Dehydrating and how to ease into it

Last week was no fun. Stomach flu made the rounds at Chez Zen and it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, we're all better now and I'm back to the blogosphere.

Garden update:
Tomatoes aren't doing so well. The blight is getting to them faster than I can. They're essentially rotting on the vine because of all the rain, humidity and dampness we've had here.
Squash, on the other hand, LOVE it wet and are still producing like crazy.
Late plantings of cucumber, zucchini, and green beans are taking off, too.
Purple hull peas are producing. I have harvested quite a lot and am making sure to keep the hulls in the freezer in order to make purple hull pea jelly later on.
Onions are finished. We pulled them, laid down some more mushroom compost and have planted broccoli seed for a fall crop.
Bell peppers are also producing like crazy. I have been freezing them and dehydrating them.

Dehydrating is a fantastic way to preserve foods. Here are some of the advantages:

1. It's not quite as scientific or precise as canning. Mistakes are much easier to correct.
2. The finished result is lightweight and compact, making storage very easy.
3. Basic dehydrators can be relatively easy to build yourself, or you can even dehydrate foods in your oven or in the sun.
4. Dehydrated foods can, in a pinch, be eaten as-is without any special preparation - ideal for a survival situation.

When it comes to dehydrating foods, the first thing most people think of is "jerky." I think this is because of all the times everyone saw the Ron Popeil infomercial for his food dehydrator. The thing he made most with it was jerky.

Jerky can be great, but if you're buying the meat rather than, say, hunting for it, it can be expensive. Dehydrated meat has to be extra lean or it will go rancid.

Personally, when I think of dehydrating foods, I think LEFTOVERS.

How many times have you bought fresh fruit or fresh produce from the store, only to have to throw away half of it a week or so later because you couldn't eat all of it?

"Wow, that's a great price on those apples / bananas / cherries / carrots / whatever. I can make XYZ with those, and we really need to be eating this sort of thing anyway."

You eat the produce for the first day or so, then you get tired of it. The kids don't eat the apples. The bananas that you intended to make banana bread with get ignored in the course of your hectic schedule. You don't cook the carrots because it's so much faster to use canned. You get burned out on the cherries.

Before you know it, the produce has gone bad and you have to toss it into the compost pile. (You ARE composting, right?)

A food dehydrator could save you from throwing this money away.

Instead of creating all this waste, you could have sliced the food, put it in the dehydrator, and preserved it for another day.

The bananas turn into banana chips. The cherries turn into dried cherries. Both are amazing in a trail mix and can also be used in baked goods. Do you do any baking during the holidays? Isn't it expensive to have to buy all your ingredients all at once? If you were dehydrating, you could gradually build up your ingredient supply and wouldn't have to purchase it all at once.

The dried apples you make can be baked into pies or just eaten raw. Dried apples are fantastic (not to mention healthy) snacks.

Dried veggies like carrots, beans, peas, and corn make great soup veggies. Dehydrate your tomatoes and onions, then powder them in your blender or food processor. No more buying onion powder from the store! Or, dice the onion and dehydrate it. Add some beef bullion granules and you've made your own onion soup mix. The tomato powder can be reconstituted with hot water to make tomato juice, tomato sauce, and tomato paste.

Slice up potatoes and dehydrate them to make your own scalloped potato mix.

That's how I got started with dehydrating - just preserving fresh produce and leftovers that I was tired of throwing away. It may not seem like a lot at first, but it adds up.

After you do that, then it becomes much easier to intentionally dehydrate foods. You start looking for fresh or even frozen foods on sale that you could dehydrate. You see a 2 for 1 special on fresh mushrooms. You see that frozen mixed vegetables are on sale. A neighbor's apple tree is weighted down with fruit and you offer to pick it.

Then is when you really start building up a store and when you start discovering all the ways you can use your dehydrated goodies.

Make a pasta sauce that tastes garden fresh, using canned tomatoes and a handful or two of your own dehydrated mushrooms and bell peppers.

Make vegetable stew out of leftover dehydrated veggies.

Watch as the kids wolf down your awesome homemade trail mix with nuts, your own dried fruits and maybe a few chocolate chips tossed in.

Relax with a cup of mint tea made out of your very own dehydrated mint leaves.

Get a jump on the holidays once again as you put together gifts of "mix in a jar" - but this time, made from your very own dehydrated creations instead of storebought.

It's possible with a dehydrator.