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Post by auntieannie on Apr 12, 2010 18:43:26 GMT
About two years ago, I bought myself a food dehydrator. Usually, these are considered useful if you have access to a large vegetable garden, an orchard or an allotment. I have no access to "free" vegetables or fruits. This is why I chose a cheap, small plastic model. I thought it would be good as a trial and I have been really happy with it. I understand the electricity used is more or less similar to leaving a lightbulb on for the amount of time the machine is on. Which is about as clear as mud  It is slightly noisy, though. You wouldn't want to sit in the same room as the working food dehydrator. As for anything, there are dreamboat models, all shiny metal and fussy settings... if you really have money to throw away, you may even consider a specially built room with integrated system. Growing up, I remember gathering wild thyme to make herbal tea. Mom would wash the plants properly and lay them on a tray, between two clean tea towels. They would normally dry within 24 hours. If I tried something similar here in the UK, I would most probably find moldy plants still damp three days down the line! Hence the usefulness of the food drier. I bought it to make cheap and healthy snacks for myself, seeing as I was buying dried fruit at exhorbitant prices. What have I successfully dried? - strawberries. In season, we can get 1 lb of fruit for 1 GBP. It goes perfectly in my morning's muesli and friends absolutely love them! - bananas. I've been told that they "actually taste of bananas". as opposed to the sugary polystyrene found in many shops. mine come "au naturel". - pears, mangoes, apples, pineapples. delicious and well worth it. My friends fight over them. - mushrooms. talking about the common field/button mushrooms or "Champignons de Paris". their savour deepens with the drying process. Excellent in sauces and other soups, stews, chilis... - the same goes for bellpeppers What was not as successful/needs to be worked on? - prime cuts of beef - my aim is to make my own "viande sechee" (air-dried beef) which I miss from my home country. The issue there is the machine I bought is less than ideal for that. It would make great jerky, though! - herbs: fresh is so much better! I only dry them when there is not a hope in hell that I will use these within the next few days after receiving our weekly delivery of vegetables. It takes about two hours to dry herbs such as parsley, etc. - Hope is at hand with this new savoury cake recipe I have found. The dried herbs seem to work well with the other ingredients. - peaches and plums: simply due to the bad quality of the fruit available here. What I want to try and dry: - home made stock reduced to a thick puree... I would then have a source of my own instant stock! - making my own fruit leathers out of pureed fruit. But I am told it really gets to your teeth. Do you use a food dehydrator? What are your thoughts about it? If you use one, what do you dry? |
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 12, 2010 18:44:29 GMT
oh, and courgettes also work well.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2010 20:26:00 GMT
That's very interesting, Annie, but frankly, unless I were spending the next several years in a bomb shelter, the thought of drying food does not appeal to me.
I might change my mind if somebody offered me 50 kg of mushrooms free of charge or 100 kg of apples or bananas, but that is quite unlikely.
Tinned and frozen goods do not repulse me, so when I can't get things fresh, I guess I can live with those.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2010 21:55:26 GMT
Annie, I find this topic so interesting. It's not just about preserving food out of necessity, but being able to create specialty items, as you point out. And you are so right about having certain dried items that retain their full, concentrated flavor long after the season has passed. I no longer have a food dehydrator. The one I had sounds like the twin of yours, and it served me well. I got it at a yard sale for almost nothing. Even though I was out in the sticks, I was able to have dried tomatoes in olive oil, for instance, thanks to my garden & the little dehydrator. One of the best things I ever did with it was to dry cushaw. This giant gourd is a very big deal in my family, but they're so big and heavy and the shell so hard, it was getting difficult for my grandmother to deal with them. I had planted them with astounding success when I lived in northern coastal North Carolina. That was great, but what to do with these Volkswagen sized objects? I hacked them into manageable pieces, steamed them, then scraped out the flesh and dehydrated it. I then put that through the coffee/spice grinder and reduced it to powder. I brought the powder with me the next time I visited my grandmother in Louisiana. You should have seen her. She held a quart jar of the stuff as though it were the Hope Diamond. You mention the damp weather in England, however there's a way to dry things there during the hot weather. Louisiana is a giant hot house of humidity, but I've easily dried herbs there. You are right that fresh is better, but if you have lots, you can dry them for gifts. Use the attic. Remember, heat rises. I don't know how hot attics get in England, but they're unbearably hot in Louisiana. Put herbs foliage side down in paper bags, then tie a string around the neck of the bag enclosing the stems. Hang the bags from the rafters. You can also lay herbs directly on a screen in the attic. Has anyone here had success using a turned off oven with a pilot light for drying things? |
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Post by lagatta on Apr 12, 2010 23:44:54 GMT
Bixa, I know your climate has dry and rainy seasons. Does it ever get dry enough to process fruits and vegetables that way?
In a dry climate, mushrooms can be simply set out (not in plastic bags, but even in paper bags) and they will dry. Indeed, kerouac, they make a wonderful flavouring. Dried onions are also wonderful - often combined with fresh.
I first saw large-scale drying in the far south of Italy (Calabria). Dried tomatoes were NOT a yuppie conceit, but an important means of preserving food. Bixa, was this done anywhere in Mexico, the homeland of tomatoes? Certainly you dry a lot of peppers.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 13, 2010 0:40:59 GMT
Ah, you anticipate me, LaGatta! Yes, I was going to request guidance on air-drying. There is certainly enough sun and breeze to dry things quickly outdoors.
One of my sisters used to live in Colorado. When it wasn't too cold, she'd use the inside of her car to raise yeast dough. My car is a veritable oven -- I should exploit that.
I have never seen nor heard of dried tomatoes here. The way fruits and vegetables are dried is after being cooked in and suffused with insanely sweet syrup.
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Post by fumobici on Apr 13, 2010 2:00:21 GMT
I've tried some drying. What I liked: Mushrooms, cherries, apricots, sometimes apple slices, pineapple, blueberries. Some stuff didn't go so well: Some apples which got really tough and most of all tomatoes. I love the dried tomatoes in Italy but I can't seem to replicate them here at all. The ones I made were awful.
So... mushrooms and sweet fruit seem the easiest to get right in my scant experience.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 13, 2010 2:24:43 GMT
I wonder if a certain variety is perhaps used for drying in Italy, one that's proved to give good results.
I saw somewhere -- online? Martha Stewart mag? -- about drying tomato peels, then grinding them into powder to be used somewhat like paprika. "Cold day in hell" is what went through my mind.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2010 5:22:35 GMT
A sun-dried tomato is one of the few things that I will push to the side of my plate.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 13, 2010 6:59:39 GMT
How did you all dry pineapples -- optimum thickness of slices, time needed to dry completely, etc.?
Pineapples are in season right now & I'd like to give it a try on my windy porch.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 13, 2010 12:29:00 GMT
bixa, I am currently munching on bits of pineapple! ;D
I take the skin off and then slice the pineapple as thin as I can and chop the slices in little triangles. That's how they get dry the fastest in my experience. The thinness of the slice being the important factor.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 13, 2010 12:33:34 GMT
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Post by spindrift on Apr 13, 2010 12:36:37 GMT
Having eaten Annie's dried pineapple I can vouch that it is completely delicious and my mouth is watering at the thought of it. I might buy a cheap plastic dryer just to use it for pineapple! Annie please give me the website link where you buy your implements. I remember it sounded like Westphalia?
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 13, 2010 17:03:19 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 13, 2010 17:54:27 GMT
Thanks for the pineapple info -- that's exactly what I needed to know.
Bjd, Fumobici, or anyone who's seen rustic outdoor drying .... any input on tomatoes or other produce?
Even though I live in tomatolandia, they're not always good. However, in those periods where the good ones are coming in faster than I could possibly use them, they could be turned into easily stored dried tomatoes.
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Post by spindrift on Apr 13, 2010 17:55:59 GMT
Similar to Lakeland perhaps....interesting.
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Post by gertie on Apr 14, 2010 23:36:46 GMT
I love dried fruit as a healthy alternative when traveling. I've found they even let me take it through security at the airport, but it is just so expensive! I had a food dryer at one time, but was just so busy with work, kids, cooking, cleaning, the usual endless list that I only ever used it a few times. Fruit leather I used to make in my oven. The recipe I used had you heat the oven to a low heat and turn it off as soon as you put the pan in and closed the door. I made it for my kids as the stuff sold in the grocery here has all kinds of additives, if it has any real fruit at all.
Most modern ovens in the US are not allowed to have pilot lights, btw, due to safety concerns. Instead, they have electric ignition, and if there is no electricity, you can't turn them on. The only reason I am aware of this, a few years ago there was a big ice storm and electricity was out for some time. Whereas in the past, people would turn on gas stove burners and ovens, and thereby keep at least a portion of their homes warm, this was no longer an option. I was so very happy we had decided to keep the gas fireplace in our living room and the dearborn gas heater in the office and one bath as we were able to keep our entire house sufficiently warm to stay home. Many people had to stay in hotels until their electric returned.
I am hoping with my garden this year to try a bit of fruit and veg drying with the dehydrator. I'll let you know if cherry tomatoes work well.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 15, 2010 4:00:01 GMT
*smirks smugly and proudly*
I dried mangos today! Yes, I bought lots at the market yesterday and today peeled & sliced some to dry. I don't have a dehydrator, but do have a small convection oven. I very lightly oiled an aluminum pizza pan, the kind with little holes all over it, and laid the slices on that. I stuck the pan in the oven and turned the heat on high & to convect. As soon as the oven started getting warm, I reduced the heat to 150 (as low as it will go). Once the slices were dry to the touch on the top side, I transferred them to a rack & put them back in the oven.
I started at 6:10 this afternoon, and just turned it off a few minutes ago. I'm leaving them in the turned off oven, & will blast them again tomorrow if it seems there's too much moisture left in them.
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Post by gertie on Apr 15, 2010 5:16:57 GMT
Ooooo bixa, thanks for a great idea! There is a farmers market I am going to next weekend and I have two of those piza pans.  |
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Post by spindrift on Apr 15, 2010 8:31:44 GMT
My Indian mother-in-law always dried fruit and veg in the hot Kenyan sun....you don't need a dehydrator there. I notice that villagers in Laos, India and Cambodia do the same.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 15, 2010 14:50:41 GMT
During the hot part of the dry season here, the conditions would be perfect for dehydrating food. I'm thinking of rigging up something outside with a small fan blowing across it to keep off flies. It would still use electricity, but maybe less than my electric oven, plus I could dry more stuff at one time.
I know that people air-dry foods all over the world, the question is how. See my Reply #5.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 15, 2010 17:53:09 GMT
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 15, 2010 17:57:18 GMT
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Post by onlymark on Apr 15, 2010 18:23:31 GMT
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Post by spindrift on Apr 15, 2010 19:19:26 GMT
When I was hunting buffalos in the Zimbabwean bush (really) we dried the buffalo meat by cutting it into fairly small strips, rolling it in a mixture of salt and herbs (dont' know which ones) and hanging it on washing lines with pegs to dry in the shade....was quick and easy...only took 24 hours.... this is how we made our biltong.
I have pics of this somewhere but my scanner isn't connected....
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 16, 2010 19:50:34 GMT
TA - DAAAA ~~
dehydrated mango slices glowing in the sun  |
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Post by Don Cuevas on Apr 16, 2010 20:05:56 GMT
During the hot part of the dry season here, the conditions would be perfect for dehydrating food. I'm thinking of rigging up something outside with a small fan blowing across it to keep off flies. It would still use electricity, but maybe less than my electric oven, plus I could dry more stuff at one time. I know that people air-dry foods all over the world, the question is how. See my Reply #5. A screened enclosure would keep the flies off. |
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Post by onlymark on Apr 16, 2010 20:50:33 GMT
A spare mosquito net.
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Post by auntieannie on Apr 19, 2010 18:51:39 GMT
one of those mesh cheese or cake protection thing?
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 19, 2010 19:08:20 GMT
Those are good ideas -- thanks. What I really wish is that I had easy access to my flat roof, which would be perfect for drying. I could put racks right on the floor, then stretch fabric or screen from the low wall around the roof down to the floor. That would protect the food without touching it.
Didja see my mango slices, Annie, didja huh, didja? They are criminally good. I like them as a snack, and last night put some in oatmeal -- yum!
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