# Dehydrating food for winter meals is easy.



## Happyflowerlady (Jun 5, 2013)

Sometimes, when I find a food on sale that I know has to be used right away, but I still want to take advantage of the sale, what I do, is put the food, such as bananas or mushrooms, in my dehydrator, and then save it for use in recipes later. Mushrooms are really great for soups and gravies, and once I dry them, I put them in the food processor and crunch them into little pieces, which are perfect for wintertime soups.

I also  dry oregano and basil, and put it in a jar for winter. It doesn't cost much to dehydrate food, and it is easy to store it.

Amazon has some great tutorials on dehydrating food, and I just found one that is usually $5, and today on sale free, just for downloading it. You just need either a kindle, or a Kindle app for your computer or tablet, and then you need to download it right away, they change the free books every day, so by tomorrow, it will probably be ack up to $5 again. Here is the link :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...inmoti-20&=digital-text&qid=1370476716&sr=1-1


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## rkunsaw (Jun 7, 2013)

We dehydrate a lot, mostly herbs and spices. We have a couple of fig trees and dehydrated figs are tasty snacks.

I think I posted before about making tabasco sauce and dehydrating the leftover mash.


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## Ozarkgal (Jun 7, 2013)

I've been wanting to get a dehydrator for some time now.  I grow lots of herbs and I freeze them and break off a chunk as I need it.  I would like to free up the freezer space for other things.

Rkunsaw..I checked out the tutorial on Amazon this morning and, yup..it's back up to $5 bucks, but I'll keep my eyes open.  Thanks for the tips.


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## rkunsaw (Jun 7, 2013)

Ozarkgal, that was HFL's tip about amazon. 

Do get a dehydrator. We use ours a lot.


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## Anne (Jun 7, 2013)

We've used ours for jerky, different herbs, bananas, hot peppers, tomatoes, etc.  The fresh food certainly has more taste than store-bought spices, but since some take so long to dry, I doubt it's really cheaper.  I've done celery and garlic, and for the amount we use, it's not worth it for us.

I've heard Penzeys Spices are the freshest out there, and have tried and been satisfied with some of theirs, so guess we'll be ordering some from them.


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## Ozarkgal (Jun 8, 2013)

rkunsaw said:


> Ozarkgal, that was HFL's tip about amazon.
> 
> Do get a dehydrator. We use ours a lot.



Need to read a bit closer....Thanks HFL for the Amazon tip....I am thinking about a dehydrator.  Any tips on what to look for or brands?


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## rkunsaw (Jun 8, 2013)

The type and size depends a lot on how much you will use it. We have an excaliber with nine trays. It doesn't take a lot of herbs to fill all nine trays. Some herbs that are bulky you have to just use every other tray.

There are many cheaper brands than the Excaliber but I don't know anything about them.


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## Happyflowerlady (Jun 8, 2013)

My dehydrator is just one of the little round cheapies that you can find at walmart, or even a yard sale. It doesn't have all the fancy controls on it, but it does the job for me. I used to have a really nice one with the blower and heat controls, and it was awesome, but it was left in Idaho when we moved out here. If you are not going to do a lot of drying, the cheap one will work fine, and then if you get into doing more, you can pick one that will best suit your requirements.

I have found that the herbs like oregano will dry just fine if they are laid out on a screen, and put in a dry shady place, and the temperature is hot enough. Then, I hold them over an open bowl or large pan, and just skim the dried leaves off of the stems.  If you like them in smaller pieces, then just buzz a handful at a time at low speed in the blender (I use the pulse setting, and hit it a time or two). 
As for the amazon books, they have free books every day, and if you go to the link I posted and then type in the subject (dehydrating, etc.), and run the search by price, low to high, it will show you all the free books first, then all the 99 cent ones, and so on.
Another great idea, is to do a search on dehydrating on You Tube, and you will find some really good videos there on just about anything you want to learn about. It is my go-to place for tutorials nowdays.


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## Pricklypear (Jul 5, 2013)

I love my dehydrator.  I have an Excaliber with nine trays.  As others have said, if you don't dry a lot of stuff (I do) then you don't need to spend that kind of money on a dehydrator. I like to dehydrate mushrooms.  I have a gardening buddy who dehydrated spinach this year and used it to make cream of spinach soup.  It was lovely to eat--I'm thinking of trying that in the fall.  I like to make fruit leather.  I love to dehydrate bananas.   Dried tomatoes are pretty good too.

I also use mine to incubate yogurt.


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## Ozarkgal (Jul 5, 2013)

*Anne:*


> I've heard Penzeys Spices are the freshest out there, and have tried and been satisfied with some of theirs, so guess we'll be ordering some from them.


  There is a Penzey's store in Dallas I used to go to.  I love to experiment with spices and would get overwhelmed at the selection.  I especially like their selection of different chili powders.  Not cheap, but definitely worth it.

I have wanted to get a dehydrator for sometime now..just not sure how much I would realistically use it and don't have space in the cabin for another once in a blue moon appliance, like the bread maker my hubby had to have.  Used it once and was not impressed with the results, so there it sits in the cabinet taking up precious space until I can figure out how to jettison it.


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## SeaBreeze (Jul 5, 2013)

We have an old small 5 tray Ronco brand dehydrator.  It's on a high shelf in our garage, and was excellent for things like banana chips, etc.  However, it wasn't good for meats like jerky, as it didn't have enough power, and was super messy to clean up.  We now just make our jerky in the oven, and it turns out fine.


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## mamacathie (Jul 8, 2013)

I purchased a dehydrator a few months back hoping to dry apples, banana chips,, kale, etch but kale got crispy but didn't stay that way long but my apples and bananas and carrots were chewy. Not sure what I did wrong but had hopes to dry some veggies an have them for winter. Any suggestions??


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## Pricklypear (Jul 10, 2013)

mamacathie said:


> I purchased a dehydrator a few months back hoping to dry apples, banana chips,, kale, etch but kale got crispy but didn't stay that way long but my apples and bananas and carrots were chewy. Not sure what I did wrong but had hopes to dry some veggies an have them for winter. Any suggestions??



I'm not sure you really did anything wrong.  I've found that it takes longer to dry food than you might think.  And, the kale might be a storage problem.

I actually prefer my bananas a little softer than the commercial banana chips.  I've had them keep for over a year.  Surprised the heck out of me.  I guess one jar got shoved to the back of the cabinet and forgotten about.

  You have to store dehydrated food in airtight containers or moisture gets in.  Ziploc bags and even recycled jars let air in over time.  Canning jars with oxygen absorber packets work pretty well for storage over several months.  I bought a little vacuum sealer for my canning jars and it works great.  Those mylar bags are great but expensive.


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