Dehydrated Celery!

I've posted previously about what I do when I can get a good price for celery.  I'm currently on the lookout for a good deal on it.  HERE is what I've done for a number of years. But this time I'm trying something different.  The frozen celery is always used in cooking, of course, as it would be mushy when thawed.  The picture above shows you two large stalks of celery that have been sliced and dehydrated in my nice new Nesco, shown in the following picture.  The teaspoon is there to show you how much this ended up being after drying.

Here is the handle so you can see which model I have:

 The two stalks did not quite fill a pint jar.

I carefully rinsed the celery, sliced it, and blanched it in boiling water for 3 minutes and then plunged it into cold water, then ran it through a salad spinner to get off the excess water.  Then I spread it on the trays and set it at 135 F, and let it go all night.

I used about 1/4 cup of it in a batch of soup on Saturday.  It worked very well.  Now I don't have to keep it in the freezer.  Our freezer tends to get a little full with the extra family we have in house right now.  :)

If you live in a hot dry climate, you could easily just do this outside.  Rinse, blanch, cool, spread on trays and cover with a thin cloth out in the sun. Our oldest daughter lives in Nevada, and hers might dry in about 3 seconds I think.  ;)