What have we made so far? The good, and the bad and the not sure…

Thankfully, Freeze-Drying is a bit of a scientific tool and less a kitchen appliance, so I have kept a log, albeit sloppy, of every run we have ever done on Drooler. Reading through the log is a trip down memory lane so I have decided to share those stories with you as we enjoy the fruits of our labors with you this summer.  For now, I will present those in a simple chart. 

Green: Amazing, we make these in large stocks

Orange: Good, we don’t eat through our stock as quickly

Yellow: Turned out ok, I felt had a hard rehydration due to texture or machine flavor

Red: Nope, these didn’t do well and we aren’t doing again.

Blue: Neutral. No current stock

Purple: Needs to be tried again. Our errors in preparation I think affected the end product and I’m not convinced they are not good for Freeze-Drying.

Putting all that in a chart I can see we have done about 30 different types of foods in three years, so an average of 10 new items a year. I will explain why the meals are wins or loses when they come up in the blog.

 I have already taken our food to Ciara for our 2026 sailing season.  I took eight weeks’ worth of stock (about 160 bags).  Each bag is either a full family meal, a base ingredient in a meal, part of meal or a complete stand-alone treat.  This will supplement 95% of our old fridge needs.  We can open our fridge space up to foods we can’t Freeze Dry (Bacon!), things we prefer fresh (Eggs!), and things that make living on board nicer (ice and cooler water!) all while being more efficient with the refrigeration we have.   And those are just the sample of the goodies our fridge will hold this summer. We are so very excited.