I’ve been a busy little bee in the kitchen the last few days. After much research, I decided to get a bit adventurous and made some rosemary infused olive oil and I also dehydrated some eggs in order to powder them and put them up in my long(er) term food pantry.

Since everything is growing so well, I decided to trim my rosemary plants for both cooking and the rosemary infused olive oil. First I wanted to make sure it was safe to do that because I’d heard infusing oils at home can be dangerous due to the risk of botulism. And we all know eggs can carry salmonella.

I definitely don’t need that on top of everything else I’m dealing with! 😑

Thankfully, I found that the experts have figured out a way to not only safely make both, but they have put out a very detailed and easy-to-follow guide for each one of these. I started with the oil.

It was a pretty straightforward process and I was glad to have everything I needed handy…

First, I clipped and then washed several sprigs off my rosemary plant before soaking them for 24 hours in a citric acid wash. This helps kill the bacteria and will help your oil last longer.

I used another smaller bowl to push them down and the water level up to make sure they were fully submerged. I left them on the counter with a cover on top so nothing got in it before taking them out and drying them really well with a paper towel.

Then I popped them into the dehydrator for a few minutes to make sure the rest of the moisture was gone. I didn’t want too strong of a flavor, so I split them between two cruets and filled each up with olive oil.

It was super easy. I will put one in the fridge to use up right away and another in the freezer to keep for longer term (they say up to a few months). I trimmed my other rosemary plant and set those herbs aside for cooking soup with.

Next, I worked on the eggs.

Why dehydrate eggs? Well, for one because we have a ton of fresh eggs every day and because I wanted to make shelf-stable egg powder for much, much cheaper than you can buy it. While the commercial stuff is freeze dried and will last for years, it costs about $.50 per egg so dehydrating your own eggs is a great alternative. I’m not worried about keeping them for more than a few months or a year or so, which helps, too.

Are they safe? Yes, as long as you don’t eat them raw and cook them at a high enough temperature later to kill the salmonella.

I carefully followed the advice here from Pam over at RoseRedHomestead since she has a PhD in food science and I’m barely able to read a recipe these days… 😄

It’s really pretty simple. The fruit roll up trays that came with my dehydrator hold exactly six eggs each which I beat well before pouring in.

It was a little tricky sliding the tray in but I just poured the egg onto the next tray while it was half way in on the racks to begin with. I set the temperature to 135F and put them in for 10 hours and off to bed I went.

When I woke up, this is what I found…

They were almost completely dehydrated, except for a small amount in each center. So I removed the dry parts and put them into the blender and popped what was left back into the dehydrator for a little while longer.

Once they were all blended up, I estimated that I can probably fit four dozen powdered eggs into a quart sized mason jar!

I haven’t taste tested them yet but I will do that soon. After seeing how Pam’s reconstituted eggs came out I’m pretty confident that mine will be the same.

Being able to save eggs this way is going to be such a blessing here. Speaking of that, it’s time to go collect some more from the coop! 🙂