Stabbing Cranberries

It's not as serious as my stab, but it is with the same knife. Even though I have read/watched how to dehydrate cranberries, I am not going to blanch them so they will pop. That seems to sacrifice too much of the juice. Oh, no, I am going to stand at the sink, sopping from popped cranberries instead of carrying my knife to the ottoman and sit to do this job. When I stand, I shake/tremble from the pain, so I have to sit ever so often. Below, is how many cranberries I can pop at one standing.

Also, the knife that stabbed me in the chest

Rather than heat the cranberries to popping open stage, I took a knife and stabbed them. I would have cut them slightly, but the skins were too tough and I was mashing cranberries.

Once I put them in the dehydrator, I drank the juice that had drained through the colander. Straight lemon juice has met its match for sourness. But, it was only 1/3 of a cup, so I drank it down, thinking how good it was for me.

If you ever decide to dehydrate cranberries and don't want to heat them in water until they pop, I would suggest you slit or stab each one while it is frozen or semi-frozen. I lost juice and being mushy made the cranberries difficult to cut open. That is why I stabbed.

Why cut them open? I think it is called "case hardened." If not, let me know the correct term. All it means is that the outside dried faster than the inside can and moisture is locked inside. You don't want this to happen to your cranberries or anything else. That is what happened to the slices of sweet potato. 

How many I had to go to finish

ready for dehydrator

two leg/thigh quarters cooking away on the stove

Whether this will be chicken and dumplings or not is still up in the air. If I feel like making dumplings tonight, it will be chicken and dumplings. I don't like thighs, but this is what I had, so I may just give all this to exbf who is coming to help me tomorrow. He will not want the broth, so that will be just more broth for me for Thanksgiving. We will see. But, I am so hungry for dumplings.

The kitchen smells good and is warm with cranberries in the dehydrator and chicken boiling away. Maybe I will make cornbread for dressing.   I think not.

front-frozen for exbf, scraps for hens,

back--quart of broth, bit of meat for me

Some day, I will try canning broth. But, I would need more than one quart, maybe four pints?

It's done. My day is mostly over. One last thing--I will mix all the dry ingredients for a chocolate pound cake, my contribution to a Thanksgiving Dinner that starts at noon! UGH! I am accustomed to my friends who say, "We eat at five; come at four to visit." Then, we eat at six. Okay, I can do this. I know I can! And, I will cook my turkey next week.

If I get out all the pans for the three pound cakes, have the wax paper cut, and all wet ingredients ready, this will not be hard tomorrow night. I hope I have enough eggs. I think there are only four and the ingredients call for five. So, I may use dehydrated egg whites for the missing egg.  I bought it awhile ago for the one egg unless the girls lay another before tomorrow night.

Your turn

Have you ever dehydrated cranberries? Did you heat the berries to pop them? Or, did you just puncture them? Raise your hand if you like chicken and dumplings? Do you use the fat on top of the broth in the chicken/dumplings? I hate to remove all of it. What do you do with it if you take it off the broth? Personally, I consider it part of the broth.