Subaru as Food Dehydrator

I don't have a food dehydrator. It's one of those things that I will occasionally consider getting, until I remember how annoying it would be to have another gargantuan food processing item that has to be stored for nine months of the year in a kitchen built in the 1920s with the corresponding number and arrangement of 1920s cabinets. That is, not enough and stupidly arranged. Really. We have more scary, unreachable dark corners in our cabinets than are in that hotel in Psycho.

Wait. What was I talking about? Oh. Right. Dehydrating.

So, no dehydrator. That's why I was so stoked to read on this site about drying herbs in the back of the car. This totally made sense to me. I mean, what is a car but a greenhouse with no glass roof? All those windows and all. In fact, I knew someone who started her tomato seeds in her car. I thought that was pretty ingenious. And I had the same reaction to the idea of drying herbs in the car.

Not too long after I read that post, I was pulling out the last of the Italian Herb Mix from Penzeys and I stopped to read the herbs in it: oregano, marjoram, thyme, basil, rosemary . . . uh. Wait. I grow all these herbs. I could make this mix. If I could get the herbs dry.

Enter My Awesome Subaru, which honestly gets more and more awesome by the day. Literally. I am awed by the car. It fulfills my every need. Even food dehydrating.

One old framed window screen from the shed (well scrubbed, because the condition of anything that comes out of our shed is EW), two random plastic flower trays to set the screen up off the floor, and I was all set. I put the screen in the cargo part in the back of the car and spread out all the leaves from our overwintered sage plant that was almost flowering, plus several branches from a huge rosemary plant that lives in the cellar in the winter. I pulled the leaves off the sage, but I left the rosemary intact. It took a little over a week to get them all dry, because we had some cool, rainy days. I just left the whole deal back there, even when I was driving.

I could do that because I have an Awesome Subaru, you see. The Nissan was not that awesome. It has very little storage space and a small back seat. Totally useless for drying herbs, I bet. The Nissan people should look into that.

ANYWAY.

Yesterday*, I gathered up the sage and crushed it up into a little container. I ended up with about a quarter cup of sage. Then I just pulled the rosemary branches between my fingers to pull off the little needles. I did it over a sheet of newspaper to catch the needles, so then I could spread them out to pick through and get out any stray bits of twig or whatever before folding the paper and pouring the rosemary out, using the crease in the paper to direct the flow of the rosemary into a jar. I got almost a cup of rosemary, though that will be reduced because I think I'm going to crush the rosemary up a little bit. I hate big needles of rosemary in my food.

I planted marjoram yesterday and the basil, thyme, and oregano are already in the ground. Give me a few months, some more window screens, and some sunny days, and that Italian Herb Mix will be stamped with MY name. And all thanks to my Subaru.

* Yesterday while Cubby was running around climbing on the stump of the cedar tree and playing with sticks and chasing the cat and NOT NAPPING. Though he did sleep for about 45 minutes in the afternoon, during which time I got another row of potatoes planted and the asparagus bed weeded, so that's something.