dehydrating greens to make powders to add to baking and noodle making

I am interested in making my own  , vegetable powders for noodle makeing breads  and soups . powdered kale and spinach are pricey
I have vast amounts of grape leaf and egyption onion and have planted Kale and chard

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would love input  


Sue  

I also am interested in this process.
My research indicates that the nutrients in greens are best preserved when dried out of direct sunlight.
I have fed my green vegetable hating daughter pancakes made  fresh kale, enough to tint the batter.
She loved it,but that's because she didn't know what was in them!

This seems lots of efforts since by planting different members of the cabbage family you can have them all the year round  also I since green plants use sunlight I think that makes them more susceptible to damage if dried in the sun . The onions I am going to try myself along with attempts to make my own dried soup

David

A year or so ago I read that papaya leaves were the power house of micro nutrients that kale and spinach are so I started cutting the younger leaves and simply putting them on some aluminum foil... Then put it near the AC unit and move it to the stove after I cook something but while its still warm to get dryer. Then I crumble the leaves and remove the veiny parts and grind the leaf flakes in my mortar an pestle thingy... It makes a fine powder. I just put it in capsules and take a few daily... This time of year I only cook once or twice a week to avoid heating up the house.... Later in the year, when its not 95* out, I put it on the wood stove over a low fire to dry. That technique should work for any greens....

Most of my vegetable and herb drying has been done in vehicles. A car parked in the sun, gets quite warm. Crack the windows open and you have a solar dryer.

Most things can be powdered up in the blender. For small amounts and to get a really nice even grind, a coffee grinder works pretty well. I like to put the dry leaves in a brown paper bag and scrunch them up first. This reduces the volume so that each batch entering the grinder, is larger.

Once processed in this way, the powder can be put in jars and either put in the cupboard or frozen.

I haven't had much luck with cabbage,but I get green onions year round.
I hate dolma,but I'm hoping to dry grape leaves or use them as potherbs,as I certainly have enough of them.
Right now, the rabbits eat them, but there are plenty of other things they can eat and I cant.

Drying might deal with a common issue among wild harvested leaf crops. Most are said to be good "when young" ,but get "too tough" to palatable,as they age.

Wet heat (stewing,canning), acid(pickling) ,fermentation(again,pickling), mechanized mastication (juicing,smoothies) or dry heat(dehydration) can all contribute to making rough foods edible.

I got interested at first because I am learning to make Konjac Glucomannan flour noodles , ( I am on a weight loss journey 18 lbs lost  and still 88 lbs from where I want to end up )  and I do not care for the texture plain so I have ordered oat bran to mix in  . I started thinking what else could I add to make soups and noodles more nutrient and fiber dense while staying low calorie  . kale powder is pricey but I have acres with loads of wild grape and there are things I do not care for as a pot herb that I would be fine with dried and ground as part of a noodle flour
  grape leaves have a bit much chew to use like spinach   but high fiber , vitamin A vitamin K and potassium     http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3038/2

then I also have 44 acers of woodlands and meadow and a garden that was fallow last year that is full of purslane , lambs quarters chickweed  and nettles  I do not really care for these as a pot herb but I thought in a powdered mix I could use in cooking .
The green onions I have 2 rows of  and I already freeze lots but I do not want to add a second freezer


Sue

I started saving greens two summers ago when I bought a square dehydrator. Lots of good suggestions already posted for how to dry them. In the Excalibur, place on trays at the lowest possible heat setting.

My dried greens go into smoothies and dog biscuits along with hemp hearts for omega 3s.

I've been drying foraged greens this spring and summer to see how they keep through the winter. I briefly blanch them in boiling water, then drain them and crumple them up on a tray in the electric dehydrator when the night is cool.

I just punched a question about this practice, just looking for more ideas or variations, into DuckDuckGo and the "AI" overview produced a link to this thread. But it's been almost ten years since the last post. So, permies, any new info on how to dehydrate greens for storage? And what you do with them?

And I'd be curious about stalks, too. Lambs quarters stalks steam nicely, but should I be drying them too? I'm sure they're impossible to reconstitute and enjoy like a fresh vegetable but maybe they chop for soup just fine.

Here is a thread on making green powders that might answer your questions:

https://permies.com/t/93024/Making-greens-powder

My answer about stalks would be if your grinder will handle the stalks then go for it.

My food processor and blender can't pulverise most dehydrated things into powder--I had really wanted to make tomato powder  one year, but no go.  Maybe my stone mortar and pestle would, but I'm a little low on elbow grease!  I like to dehydrate greens when I have too many;  blanched first if they are fibrous like cabbage, but for softer leaves like nasturtium and chard I just dry them as is in my electric dehydrator.  In fact, before I had the dehydrator, I would string soft leaves up using a needle and thread and dry them in a garland hanging from my kitchen ceiling.  It took longer and they didn't keep their colour as well, but I didn't mind.  It was free

I do a green veggie mix of sweet potatoes leaves, lambs quarter and nettle every year to add to soups during the winter. The hard stem bits that dont powder down are good in soups and you wont notice them. But for baking I will send the powder thru a electric coffee grinder. It works really well and breaks up the dried fibrous stalks and leaves. I dont like blanching before drying them, It sounds counter productive so I take care of it this way.

Have you considered zucchini flour? My wife has celiac issues and Amish flour aka zucchini flour is easy to make and a gluten free low carb flour. It gives you something to do with all those extra zukes.

Malabar spinach is a great candidate as well. We prefer only the small leaves raw in salads but when they’re bigger we don’t care for them. But when dried they’re perfect for adding to smoothies, soups, meat loaf, casseroles, etc.

All the benefits with none of the down sides.

And Malabar grows well in the Texas heat.