Food Dehydrators

spyrosmom

Cathlete
We got a food dehydrator for Xmas. I made some beef jerky for DH today, and it is quite tasty. I plan on playing with it tomorrow w/ some bananas, apples, tomatoes, and maybe cranberries. The instructions also say how to make homemade fruit roll ups that are just fruit, no crap. Anybody else have one? What do you guys make with them?

Nan
 
HI Nan:

we don't have one now, but when I was a kid, my mother made all the things you mentioned and we LOVED them all! We have 2 mini-smokers and a Foodsaver so the next logical step would be to think about a dehydrator! Thanks for sharing and let us know how the fruit and other stuff comes out!
 
I love mine. Had one always for about 10+ years. Wouldn't know what to do without one.

Fresh dried herbs for meals, making yogurt, dried vegies and fruits.

Enjoy it!

Janie
4760884_bodyshot_175x233.gif
 
Ooh, I love our dehydrator! We use it for all the things you mentioned... plus my in-laws have an apricot tree, so we dry a lot of apricots in the summer. Yum! The fruit leather is awesome! And making your own "sun-dried" tomatoes is the best. We tried that for the first time this year with the extra from our garden & they are to die for! :)

There's also this cookbook I've had my eye on for awhile, it's supposed to be excellent.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/06...GFJBJHUDOL0&ref_=wl_it_dp&colid=1P2TPBM7MHSJJ

:D Good luck!!! :D
 
My mom also did this when I was growing up. I loved the dried apple rings and strawberry fruit "roll ups". I want to get one. which kind did you get??
 
My mom also did this when I was growing up. I loved the dried apple rings and strawberry fruit "roll ups". I want to get one. which kind did you get??


We got this one

http://www.amazon.com/Nesco-American-Harvest-FD-35BJW-5-Snackmaster/dp/B000FFVIQK/ref=pd_sim_b_30

It was a gift from FIL. He works at Menard's, so I'm betting it was purchased there, that's where he gets everyone's gifts from. It needs some kind of screen to go in it to make fruit roll ups, so I will order one of those. The holes in the screens it came with are too big.

Nan
 
I love dried bananas!
Just slice up bananas and dry them, no sugar added. (those very-ripe bananas on sale in the grocery stores work great for this).
The only problem is that I eat them really fast, and the calories add up.

You can also blend very-ripe bananas with other fruits to make fruit roll-ups (you have to get a solid mat to pour the ingredients on, NOT a screen. Usually, these mats are Teflon coated).

I've also made coconut macaroons (raw coconut, almond meal--I got this my grinding up raw soaked almonds to make almond milk: it's what''s left over after the straining--some agave nectar and vanilla to taste. Form into cookie shapes and dry).

I also like to soak raw nuts (6-8 hours for almonds and other hard large nuts, 4-6 hours for walnuts) or seeds (2-4 hours for sunflower seeds), then rinse and dry in the dehydrator. You can add sweetener and cinnamon, or a bit of soy sauce and spices before drying to make flavored nuts). Soaking the nuts starts the germination process, which increases nutritional value--as in sprouts--and removes some of the antinutrients in the husk of nuts that make them less digestible).

You can also dry a lot of garden produce when you have extra in the summer. Dried and reconstituted tomatoes make a nice thick base for sauces and such.

You can find a LOT of ideas for using a dehydrator in some raw-food recipe books (Alissa Cohen uses it a lot for her recipes: http://www.alissacohen.com/shop/Books-p-1-c-2.html ). Here's another raw-food recipe book with dehydrated foods (They give recipes for many of the items they sell online. Their crackers and cookies are yummy! The crackers are basically ground nuts, flax seed, and spices).

HTH!
http://oneluckyduck.com/product-details.php?id=87
 

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