What are you dehydrating today? Part 2

[TurtleMama]

Violet, do you have any advice on the drying of homemade egg pasta? I may be overly paranoid, but I always figure better safe than sorry...

[themartianchick]

I'm dehydrating peppers today. My garden is really cranking them out this year! Now if only the tomatoes would follow suit.

[Daylily]

Nectarines and Sungold cherry tomatoes.

 

Our peppers are just now starting to bloom! We have one variety, Sweet Rain, that Pinetree sent as a substitute for Gypsy that has lots of peppers on it.

[TurtleMama]

Oooh, Daylily, I'll be right over for a nectarine snack... hehehe

[out_of_the_ordinary]

Basil. The whole house smells like it now.

[LibraryMama]

We picked about 1/3 of our apples thinking that if we didn't, Earl would claim them. Today, I dehydrated about 1/2 of the ones we picked. This was my first time using the Nesco we got a few weeks ago. My first batch, I sliced the apples too thin. The second batch was better. Neither batch was anything like the dried apples I'm used to, though. I usually buy the kind without sulfur, but they're softer & chewier. Is there a way to get that texture in a dehydrator?

 

(I soaked my slices about 10 minutes in a 4:1 water:lemon juice mixture)

 

Thanks!

[TurtleMama]

10 pounds of carrots, 5 pounds of celery. Tomorrow I'll be dehydrating approximately 15-20 pounds of potatoes and about 9-12 pounds of apples. Woo hoo!

 

Got my first dehydrating-related injury today: a blister on my index finger from peeling and chopping all the carrots! hehehe My DH stepped up for me and finished chopping...I told him I'd be fine with a band-aid but he's my chopping knight in shining armor!

 

LibraryMama, wish I could help you on those apples, but I'm still a dehydrating newbie. I'm certain someone will come in here who's an expert and will be able to give you some really good advice.

 

[Daylily]

TurtleMama, come on over! The nectarines are yummy! Good for your DH knight:)

 

We're still drying cherry tomatoes. They are SO good! We've been canning tomatoes and drying the skins for tomato powder; also drying summer squash.

[CityChick]

How are the peels/skin when you do green peppers? I want to do some this week. I'm wondering how they hydrate back up? For some reason I think the skins will be tough. Our local farmers market has a farmer who offers "fill a bag" for $3.00. They have green peppers, banana peppers, patty pan (this summer at least) and cukes. I'd love to fill a bag of peppers and if they have squash. Put some of that up.

[Daylily]

We dry green and colored peppers and the skins seem to rehydrate fine.

[out_of_the_ordinary]

Working on getting oregano dehydrated. I have several batches of that to do. I've just been dehydrating the leaves. Do people do the stems, too? I wasn't sure so I just did the leaves.

[TurtleMama]

8 full trays of shredded Irish potatoes

[Daylily]

out of the ordinary,

haven't dried oregano but with the basil, we found that sifting the dried leaves in a regular old flour sifter makes the basil just like "store bought". When you get to the last of the batch the stems will start to come through the sifter so we stop sifting and toss that.

[AMarthaByHeart]

Does anyone have suggestions for deyhydrating fruits? My bananas and apples are fine but berries, cherries, etc. always turn out sticky. My veggies are usually okay, also. What am I doing wrong? I watched the dehydrated2store shows but they don't seem to help. Bought dehydrated or freeze dried fruit is to expensive to buy.

 

Help please.

[Vic303]

I'll be drying 4-5 pineapples this week.

[Deerslayer]

i just finished turning a whole deer into a few bags of jerky--glad that is over for the year

[Andrea]

mushrooms

[kathy003]

10 lbs. of strawberries

[Andrea]

More mushrooms and more zucchini, as soon as I'm done I'll start in on some herbs that need to be pruned back - oregano, rosemary, chives, and mints. My parsley seems confused this year!

[snapshotmiki]

Frozen green beans in the dehydrator today! Trying to get started again but until I have a garden, fruit and veggies are not cheap!

 

 

[sassenach]

bump. with prices going up, are more of you dehydrating things like meat and more produce, like making squash chips and such ?

[Ambergris]

Jerky and onions today. I like to dry one bag of onions whenever they go B1G1. My sons toast the dried onion slices and then whizz them in the spice grinder for toasted onion powder. We use a lot of onion chips and onion powder, and that stuff mounts up.

[kykate]

Just ordered an Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator- model 3900. Food costs are really worrying me, and I think that dehydrating is going to be my next way to preserve and stockpile food. I hope this post "rejuvenates" as the growing season gets underway, as I am sure I will need lots of help!

Kate

[Andrea]

I have two oregano plants that are attempting global domination, so I put them in their place - the old dehydrator that doesn't get hot enough for anything but herbs! My house smells like spaghetti right now!

[Kelly]

I'm working on my 3rd head of cabbage and 1 more to go to put in soup. I've never done much dehydrating other then onions and jerky but I'm gonna try some new things now especially things to make up soup mixes.