DEHYDRATING MUSHROOMS

Since it's cold and the added warmth in the house is OK, we broke out the dehydrator.  We decided to try mushrooms and bought two packages that were on sale.  They were white and baby bella varieties.

Buying them already sliced made it so much easier to start them.  We put them on two trays, one bag on each, and dried them at 125 degrees for about 12 hours.

Whoa, where did they go?  LOL!  They're all there, just much smaller than they were when they started.  Amazing how much moisture they hold.  Nevertheless, we bagged them, vacuum sealed them and stored them in the pantry, until the right recipe comes along!

DEHYDRATING FROZEN PEAS AND CARROTS

Recently, we tried some more dehydrating using frozen vegetables.  It was a great time to do it since (here anyway) the humidity was low and it was cold outside so heating up the kitchen a bit was totally OK.  We ran to the grocery store and grabbed a couple bags of frozen 'peas and carrots'.  

Each bag was 16oz, so two pounds total.

Dehydrating frozen vegetables before

While some of this fell through to the lower level, and a bit more was eaten, you know, for "testing purposes", this is how much moisture is removed:

Dehydrating frozen vegetables after

Amazing how much they change!  These took about 12 hours...we dried several layers of them and as you see, the end result seems like so little, even though it was a pound of frozen peas and carrots on each layer.  The photo below was the last jar of peas and carrots and wasn't quite full but we ended up with two jars.

We also dried some more corn and still have one last, lonely jar of our dehydrated tomatoes left (those are so good in a creamy pasta sauce).

Dehydrated frozen vegetables and fresh tomatoes.

Adventures in dehydrating!

DEHYDRATING FROZEN CORN

This was something I read about online and thought I'd give it a try.  OMG, as the youngsters might say, ha, it was so easy and came out so good!

Dehydrating frozen corn

I had two bags of organic frozen corn so it loaded up about two trays worth.  I definitely had to use the smaller hole sheets that go on the regular trays to keep them from falling through as they dried (they shrink in size as they dry).

Frozen corn after it's dehydrated

Dried them for about 6 hours at 125 degrees and this is what they looked like.  Small, crunchy, and I might add, a nice little snack to sample as they dried...and sample...and sample.  But I digress...

Dehydrated corn

Then I just poured it all into a wide mouth canning jar and put a lid on it. 

Dehydrated frozen corn in a jar

Lastly, I vacuum sealed it with the Foodsaver machine (like we did with the tomatoes) and voila!  A jar full of of crunchy, dehydrated corn.

Next up, more frozen veggie experiments!!

DRYING TOMATOES IN THE DEHYDRATOR

A few days back, I blogged HERE about our new dehydrator purchase.  We couldn't wait to use it!  We tried tomatoes for our first attempt.  Here is how they looked when I sliced them and put them in.  I think next time they should be sliced a bit thinner.

And here they are after about 12 hours at 125 degrees.  It's amazing how much they change during their time in the dehydrator. 

We did four trays of tomatoes (the machine comes with six, next time we'll max it out).  We periodically rotated the trays so that they dried more evenly.

We put them in jars, just sort of layered them in, they even sort of stacked up nicely and in an orderly fashion.

Dehydrated tomatoes in jar

They filled 3 jars nicely and then I vacuum sealed the jars with the Foodsaver.

Dehydrated tomatoes

They are so pretty aren't they?
I think for our first attempt, it went very well.

Dehydrated tomato pasta

Then Sunday, we used some of them in pasta.  2nd Man crumbled them up (they are crispy dry) and put them in a white sauce with some pasta to cook and they rehydrated.  Oh my, they are super concentrated and had a wonderful deep and rich tomato flavor.

This machine might just become our favorite new purchase.  For those interested, the brand we purchased was from Amazon it's the Presto 06301 Dehydro Digital Electric Food Dehydrator and we are very pleased.  There are other versions, less expensive, without digital timers and temperature controllers but that really makes it so much easier to use.  We can't wait to use it for our own fresh vegetables from the garden later this year, fingers crossed.