Two years ago Julie and I won a trip to Cancun and we both brought our husbands and made a fun trip out of it. My husband and I fell in love with this breakfast place there that had the most amazing custom-made omelets. When we got home we had a little bit of an obsession with trying to recreate these omelets. (Our backyard chickens were still laying like champions so we had no shortage of eggs to try it out on every morning.)

The problem was that we kept running out of the fresh veggies needed for the omelets. One day I was really wanting one of the famous omelets but had no peppers or tomatoes in the house. So I ventured to the basement and pulled a few cans upstairs to try out. I then had the brilliant idea to also use freeze-dried cheese just to see if in an “emergency” I could still have my treasured breakfast.

Here is how I reconstituted the foods. I used freeze-dried green bell peppers and freeze dried tomato dices. I rehydrated them for just a couple of minutes before adding them into the omelet. I used freeze-dried cheddar cheese. I reconstituted it in a bowl full of water. This made it kind of squishy and hard to spread around. There are two other methods which work better which I’ll describe below. I sprinkled some of the cheese inside and topped the omelet with the rest. My omelet was DIVINE! Now if I really wanted to get crazy I could also try throwing in some freeze-dried ham, but I’m hesitant to open a full can of it because it has such a short open shelf life (but in an emergency I could have delicious ham in my omelet too!) I’d also like to try it with the scrambled egg mix some day just to see if it is as yummy (because I know not everyone has chickens).

Tips for Reconstituting Freeze-Dried Cheese

Best Method: (from Thrive Life’s Chef Todd)
1. Place 2 cups of THRIVE cheese in a glass bowl.
2. With a spoon, lightly stir cheese while drizzling 1/2 cup of cold water over the cheese. Stir continuously until all the water is incorporated into the cheese.
3. Water should just barely start to collect on the bottom of the glass bowl. This is a sign that the cheese has absorbed enough water.
4. Place cheese in a zip lock bag and store in refrigerator overnight or for several hours before use.

Note: Cheese will last up to 8 days in refrigerator. Continue to reconstitute cheese, as you need it, following these simple steps. Adjust quantity for individual needs.

Quick Method:
1. Place a thick layer of paper towels on a plate.
2. Pour dried cheese onto the paper towels.
3. Spray the cheese with a spray bottle and stir around with your finger.
4. Continue spraying and waiting a little bit, spraying and waiting.
5. Once water starts to pool under the paper towel, it should be pretty well hydrated. It may be slightly crunchy but should work fine in recipes for melting, etc.

-Jodi Weiss Schroeder
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net