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What are you dehydrating today?


Rezgirl

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I realized about a week ago that our local small grocery store is selling alot more organic veggies and the prices are pretty good, so I will start taking advantage of that next month!

It looks like the peaches will take about 12-13 hours today, not bad, since the book said it could take 16 hours. I have it at 135F, as it said between 130 and 140 degrees. Just checked them. They look good but they do stick, don't they?

:D

I am finding the dehydrator great for fruit as I can buy large quantities for me and dry them, not worrying about the fresh fruit going bad because I can get right to it as it ripens. ( The peaches and plums were rock hard when I bought them this week and had to ripen the peaches in a paper bag). I got about 5.5 pounds in the 4 trays and look forward to getting 4 more trays to use, next month.

 

I made hamburger rocks soup tonight with dehydrated hamburger, mushrooms, carrots with two bouillion cubes. It took about 45 mins. simmering it to make them all rehydrate and it tasted pretty good. ( the hamburger rocks are kept in the freezer.)

 

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I pitted and quartered some large plums and have been dehydrating them, it is taking longer than it estimated by a bunch of hours because the plums were quite large. Generally they are ok, and taste like a dry prune now. I think I prefer dehydrating peaches though, out of the two!

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I have 3 trays of bing cherries in the dehydrator this evening. Between a good deal at a local grocery store, and coupons, I was able to get about 7 lbs for less than .50. I crushed enough cherries for a batch of jam, put that in the freezer for a less busy time, and halved the rest for the dehydrator. Too bad this did not happen a couple of weeks ago when the humidity was non-existant. They would have dried in half the time!

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I just finished three trays of tomato juice dried to a crisp. I peeled them off the fruit roll-up trays and then flaked them into a nice clean jar. They look so nice in there and they work fantastic to thicken tomato based foods.

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Apricots and next is grapes. I have 10 quart size bags stuffed with dried cots in the freezer. I have about two more loads to go and then I'm through with them! YEAH!

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Andrea, that is a lot of apricots. How nice for you ! I bet those would be good diced in scones.

 

I don't think my family will let them make it into scones! Dried Apricots are a favorite around our house. DH and DD love them and they are so expensive that they have always been a "treat" in the past. But this year, I was blessed/cursed with a huge amount of free apricots and have been canning and dehydrating up a storm for the past week and a half. My family and friends will all be getting apricot jam this Christmas! But I have to admit, it feels good to almost be done with them!

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I think it was Stephanie who was dehydrating spaghetti sauce awhile back, but I can't remember for sure. I was wondering if anyone has a recipe for it and do you just dry it the same way as the tomato sauce and how do you rehydrate it and how do you dry it to a powder and what do you do to get it to a powder? Any tips would be appreciated I'm thinking maybe I should use all this juice I have up with the dehydrator and CAN the fresh tomatoes when they come in. Just a thought.

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I get to post here :bounce:

 

I got some bargain bags of veggies, mostly peppers, so they'll be my first try with the dehydrator.

 

There are green and red bells, jalapenos and some yellow ones, I'm not sure what they are, banana peppers maybe?

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Im dehydrating ground beef and ground turkey. They rehydrate in the same pot as I cook the ramen noodles or rice in for emergency meals. They will even rehydrate using wrap cooking to save fuel. They are the major protein in my homade dried food meals for my BOB. My spouse loves taste testing them. For good ideas. check out The Supermarket Backpacker. Got my copy used from Amazon. Many many good recipes for dehydrated foods that are palatable enough for the hooked on name brands folks. I dry my meats, put in baggies with some bouillon and a couple cups minute rice (or regular) and dehydrated veggies of choice. I usually add some knorr spring vegetable soup mix, has lots of cool veggies. Package it up, Stir into boiling water to rehydrate and dinner is done in 10-15 min. I also hadd dried meats to any rice or pasta with sauce mix when the store has those on sale (I stock up). My husband is sort of picky, but he likes these. I fit a weeks worth of meals for two (3 meals plus snack every day) in a 5 gal pail for toting. Do check out the book, it gave me wonderful ideas.

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You do know drying ground meats is unsafe, don't you ?? Only lean cuts of meat, done as jerky, using current guidelines is considered safe to do.

Ground meats can easily grow bacteria before they get dry and you can get food poisoning from them. That is just the basic reason. There are former posts on it, if you are concerned.

Not even jerky with ground meat is considered safe nowdays.

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I finished zucchini slices and tablespoon globs of tomato paste. Right now there's about 8 cups of shredded zucchini...seems to be sticking pretty badly, I'll try to shuffle them around every so often.

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I did three pounds ( before drying) of ground turkey into jerky yesterday. It was marked down meat, less than $1 per pound. It took all six of my trays. Got another package at the same price in the freezer to make into jerky later. I use the jerky seasoning and cure packets from Nesco.

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Cricket,

Sorry to say this, but, not even the packages of seasons are considered safe to use with any ground meats. We are now teaching no ground meats for jerky of any kind. Too risky for food poisoning. Only lean, solid slices of meat are considered safe to use and need to be precooked in a marinade to 160 degrees before drying. That, or use a vinegar predip. It does make it taste like vinegar. Some like it, some don't.

 

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so, those real thin slices of roast beef that I buy for sandwiches are good for jerky making? ( hubby WAS in a roast beef sandwich kick and now he's NOT) I have like 2 unopened packages to use up!

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Oooh, I want to hear the answer to this one... I've never heard of jerky being made from already-processed meats. :shrug:

 

But I gotta start a new thread because this one's already over 200. :(

 

 

 

 

Dehydrating link to part 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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