[juliec]

Hi all,

Ive been reading how some of you are all busy drying your gluts of fruit and veg, do you all have electric drying machines and what do you use the dried fruit and veg for.  Oh and how do you store it?

Sorry to be naive but Im still learning an awful lot from you all.

Thanks for your patience and help.

Juliec

[New shoot]

Quite a few of us have dehydrators and if you do a search on that, you find quite a few threads on here where they are discussed.  The Busy Time thread in this section mentions them a fair bit as well.

I store my stuff in glass jars, but any airtight container will do.  I use dried veg a lot when I do slow-cooker meals like chilli or stews and its very useful in soups as well.  Tomato slices are good in salads, rice dishes and the like.  Dried greens are great to add to curries instead of spinach.  The uses are endless really once you start exploring the options.

Dried fruit is nice to eat straight out of the jar, but is also good on cereal, for baking or eating as a pud with yogurt, or ice-cream 

[Trillium]

Like New Shoot, I too store mine in glass jars because poly containers do leak air over time and eventually spoil items. And rodents can easily chew through poly.  I have the added advantage of having a food vacuum sealer unit that removes air from the jars HERE with a special lid attachment and I can store and reseal those items for many years. The unit uses the 2 piece lids for mason jars.

To clarify for some, dehydrated veg and fruits are used as food staples in themselves, never as MRE's (ready to eat meals).

Much of my dried veg are used for soups, sauces and stews. It's a 30 min round trip to the nearest shops if I've run out of celery or whatever, especially in winter when the veg prices are climbing so fast and high (same with fuel prices). This past winter a small head of celery cost $3 (just over 2 Euros) which is ridiculous so I buy celery very cheap in summer to have for off seasons. Mushrooms get rehydrated in water for sauces and pizzas. Dried fruit is rehydrated in water, drained, and used in muffins, cakes, puddings, etc. We pop dried lemons into cups of hot tea in winter, no more overpriced, bitter or spoiling lemons.

Another bonus of dehydrating is that you can make your own powders like garlic powder, tomato powder, red pepper powder to enhance dishes. You dehydrate the item to brittle then run it through a grinder like an unused coffee grinder or food processor until it's powder, then pour into storage jars. This way you get the true, rich flavour rather than shop items that have (unlisted!!) flour, cellulose!!!! or other items for 'pourability' or to cut costs. 2 of my neices suffer with celiac disorder and informed me that all commercial garlic/onion/etc powders contain flour or starches they cannot eat. By making your own, you know exactly what's in it, how it was grown, etc.   

[Annen]

Ooh Trillium, I'm suffering from gadget envy

[Madame Cholet]

Also great for back packing holidays or self catering when you are traveling by train because of the light weight.

I found mushrooms, grated carrots and onions made loads of different dishes while I was away.
I use old jam jars with a layer of cling film to give a good air lock.