Day Trip, Drying Squash, Review Vidalia Dicer/Chopper

Day Trip-

With the smoke coming and going from the California fires we finally had a break last week. A bit of a rain storm blew in last Thursday/ Friday which clear the skies. Saturday morning I woke up and the skies were deep, deep blue. We have been wanting to drive up to McCall for the day, just to get out of town to get a change of scenery. Saturday morning I decided to check the air quality in McCall since it had been pretty bad up there as well. Separate from the California fires there was a fire west of McCall and the smoke is drifting from there too.  Turned out the air quality was great! I asked Dave if he wanted to take off for the day and go to McCall and it was a resounding yes! The forecast was a little bit of intermittent rain coming and going, so we dressed for cooler weather with some possible rain. There were a few storm clouds here and there driving up-

Skies clearing

Outside McCall

After we got into town we stopped at our normal McCall Brewery for lunch. From there we went to Stacy's cakes and got some desserts to take home since they closed in the afternoon. We did our normal Loop driving all the way around the lake and then hit a fun thrift store, Toby's. I spotted a heavy steel Fleur-de-lis hose reel, of all things. I decided to buy it, $8.00, and do something else with it-

Front

Top

Base

I asked Dave if he can have a pal at work use a grinder and remove the two Fleur-de-lis pieces.  That's the plan, then I will re-purpose. More on that project later! 

Lake side, water's low 

Wildflowers in a park-

We drove down the highway on the backside of McCall for a change of scenery. We never did hit much rain at all. I hit a dollar store that's a different chain from Boise's and I found a little lantern for Autumn for $5.00, has an LED candle-

All in all was a great trip, gorgeous scenery and fun! 

Drying Squash-

We had a good harvest of our yellow squash this year. I decided to dry some to use for soups over the winter. I have a nice little Nesco food dehydrator, so I got it out and cleaned it. You could use a baking sheet for this as well. I sliced all the squash up about a quarter of an inch thick then I had quartered it-

After I got all the squash laid out, and stacked I turned it on, I left it for about three or four hours. Next  I rotated the trays. Ran another 2 to 3 hours and it was all done! 

I basically had two large squashes condensed down to 1 quart canning jar. Reminds me of a jar of sunshine!

Review Vidalia Dicer/Chopper- 

I had seen this Vidalia brand dicer/chopper on someone else's blog and thought I wanted to try one. When I made corn relish a while back it took me forever to dice up all bell peppers and onions. I figured it might be a real time-saver and it turns out it is! I was really impressed by the fact is a very, very heavy composite material. It is not cheap flimsy plastic-

Nice sharp stainless steel blades

Comes with two blades and cleaning tool-

Measurements on the side- 

Heavy box- 

I was making some black bean soup for the cooler weather. I decided to use it to test drive by dicing up some bell peppers, tomatoes and onion. Separate from being much faster you also get very uniform size pieces, which is great for cooking. I started off with a bell pepper, a little older, the skin was a little shriveled. Basically I cut it in quarters, took out the seeds and white pithy part-

Just lay down the pepper, close the top down, done!

Worked great for the onions and tomatoes too! 

Washed well but a few bits here and there

Cleaning tool comes with it, really helped! 

Use the tool, rinse well, grid came out clean-

I give it two thumbs up, great for all kinds of fruits and veggies, etc. I used the chopper blade, the dicer is even smaller, will be great for fine work. With soup season coming, and making more homemade salsas, I'm happy! Amazon link on left sidebar for more info!