Food drying - Dehydrators (merged)

Pitlanepiglet

Sorry....third post!

Mushrooms....nom nom nom....these are fantastic, they have so much flavour. I shall dehydrate the rest of the box of mushrooms tomorrow - highly recommended, they are going to be fantastic on pizza!

(as an aside Costco mushrooms are around £2.40 (ish can't quite remember) per kilo for good quality mushrooms which seems to be the best I can find)

midnightraven3

lemons retain a lot more colour in a dehydrator than air drying

these are just done today
the darker one, one i did last year air drying

yet to see how they compare in smell etc
that one from last year still smells very lemony
so although it doesnt look as nice, for pot pourri etc, it worked

Pitlanepiglet

Thanks for the pic midnight raven, they look fab. Mine are in the dehydrator and drying nicely, they look fab, I'm hoping that they will rehydrate nicely in drinks but I guess if they don't I'll just use them as decorations!

Sunnyday

Midnight raven your lemons look lovely!

I`ve just been sorting through a cupboard and the oranges and lemons that i dried until they were brittle previously are now bendy and supple :eek:

Will they still be ok? Any comments appreciated.

I had intended to use most of them as christmas decs or maybe pot pourri but it would be nice to be able to throw a couple of slices in the slowcooker with a chicken.

SD

ceridwen

Yikes - just reminded me must check out how my limes are drying. First time for doing anything citrus-y - so set the dehydrator up for 6 hours last night. Better go and check if they need any more...

Think I will blitz mine into "lime dust" and use in drinks maybe?

EDIT: well 6 hours wasnt quite enough - so have put another 3 hours "on the clock" and see if that does the trick.

[Deleted User]

lol piglet. Yes I`ll pick my moment. Dh has just left on a long cycle ride and will be back at 2ish and oh so grateful that I always support him going, so when he comes back will be a pretty good time to sow the dehydrator seed in his head. I`ll just mention it once and then leave it and it always works!!!

Those citrus fruits look absolutely fantastic. Another trip to costco is on the cards soon for citrus and tomatoes at least but it has to be worthwhile because of the distance. We went last week and saved a good £60 on the vouchers alone, just on essentials. I`ll have to justify more essentials to myself first but there is a limit to where I can store a years supply of loo rolls and kitchen rolls just so I can get the cheaper fruits

Pitlanepiglet

Kittie, Costco fruit and veg is lovely isn't it, the quality is fantastic. I left my lemons a bit too long and they were starting to go over, I've dehydrated some and they look fine but I've frozen the rest for now. The mushrooms are stunning though, they do 1kg boxes and the flavour of them dehydrated is soooo intense!

Right need to check on the peppers and lemons that I left going overnight, some of the pieces of pepper were a bit big and they hadn't dried well when I went to bed last night. Definitely a learning point there, the rings dried quite quickly but some of the thicker chunks weren't very successful.

[Deleted User]

:rotfl: No way could I hide that new dehyrator. Lol, bless him he just took it in his stride as usual. I have managed to store it on the work surface in my utility and it leaves me about a square foot for everything else but I am still breathing a sigh of relief about finding somewhere to put it. That was yesterday and yesterday I bought 2 bags of lemons and 5 oranges in morrisons. My borner slicer came yesterday too and boy it looks lethal, however I am treating it with respect. The one I bought can make different thicknesses which is what I wanted

so today I did the citrus slices on the borner and it was so easy and all very neat and quick. That amount filled the 9 trays and they are dehydrating at 135 for 4 hours to start. I looked at the book and humidity in here tells me 4 hours but I`ll see. I can see a lot of uses for the slices and not least as a grind to add to cakes etc

The smell is divine

edit: finished. They took 6 hours.

Pitlanepiglet

Well done Kittie, glad he took it in his stride. Mine is pretty enthusiastic about ours and the benefits it will bring (slightly less enthusiastic having spent the last two weeks peeling and slicing apples to go in it :rotfl: still only two bags of apples to go.......)

What did you think of the lemons? I'm not very impressed, they look pretty'ish but I'm not sure what I'll use them for.

Can you provide a link to your slicer please?

[Deleted User]

I got my slicer on ebay and it is now safely out of harms way on a high shelf

The lemons look fab and they will be cool enough now for me to bag. I intend to chop finely and use in cakes, to add to fish, to flavour tea, to make hot lemon and I`m sure I`ll think of other uses before long. We lve 5 miles from the nearest shop so it`s a great way to have access to lemons