I drink 1/2 litre of green smoothie per day, four days each week. In the winter, that means that I’m buying a head of lettuce every week specifically for green smoothies – and those organic, dark leafy greens can be pricey in the winter! Moreover, they are shipped from miles away, and I never really know how or where they were grown.
Freshly-blanched spinach
But all that’s about to change! This summer, Mr Science and I have been getting our veggies from a local farmer, and we have started dehydrating some of the beet tops, turnip tops, mustard greens, and other dark leafy green vegetables. We are first blanching them, then drying them in our dehydrator, and then powdering them in the dry container of our VitaMix. It’s amazing how three or four dehydrator trays full of dark leafy greens becomes only 1/2 cup of powder!
This winter, I’ll be adding a tablespoon of our homemade dark leafy green powder to my smoothies. We won’t have to purchase expensive lettuce from the store that’s been shipped across the world, and I’ll know exactly what’s going into my smoothie. Win-win!
Have you tried dehydrating (or preserving in other ways) your dark leafy greens?
