What are you dehydrating?

[GillyBee]

I dehydrated sliced ginger and used it in ginger tea. It was ok but I think grated might be a better idea than sliced. I also grate and store ginger in ice cube trays in the freezer which works well for surplus roots.

[jennyjj01]

Today, a half dozen shrink wrap packs of blanched beetroot, from Home Bargain at 35p each. Much cheaper than same product from anywhere else. e.g. 90p from Morrisons. Cheaper, cleaner and a darned sight easier than blanching my own.

Shrunk down to a half a small mason jar, now vac sealed.

To be used in my vegetarian lamb shami kebabs. Colour and texture are spot on. Flavour comes from the herbs. Recipe to follow.

This was my previous try viewtopic.php?f=17&t=15975&p=200364&hilit=kebab#p200364

[Quill]

Lemons are great for freezing.
I have a bag of lemons and a bag of limes pre cut in the freezer if the need for cocktails arises.
Ginger on the other hand, I'm not so sure.

I got a load of cheap blood oranges a few months back I tried to dehydrate. After a couple of weeks it was furry. They need to dried for days, so I'd assume the same for any citrus.

I dehydrated sliced ginger and used it in ginger tea. It was ok but I think grated might be a better idea than sliced. I also grate and store ginger in ice cube trays in the freezer which works well for surplus roots.

I don't know why I never considered freezing lemons/ginger, thanks for the headsup!

[pseudonym]

Meat Crisps:

https://youtu.be/L8h2YhOuk9I


Morrisons' Continental Meat selection pack containing Chorizo, Salami Napoli, German style salami was used for this experiment,nice thin slices in this pack.

After 4 hours they are not quite dry enough as crisps yet.

As mentioned in the above video your trays will get greasy from the oils, I placed parchment paper on the tray beneath the ones with slices on and caught most of the drips. The Chorizo gave off the most. Back in for a further hour.

As I have just come off a 40hr fast; (my first) the smells are driving me bonkers.....




So 5 hours in total and the consistency of really crispy bacon. A real Winner.

Oh, and not for long term storage they wont last that long

[rik_uk3]

I was in the polytunnel at 07:30 and picked chillis, peppers and cucumbers so I'll be making more chutney and also drying some chillis which I blitz into flakes. All my chilli seeds sprouted this year so I'll have enough chutney for a year and I'll pickle a lot of them (sweet pickle).

[jennyjj01]

Meat Crisps:

https://youtu.be/L8h2YhOuk9I

Was given a big cucumber from neighbours glut of a crop, far too big to use in one go, so I made some cucumber crisps Sliced and vinegared then dehydrated 12 hours. Then salted and popped in a ziploc bag. An amusing way to preserve half a cucumber for a week or so. Tip. They stick to the racks and disintegrate a bit when removed, so best to use some parchment. Need to experiment with flavouring them.

Yesterday picked up a tray of big mushrooms for *£1 (about 1.8kg) Half went to make 5 big ziploc portions of the greyest most unappealing soup you can imagine. Tasty enough but dark as mud.
The other half peeled and sliced and filled 3 shelves of the dryer. Those big mushrooms are too dark to look nice when dried, so I'm going to try to make mushroom powder, which I then have to find a use for. Gravy additive? More soup?
I'll be keeping these dried big mushrooms separate from my dried small ones.
*It was an expensive pound with all the faffing that ensued.

[jennyjj01]

Unsure if it's true,HotUKDeals and facebook groups saying that Aldi will be offering some 19p veg packs as of Thursday.
I've contacted ALDI to see if it's true.

"Aldi Super 6 Xmas Veg: Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Parsnips, Potatoes, Swede -19p/pack from 16-24 Dec @ Aldi Instore
£0.19"

If so, I guess we should fill our boots and fire up our dehydrators.
They don't define 'pack' but last year some were 500g. So not an absolute steal.

[jennyjj01]

I've just had confirmation from ALDI.

Aldi Super 6 Xmas Veg: Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Parsnips, Potatoes, Swede -19p/pack from 16-24 Dec @ Aldi Instore

Warm up those dehydrators. Ready with those vac packers and jars! Even if some of the packs are only 500g, can't be bit at those prices. Time to revisit attempting to make my own potato flakes.

[GreyMan123]

Dehydration is not a method of preserving I had thought of?!
Anyone got an idea how much these cost to run?
I normally have a massive crop of pears, be good to try freeze some, bags full of frozen ones!!

[GillyBee]

If you had one rated 500W running full tilt it would cost about 11p an hour or £2.64 for a full 24 hours In practice they run at lower temperatures and would not use this much power but may need to run for longer. My attempt at dehydrating pears was so so - or maybe we were spoilt by the Grapetree commercial dried pears. I find mine very good for drying herbs and also use it to make apple puree into fruit leather as well as drying a selection of vegetables - mushrooms, carrot, sweede, cherry tomatoes etc.
I have not been brave enough to try anything like jerky yet.