Food drying - Dehydrators (merged)

twiz21

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Well ours is on and packed with apples, good job too as it's really windy here today and the apple tree is shedding apples like you've never seen - I think the dehydrator is going to be working overtime!

I wondered what others did to slice apples? We don't have a corer so we're cutting them into quarters to core them, it's going to take hours to slice them all by hand so we put the first lot through the slicer on the food processor, it slices a little more thinly than I'd have liked and the slices aren't pretty but hopefully they will do the job perfectly fine. I'd be interested in what others do?

I did my apples with a peeler/corer/slicer that you turn by hand - until it kept falling apart and broke.

After that I peeled them with a potato peeler, used a press down slicer corer then sliced each segment into smaller pieces before drying. Sprayed a bit of lemon juice to stop them going brown.

Pitlanepiglet

Do you manage to get them to a fairly consistent size cutting by hand or does it not matter too much?

twiz21

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Do you manage to get them to a fairly consistent size cutting by hand or does it not matter too much?

The slices did vary a bit but they were all thin enough.

Just had a thought - when I do them again I may just peel and core and see what happens when I run them through the meat slicer.

The meat slicer worked well with peeled mangoes, courgettes and bananas. Peeled bananas were broke on half widthways and run through 2 pieces at a time. Courgettes also 2 at a time.

twiz21

ceridwen wrote: »

Does anyone dry potatoes - and, if so, how?

I tried the method in a dehydrator cookbook of slicing thinly, a few minutes blanching in an electric steamer and then drying.

YUK!

Not very nice smell while they were doing - very earthy! and they've come out somewhat darkened and dont look very tempting somehow...

So - wondering what other peoples experiences are of drying potatoes - either cooked or uncooked in advance.

My attempts to prepare and dehydrate white potatoes were messy and lumpy (steaming or boiling in skins first). When dehydrated and then reconstituted they had a horrible taste. I just got instant mash for my store cupboard which is fine.

I have heard that sweet potatoes are easier to prepare and turn out more like the fresh ones. Boil or steam in the skin then peel and roll out between 2 pieces of non stick paper on the dehydrator tray. Peel off the top sheet, ready to dehydrate.

Confuzzled

hello all

i've got a load of scrumped apples drying right now and in the slowcooker i have more of them stewing with some of last years elderberry cordial (read 'failed jam') this lot will be made into fruit leathers!

i'm curious as to why people are peeling their apples before dehydrating them... a lot of the vitamin content is there as is the most fibre and they taste great with them...

we're going to expirment with making spiced pumpkin and banana leathers, i'll let everyone know how it goes... when i get some more yogurt i'll make some banana and yogurt leathers, my daughter loves these

i'm curious to know what other kinds of fruit leathers people make here. i didn't use to make many as i hated fiddling with waxed paper but i bought some silcone baking tray liners off ebay, cut to fit complete with hole in the middle for airflow and now i love making them!

Confuzzled

rhosynbach wrote: »

hi sunnyday the apples in cinnamon are lovely arent they my kids love them we are eating them now i only got my dehydrator few weeks ago and am so pleased the other favourite with apples is dipping them in blackberrys cooked with tiny bit of sugar then put through a seive they taste brilliant my 10 year old said they were better than sweets and they look good to did you do the chillis whole or sliced as i have some to use, thanks

ooh that gives me a brilliant idea, i have more apples to dry and plenty of last years elderberry cordial so i'll try dipping them in that before drying them!

Pitlanepiglet

Our apples are mainly windfalls so aren't always very nice on the outside so we peel ours. Horses for courses I guess.

Ours have just finished and they taste great! We did some plain and some cinnamon ones and they are really good. We've been eating apples since the end of August so it's good to do something different with them!

We stewed up the off bits of apple that didn't get dried and had them for tea and I'll make leathers from the next lot of stewed fruit I think.

Confuzzled

ceridwen wrote: »

Does anyone dry potatoes - and, if so, how?

I tried the method in a dehydrator cookbook of slicing thinly, a few minutes blanching in an electric steamer and then drying.

YUK!

Not very nice smell while they were doing - very earthy! and they've come out somewhat darkened and dont look very tempting somehow...

So - wondering what other peoples experiences are of drying potatoes - either cooked or uncooked in advance.

i've made veggie crisps both with and without sauteeing first

i'll say right now the ones lightly sauteed in butter til a bit translucent /bendy taste so much better than just plain

sweet potato, beet and carrot aren't too bad just au natural but the onions, potoaes and parsnips were far superior sauteed

you can also make up a veggie seasoning mix made up of various dried veg ground up and add in a touch of salt or crumbled oxo cubes and sprinkle this over them mmmmm

as for drying potato to reconstitute later, haven't tried it, sorry

Confuzzled

ceridwen wrote: »

I havent tried drying lemons yet...I think next time I come across a large bag of limes going cheaply I must have an experiment with that. I believe one can blitz dried lemons or limes into a sorta "citrus dust" that is good for flavouring various things. As I'm very partial to citrusy flavours of all descriptions - then that will probably be a nice one for me.

you could make your own lemon pepper which is amazing on cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and fish mmmmm

you could also make up orange pepper i should think to use with chicken and pork if you did oranges instead

ceridwen

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Well ours is on and packed with apples, good job too as it's really windy here today and the apple tree is shedding apples like you've never seen - I think the dehydrator is going to be working overtime!

I wondered what others did to slice apples? We don't have a corer so we're cutting them into quarters to core them, it's going to take hours to slice them all by hand so we put the first lot through the slicer on the food processor, it slices a little more thinly than I'd have liked and the slices aren't pretty but hopefully they will do the job perfectly fine. I'd be interested in what others do?

Isn't there some gadget that Lakeland stock (offhand - think its about £18?) that cores/peels/etc apples?????

Personally - for my 1 person storage quantity - I slice them manually and cut out the core. I don't actually remove the peel (extra calories and extra food "value" on the goodness front...:)) and then dry them after doing that. (Have just been eating some dried apple slices tonight whilst waiting for dinner to finish and they were fine as usual - even though this was cooking apples. Think drying might have a sorta "sweetening" effect on apples?????).