °C and kept moist. They can also be planted under a cloche or germinated indoors in cooler climates, then planted out later. After at least four weeks, the young shoots should be ready to be planted out.

In cold regions, chives die back to the underground bulbs in winter, with the new leaves appearing in early spring.

Chives starting to look old can be cut back to about 2–5 cm. When harvesting, the needed number of stalks should be cut to the base. During the growing season, the plant will continually regrow leaves, allowing for a continuous harvest.

Storing:

Chives can be stored multiple ways; Freezing and Dehydrating.

Dehydrating:

• Wash and pat dry your chives.
• Chop them to the appropriate size that you want them (I chop mine fine, but not so thin that they crumble or that you can’t tell what they are).
• Lay the chives in a thin layer on your dehydrator trays.
• Turn on your dehydrator to the herb setting or the lowest temperature that you have.
• When the chives are done dehydrating transfer them to air tight containers for storage.

Freezing:

Freezing chives is a very easy way to store them and make them seem almost fresh even if it is January when you are using them.  Not only is this simple, but it is fun… especially for kids also.

• Wash your chives.
• Cut them into small pieces to fit inside ice cube trays.
• sprinkle the chives into the ice cube trays.
• Fill the trays with water and place them in your freezer.
• When the cube have frozen all the way through, remove the cubes from the trays and place them into freezer safe storage containers or zip-lock bags.
• When you are ready for fresh Chives remove a couple of cubes and thaw them.  Your Chives will test just as fresh as the day you put them in the freezer.

Excalibur Dehydrator #3900

Excalibur Dehydrator – #3900

One of the best parts about the summer is the fruits and vegetables growing fresh around the area.  I love to go to the farmers market, to the local fruit-stands and just out to my backyard to get the best and freshest foods for my family to eat and snack on.

The health benefits of fresh foods are many fold and the summer months that I have them around I feel so great.  I have tons of energy, and feel at peak performance.  But what about the winter months when the trees are in hibernation, the garden is dead and I have no desire to run to the grocery store and pay the exorbitant prices?

Well that is when I am glad that I canned and dehydrated the foods during the summer, thus allowing me to enjoy them all year round.  This year I did all of my drying using the Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator.

The Excalibur 3900 is an ideal dehydrator for large families and those people with gardens that produce a lot.  The reason why it is best is because the Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator has 9 trays that provide 15 square feet of tray area.  One of my favorite features about the Excalibur 3900 is the fact that the fan is at the back of the dehydrator and not the bottom.  This provides for a more even dehydrating.  It also has an easily removable door that is made of the same dark materials as the dehydrator, aiding in the nutrient preservation piece of drying foods.  Be careful with the door though… my little boys are always so excited when I make fruit leather that it is hard to keep them away.  Little boys who stretch and reach hard enough can just reach to the top of the counter and grab the edge of the door.  Uh ohhh… mine learned really fast that mommy made you wait even longer for a piece if you touched things you were not supposed to.

The Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator has a built-in on/off switch and adjustable thermostat for it’s 600 watt fan.

This year we started out dehydrating fruit leather.  My kids love fruit leather and it is so easy that I began with 9 full trays of it.  I think the fruit leather may have lasted 3 days… tops…  Anyone with some hiding ideas I would be most obliged.  A nice thing with Excalibur is that you can also get accessories for your dehydrator.  One of the best accessories is the ParaFlexx sheets.  These sheets are laid over the trays thus making it possible to make fruit leather without the liquid dripping through the trays.  They are easy to clean up after and they even have disposable sheets that you can use one time only or just place them in the bottom of the dehydrator to catch spills and drips from the foods.

My family also likes beef jerky.  Excalibur has some stainless steel trays that fit all of their dehydrators.  The reason these trays are nice for meats is because they are sturdier and can take a hard scrubbing and heated temperatures that it requires to sterilize after working with meat products.

When I was drying foods I checked the foods at the halfway point to make sure everything was going alright… and I just couldn’t help myself.  I took this opportunity to rotate the trays so that the edge that was closest to the fan was moved to the outside by the door of all the trays.  This I think was a good move because it made the fruit and vegetable all dry evenly.  This was especially important when I made the fruit leather because if not the one edge would have been drier and the other edge may have been too soft.  By turning the trays half way thorough my dried foods were PERFECT!

Another item I dried in the Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator was Yogurt.  I again laid the plastic wrap or ParaFlexx sheet and loaded a blob of Yogurt in the middle.  then I used a spatula to spread it evenly on the tray making sure my edges were just a little thicker than the middle.  I put it in the dehydrator on the fruit setting and when it was done I cut the yogurt leather into pieces and then dried the pieces another hour.  This dried the ends of all the cut pieces so that they do not stick together in my storage containers.  If you want a healthy treat I truly recommend that you make yogurt leather.  This very healthy snack tastes like taffy not to mention the bright and vibrant color that you get from it.

Some of the other things that I dried were Banana Chips, Pear slices, Avocado slices, Tomato slices (yumm, every bit as good as sun-dried tomatoes).  I left a few of the tomatoes just a little under dried and then made a salad for dinner and sprinkled on the tomato chunks. They were a little chewy and absolutely fabulous.

Guess what else I did, I raised a loaf of bread in the dehydrator.  There are directions of how to do this in the Dehydration Guide that comes with the Excalibur Dehydrator.

When you purchase an Excalibur Dehydrator you get a great dehydration guide with it.  I thought this was a very invaluable booklet.  Not only did the guide give me the care instructions for my new dehydrator, but it also provided recipes and my favorite part, the food drying guide.

The drying guide listed out in table format 5 pages of food type, preparation methods, how to test if the product was dry enough and the time that you can anticipate that it takes to dry that food item.  This was my favorite part.  In fact I copied these pages and then taped them to the inside of my canning closet for easier access.

The last part in the dehydration guide that I really liked was the year-round dehydration tips.  This area of the booklet provides  tips of which items are best to obtain and dehydrate year round so that your dehydrator does not get all its use in the summer and then get neglected during the colder months.

I though the cleanup on the Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator was so simple…  My first round with the dehydrator was fruit leather so I primarily had a barrier on the trays so all I did was simply soaked the trays and mesh covers in sink-full of soapy water and they wiped right down.  The second go round though I dehydrated apple slices that had first been coated with cinnamon and sugar.  As I am sure you can imaging this made more of a sticky mess and required more attention for cleanup… I stuck the trays in the dishwasher.  Yep you read that right, the trays are dishwasher safe.  Yippee!  I am sure we all love that feature.    Just make sure you lay them on the top rack.    Then I took the mesh covers and soaked them in soapy water again for about 10 minutes and the dried on sugar and cinnamon came right off.    I just rinsed them and then laid them on a dry towel to air dry.  It was all very simple and easy.

After using the Excalibur 3900 Dehydrator I am spoiled forever from dehydrating using a tray on the back porch in the sun, on the top of the car or even in the oven.

Come back soon for a video of the Excalibur being used and all of the fruits and vegetables that we made…  Sorry it is not here today, we ate the food so fast I had not taken any pictures and now it is all-gone.  I am getting ready to make some beef jerky and definitely more banannas.

If you have any questions about the Excalibur feel free to ask me or visit Excalibur and ask them directly.  They have some great people there that love what they do and are passionate about drying food.

Excalibur Dehydrators