[pct-l] Dehydrating veggies

[Jennifer Zimmerman]

In the past when I had the luxury of more time in prepping for a trip I'd
do my own veggies. Frozen worked great for peas, carrots, and especially
veggie medley ( usually carrot, pea, corn, broccoli, and some sort of
bean). Dump them right from the bag onto the tray and go - I usually didn't
even thaw them.  Fresh peppers and mushrooms were great...I don't think I
ever tried a veggie and had it dry badly. I preferred canned corn to
frozen but I've always been that way.

For the pct the timing and dehydrator usage was just not feasible for my
situation since I was trying to do a lot of complete meals so I bought a
lot of dried veg and potato from Rainy Day Foods, who seemed to have the
best price per #10 can.  I hated to spend the money, though, and it took me
way too long to admit that I couldn't do it myself. I still do mushrooms on
my own because we add them to nearly every meal and the prices seem
especially high for pre-dried.  At my local grocery store i can buy 8 oz
boats of pre-sliced white shrooms and that really cut down on the prep -
just wash, spin in a salad spinner to dry, and scatter on trays.

I also bought quite a bit of flavored TVP to supplement meals from
Honeyville.  I cooked some meat on my own, but the TVP will save me some
time and money by helping me stretch the beef and chicken I have on hand.

Regarding fruit, soaking in ascorbic or citric acid should work. I've never
done this on my own but instructions will be easy to find on the net.  I
didn't do whole fruits but I did a lot of leathers last summer. I'd use
drained canned peaches or pears as a base, add a bag of frozen berries, and
cook the whole mixture for a while to stop any remaining enzymatic
activity. Then purée, sweeten - not much - and dry. They were much tougher
than store bought but were great to gum on as we hiked along.
Peach-blueberry, mixed berry, peach Melba, strawberry banana (using real
banana) and cherry lime (using fresh cherries and lime) all turned out
great. I didn't try it, but applesauce or canned pineapple would likely
make a good base to build off too.

Best of luck planning your food! I just finalized my meal targets last
night, so I can start packing and sealing and labeling today!

JZ

On Monday, March 25, 2013, dicentra wrote:

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> Oh that's right, Kale.
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> I've found that kale/spinach etc tend to crumble after they've dried. Good
> for adding vitamins and color, but don't expect a lot of texture. I lightly
> (!!!) blanche the kale before it goes in. Spinach, I put in raw.
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> Another thing I do all summer long is hit the local farm stand and buy the
> clearance boxes (2 for a case of fill-in-the-blank).  Usually this is
> slightly bruised or perfectly ripe fruit/veg that the market can't have
> with the regular stocks. I'm still working through last years tomatoes.
>
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> http://www.onepanwonders.com ~ Backcountry Cooking at its Finest
> http://www.freewebs.com/dicentra
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