Showing posts with label dehydrating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dehydrating. Show all posts
April 28, 2010
A Great Resource for Dehydrating Food
A friend of mine sent me a link to this wonderful website that gives video tutorials and recipes on how to dehydrate almost any type of food. The web site is Dehydrate2Store. I've only spent a short time looking through the resources available on the site, but it sure looks like they have a lot of worthwhile information.
March 28, 2010
Dehydrated & Freeze-Dried Foods
Our class on dehydrating showed us that making our own dehydrated food is easy and it doesn't take as long as I thought. Kelli had some great dehydrating tips which can be found HERE. She has a NESCO American Harvest dehydrator and has been very happy with it. Another brand she recommended was an Excalibur dehydrator. Some of the new convection ovens even have a setting for dehydrating foods (check your owners manual for details). Kelli suggested you look for a dehydrator that:
Here are a few websites that give specific instructions on how to dehydrate fruits, vegetables, herbs, and jerky:
You can even make crackers in your food dehydrator! Kelli made some yummy flax seed crackers. She didn't have an exact recipe, but here are some basic directions:
Flax Seed Crackers
1 cup flax seeds, ground (use a coffee grinder or blender)
1 3/4 cup water
seasonings (Parmesan cheese: 1/2 - 5 Tbsp and garlic salt or powder: 1/8 - 1 1/2 tsp; or any other seasonings - you can even add finely chopped or blended vegetables)
Mix the ground flax seeds and water and let sit for 3 or more hours until gelatinous. Mix in seasonings to taste (remember that the flavors will concentrate somewhat as the crackers dehydrate.) Spread mixture as thin as possible (1/4" thick) on dehydrator trays with Teflon sheets. Dehydrate until crisp.
Here are some photos and thoughts on the food we sampled (you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them):
- has an adjustable temperature
- has the fan on the top or on the side
- is expandable (can add extra trays)
Here are a few websites that give specific instructions on how to dehydrate fruits, vegetables, herbs, and jerky:
You can even make crackers in your food dehydrator! Kelli made some yummy flax seed crackers. She didn't have an exact recipe, but here are some basic directions:
Flax Seed Crackers
1 cup flax seeds, ground (use a coffee grinder or blender)
1 3/4 cup water
seasonings (Parmesan cheese: 1/2 - 5 Tbsp and garlic salt or powder: 1/8 - 1 1/2 tsp; or any other seasonings - you can even add finely chopped or blended vegetables)
Mix the ground flax seeds and water and let sit for 3 or more hours until gelatinous. Mix in seasonings to taste (remember that the flavors will concentrate somewhat as the crackers dehydrate.) Spread mixture as thin as possible (1/4" thick) on dehydrator trays with Teflon sheets. Dehydrate until crisp.
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We also talked about the difference between freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. That handout can be found HERE. We then had the opportunity to taste and see the difference in multiple foods. We even tried a few of the Mountain House freeze-dried entrees and they were all quite good. My family uses them when we go camping and they would be wonderful to keep in a 72 Hour Emergency Kit. It would be nice to have a real meal instead of just a granola bar in an emergency.Here are some photos and thoughts on the food we sampled (you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them):
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