Dried Up Stuff

When we went to Israel last spring - notice how I'm just throwing that casually into conversation as if we just run over there every other day? - we went up on Mount Masada.  Way up.  On a monorail.  Made out of glass.  But that's a different story.  Anyway when archaeologists explored those ruins they found dehydrated wheat that had been stored as part of the food available for the soldiers/families who lived there a couple of thousand years ago.  They took it back to the lab and it sprouted!  Not only that but dehydrated wheat found in pyramids has also sprouted!  People have been dehydrating food to last from one summer to the next ever since man figured out how to do it.  Even during World Wars I and II Americans dehydrated food because of the shortage of canning supplies.  All of that has been rolling around in my brain until I finally came to this conclusion:  if they could do it, I could do it.  And not only could I do it, but I should do it.  I can stuff - especially love tomatoes and green beans and soup canned, and we love having it in the winter long after the fresh vegetables are gone.  I haven't done as much lately since #1 I've gotten older, #2 it's harder to find farm fresh vegetables where I live now, and #3 I work at a mission in Louisiana in the summer and I'm not at home.  Dehydrated foods take up much less space than canned foods and last longer - if stored correctly some can last 30 years!

So first I bought this:

I know this is hard to see but it's black.  And that's hard to get a picture of for me - I'm photography challenged.  It's an Excalibur 9 tray Food Dehydrator.  It's supposed to be the best.  My sister told me that.  It's about the size of a large microwave but doesn't weigh as much.  I can pick it up and move it, which I have to do because I don't have the counter space to keep it out all the time.

It comes with 9 plastic trays that slide in after you put the food on them.  You turn on the dehydrator, wait anywhere from 6 to 30 hours depending on what you're dehydrating and it comes out all dried up.  The trays look like this.

This is right after I washed them yesterday when I had just dehydrated a case of pineapple slices.  Yes, a case (12) cans of Libby's Pineapple Slices in juice (drained) makes 2 quarts plus 1 pint of dehydrated pineapple.  And it's a wonderful snack - healthy and delicious.  Plus when rehydrated I can make Pineapple Cake.  My husband loves Pineapple Cake.  I know because I made it once when we were very young.

We plan to make deer jerky soon because we have some meat left from last year and it's time to deer hunt again.  I've also dehydrated all this.

There's broccoli, okra, hash brown potatoes, zucchini, onions, corn, apples, celery and more.  The small jar in the front - I also dehydrated the apple peelings, ground them up in my blender, and this will make apple tea.  You can get frozen vegetables on sale and dehydrate them - put them on the trays frozen!  That's how I did the potatoes and onions.  I have some real sweet potatoes to do tomorrow and some real white potatoes (not frozen).  But I'm going to do some more apples, celery and broccoli for sure because fall is when they're pretty cheap.  You can do pumpkin too!  And also I'm going to make tomato leather - tomato sauce dehydrated and broken into pieces will store great.  I'm going to put it into Food Saver bags with the dehydrated veggies to make soup in a bag.  To store dehydrated foods you must seal them in bags (I put an oxygen pack in mine to take out all the oxygen left after I've sealed it) and store them as much out of the light as you can so they won't lose their nutrients.

If you've been thinking about trying to store extra food in case of whatever - times when the electricity might be out from ice or tornadoes, etc. this is a great way to do it.  It takes less time than canning, it takes less space, and it takes less $ to prepare.  It costs about a nickel an hour to run the dehydrator.

Does anyone else dehydrate?  I could sure use some tips.  :)

Oh, and that apple tea?  I'm not doing that again.  That powder flies everywhere when you're grinding it in the blender and I'm not that Martha Stewart anyway.