So I harvest a heap of Kale every year. The last couple years I have been air drying it. I have a needle and thread set up by my kitchen window where I pierce the stem and just let the leaf hang and dry. I might do about 2 feet of threaded leaves at a time. Once the leaf has dried, I just crumble it up and throw it in a zip lock bag in the fridge for later trail use. This is kind of how they use to hang shade tobacco back when I was a kid. That was a long time ago when white kids use to work agriculture picking beans, corn, and tobacco.
My question is…..since the kale was not blanched before drying, is the nutritional value pretty much destroyed by enzimatic activity during the drying process? Can blanched kale be dehydrated and is this what I really should be doing?
I also harvest a heap of snowpeas every year. I've tried dehydrating snowpeas and rehydrating on the trail. It has always been a bit too long a rehydration process for my liking. I wonder if any one has stumbled across any good leather recipes for snowpeas? I have no plans to just munch on the leather, but maybe including it with a meal or two for fast re-hydration. Maybe spiced for an asian style dish, although my reading suggests snowpeas originated in the mediteranian area.
For you lazy high elevation gardners, you can't go wrong with snowpeas or kale.
