[pct-l] Dehydrating veggies

[dicentra]

Yay! A food question! I love food questions.
 
I have a whole page on my website dedicated to dehydrating.  A lot of your questions can be answered there. http://onepanwonders.com/dehydrator.html
 
Yes! On using the frozen veggies! I have corn and broccoli in my dehydrator right now. 

I've been doing a lot of jerky lately. I buy the seasoning kits from Cabelas and meat pre-sliced from the Korean market. You can also get the butcher to slice the meat thinly for you. That way you can make sure your pieces are even (for even drying times).  I season my meat the evening before and then put them on the dehydrator trays and let it run on it's highest temp. (I have a blog post about this coming up this week, btw).

Stinky stuff like onions, I do outside. I got in big trouble with the hubby once when I ran 8 trays of mushrooms. He HATES mushrooms and the house had a lovely earthy smell for a day. Oops. 

I don't know what to tell you about the kiwis. I've never had them turn brown on me. 

If I missed answering anything let me know. Always happy to talk food! :)
 
~Di


http://www.onepanwonders.com ~ Backcountry Cooking at its Finest
http://www.freewebs.com/dicentra 

 

--- On Mon, 3/25/13, Kristin Hamann <aggie03.kh at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Kristin Hamann <aggie03.kh at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Dehydrating veggies
To: "melbobs at gmail.com" <melbobs at gmail.com>
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net
Date: Monday, March 25, 2013, 7:14 AM


Sometimes I use frozen veggies because they are already cut up and some are
blanched/pre-treated.  I spend the extra $0.50 on higher quality ones that
say they are picked at peak of freshness and frozen immediately.  I have
done frozen spinach, broccoli (florets work better; the stems seem to come
out woody and turn brown), berries, and peas.  I have done fresh onions,
peppers, kale, mushrooms, bananas, mango, and papaya with no pre-treatment.
I have done cooked carrots, sweet potatoes, beans, lentil soup, and wild
rice.  Also did low fat spaghetti sauce and red clam sauce, spread thin on
a fruit-roll tray and then powdered in my food processor.  All came out
great dehydrated at 135 F.
My dehydrated kiwis turned brown within a few days, and my pears came out
chewy.  Any advice on fruits?  Should I be pre-treating some of them with
ascorbic acid, lemon juice, or something else?  Planning on doing sockeye
salmon, tuna, and deer jerky (I don't eat meat except for some wild game
and wild-caught fish).  I am new to jerky, so any advice would be
appreciated!

k