Discover Dehydrating

Dehydrating is one of the oldest ways to preserve food. Our ancestors had to rely upon the energy from the sun.  Foods are now dried with the technology of commercial dehydrators, and even the home enthusiast has tons of choices when it comes to purchasing a dehydrator. 

Why bother with dehydrating? It saves money, space, and the end result gives you plenty of good tasting reasons!

This month, I find myself in a perpetual state of filling and emptying our dehydrators. Anyone that knows me knows I love using them. Close friends will follow up "how are you?" with "what's on the dehydrator this week?" If something isn't being frozen or canned, it is definitely headed to the dehydrator.

We have two dehydrators. One is a nine shelf black unit with a multitude of settings for everything from herbs to meat jerky. Her name is Lucy. She was our first purchase. I adorned her with a full set of silicone liners and there is no limit on what Lucy can do! Not long after we acquired our first unit,  I found myself in need of more dehydrating space. And, just like that, there was a sale on dehydrators, and we bought another one. It's a  five shelved beauty complete with settings and a timer. Lucy and Ethel are now well positioned  in the potting room and do their share of producing fruit roll-ups, dried herbs, snacks, fruit and vegetable powders, dried vegetables for soup mixes. You name it ! It's funny the things that make me happy these days.

Our potting room is like a laboratory of sorts. Silica gel packets, Mason jars in all sizes, and trays on their way in and out. So, when our garden is at its peak, and I find myself running low on space in the freezer and the pantry, dehydrating is just one more way to preserve our bounty. It's the one room in the house that is solely mine...it's my organized mess. Some folks have a den or office, a workshop. I have what I call a potting room. I actually haven't done any potting yet. One of these days, I want to convert the roof to make the space a greenhouse. I can dream, right? For now, it's a space for boots, gardening gloves, baskets for harvesting, and Lucy and Ethel.

Right now they're trying to keep up with the garden. 

As I write this, I can smell the lemongrass and sweet cherries that I put on the shelves this morning. Lemon grass makes great tea and dehydrates easily. The stalks from lemon grass  are frozen for future use in noodle bowls, broths and the occasional stir fry. I twist or braid the grassy parts into small wreaths (about 2" ) and dehydrate them. They stack easily into a mason jar and make a perfect cup of tea. When steeped, just fish out the ring of lemon grass, add a bit of honey or stevia, and perfect!

There is something rewarding about preserving food. Frozen, canned, or dehydrated...preserving food satisfies both the culinarian and frugal parts of me. It is strangely satisfying to stand before a well-stocked pantry of foods grown and preserved here on our little plot of land.  It's like having one more tool in your homesteading tool belt....heck in in your tool belt period. 

Throughout the summer, we've dried everything from apples to strawberries to blueberries, cherries and elderberries. Zucchini and yellow squash are some of my favorite veggies to dehydrate and are the star ingredients, along with our scarlet runner beans in a kick ass minestrone soup. Believe it or not, they cook up beautifully, unlike fresh squash which quickly softens to an undesirable mush. Mushrooms, onions for onion powder, herbs...the list goes on. I even dehydrated a chocolate chip pound cake that might have headed to the garbage-- and like magic, it was transformed into crunchy biscotti like treats.

So, to dry, or not to dry? Of course, to dry!! If you're not sure if you would actually

use a dehydrator, you can experiment with using your oven. Some ovens have ultra low temperatures which make it possible. Dehydrators also run from very simple, inexpensive units with one temperature setting to those with shelves and a variety of settings.  One thing is for certain: once you discover dehydrating, a whole new world opens, where ordinary foods and ones perhaps headed for the bin (crackers, cereals, cakes), are transformed into new and delicious products that have a longer shelf life.