Strawberries and the new Dehydrator

You may remember the dehydrator we were able to get this winter because of an arrangement I made with CSN stores. You know, the online store that offers everything from Lighting to, well, to dehydrators for instance. We've used the dehydrator a couple of times so far for jerky, but now we have fresh strawberries that we wanted to be able to use for things later this year and decided we wanted to test out dehydrating them.
The strawberries weren't huge, so I cut them right down the middles and lay them flat after a quick dip in a citric acid bath (To preserve color and flavor.)
They really thinned out quite a bit, but the flavor is like.. POW! STRAWBERRY! These will be great in some recipe or on dry cereal.

But of course when the strawberries are fresh for that little window of the year, you have to have some fresh! When A~ makes fresh sourdough waffles (Yeah you heard that right, sourdough waffles.) nothings better on top than a little whip cream and fresh strawberries.

Maybe if we ask real nice we can get A~ to start blogging on here with some of her great recipe's? I think I've almost got her conviced... anyone else out there want to hear fromthe other (read: better) half of this equation?

Take care all.

When opportunity knocks.

From time to time offers and opportunities come our way that sound good but we're just not sure. Perhaps they're too good to be true, perhaps we just never give them a try so we can't really say?

That's kind of been the line that I've taken on supporting advertising here. I've had offers from companies before and, whether it's because the person contacting me just seemed "pushy" or maybe it was a company that didn't really have anything to offer my readers, but for whatever reason I just never made the commitment to dip a toe into that world. It's something that I've thought about doing a little of this year, but wasn't sure how I was willing to do it.

Well, yet again the world seems to be pointing me in the direction I have decided to move and opportunity knocked...err.. emailed as it were and I find myself prepared to test these waters. The company that contacted me provides, from what I can tell, everything from Bar Stools to Writing desks and very seemingly everything else in between. They're called CSN stores and I have to say, I've been impressed so far with my dealings with them.

So then, what's the rub? What do I get in return for my endorsement? First off, re-read what you just read. See any endorsements? Nope, not yet. Links maybe, but heck those are a dime a dozen. One of the things that I did like about this company, was that when I told their rep that I wasn't willing to give an endorsement of his company blindly and told him that I can't offer my opinion to my readers without experiencing that company myself, well he thought that was a perfectly reasonable position to come from. I respect that.

To that end, I went about searching their extensive catalog. I was pretty surprised actually at how easy the site was to navigate. As a full time web developer I can definitely appreciate an easy to use web-site. At any rate, I found my self lost in the food section (surprise!!) and found something that I am willing to test my user experience out on. A food dehydrator. It's something that I need terribly anyway and if I'm going to check out a web-site they darn well better offer something I'd be interested in anyway right? Right!

There's also another reason that I decided to try out this product. It's a pretty good reason, but one that I'm going to have to make you wait for. After all, I did say I wasn't willing to stand behind anyone that I didn't have experience with right?
So just a little bit of patience and hopefully if all goes well I can have some good news for you next week... about the Dehydrator... and what I think of it... and what I think of CSN stores. Till then, I'll just be watching my dried tomato stash dwindle knowing next year I will have many many more!!

Wish me luck.