[exsheeple]

I found celery on sale yesterday for $.69 a bunch. I brought home 6 bunches, did 3 today and will do 3 tomorrow, take a look!!!!

 

[OldCootHillbilly]

Nice, I've got several pints dried an stored. Nice an handy ta have. That be a good price, recently I been gettin it fer 99 cents.

Keep up the good work!

 

[exsheeple]

Thanks....WOW, I didnt realize how much this stuff shrinks. It is not finished yet but it doent look like I did anything. LOL

 

[OldCootHillbilly]

Looks ta be the same dehydrator I got. Like mine real well.

Yeah, stuff sure do get lots smaller when ya dry it.

 

[Emerald]

That looks just like my dehydrators too!
I just did another 10 pounds of potatoes and it fit in 4 quart mason jars!
I did a few pounds of green beans last summer and they shrunk down to fit in a pint mason jar! It is almost scary.

I did some baby portobella mushrooms a couple weeks ago and they shrink down quite a bit too. Now I really like the flavor of the re-hydrated mushrooms -they really concentrate the flavor when they are dried.. The texture is a bit chewier than when cooked fresh but I can deal with that.. they almost get a meatier texture and could take the place of meats in some recipes. I can see why vegetarians like them so much in their cooking...

 

[exsheeple]

This one I have is a Nesco American Harvest with the fan and heater on top. I bought it like 5 years ago along with 2 extra trays and the Jerky Shooter....Used the Jerky shooter for one batch, tried the jerky and never used it again, I like cutting my own slabs of deer meat with the grain and making it that way.
A few years ago We had a very good morel mushroom year and I filled the Nesco with as many as I could, stored them in a mason jar and kept them in the cupboard, They turned a little dark but still good. The only thing I used them for was crumbling a few up to make an awesome morel mushroom sauce. Nothing like the woodsy, wild, aroma of a morel sauce in the middle of winter.
Looking at my celery, will my 6 bunches even make a half pint? LOL

 

[*Andi]

I need to get mine out ... and dust it off also.

My chocolate mint is running wild this year. Then start watching for sales on
celery on such.

Thanks for the reminder ...

 

[goshengirl]

Last night I used a quart of dried ground beef along with a food-service-size can of tomato sauce in the slow cooker, along with some dried herbs, and the spaghetti sauce turned out great. I just let the ground beef rehydrate in the sauce. Yum!

Once the family was done eating, I divided the remaining sauce into Food Saver bags to put in the basement freezer. Gotta love eating what you store, and storing what you eat.

 

[ZoomZoom]

This past week we ran 5-6# of beef through it, making 3 different types of jerky.

Put a few pounds of carrots through it. Boy do they shrink.

Bananas - turned out very nice.

Sweet potatoes into potato chips.

Now if I could find the plastic dehydrator sheets, I'd be making other things but they've been misplaced.

 

[exsheeple]

Yes things do shrink!!!! My 3 bunches of celery yielded a little over a half pint.
Feeling lazy today so the other 3 bunches are going to wait until tomorrow.

 

[snappy1]

We've got chicken thighs with legs on sale for 47 cents a pound in the 10 pound bag!!!!!!! So am getting 20 or 30 pounds Tuesday to can in quarts and since strawberries are 99 cents a pint will probably get some of them to dehydrate too. I think I have the same dehydrator-Nesco American Harvest-square shape with heat on top. I'm just happy to have something to put back without having to pay a fortune!!!!!!

 

[Emerald]

My three American harvesters are the fan/heater on the bottom and I just love them... How do the heat/fan on top do with drying? do you find you have to rotate any trays? Every so often I find I do have to take the top two or three layers(when I have more than 12 trays stacked up) and rotate them to the bottom where the heat is. But only on thick items and on lower heat.
Just wondering if I should pick up any of the top heating ones?

 

[exsheeple]

I had 4 trays with the celery and about half way through I had to bring the bottom 2 trays and rotate them with the top 2 because the bottom ones were dryer than the top...go figure. with the heat and fasn on top you would think the top would dry faster, hmmmmmmm

 

[snappy1]

Mine dried those frozen french style green beans really fast! Normally though, the top trays dry faster.

 

[PamsPride]

My dehydrators have been running on overtime lately. I did 10# of ground beef, and blueberry pulp, and 6 quarts of (frozen) corn in the last week or so. My goal is to get ALL of the frozen corn out of my freezer before it is time to freeze corn up again this fall. I have been posting some pictures to my blog if you want to check them out. I need to do a post on dehydrating corn yet though.

 

[neldarez]

dried ground beef

I have never done meat in the dryer. I have an excalibur and would like to try ground beef. Do you add bread crumbs to it? I assume that I cook it first? Dumb questions maybe but I don't know.......:sssh:

 

[goshengirl]

I have never done meat in the dryer. I have an excalibur and would like to try ground beef. Do you add bread crumbs to it? I assume that I cook it first? Dumb questions maybe but I don't know.......:sssh:

NOT a dumb question at all! I'm pretty new at it myself - Badge Bunny is the one who got me started - we all learn from each other here.

I boil my ground meat before dehydrating. I just put it in a large pan (like a stock kettle, but not quite that big), added water to cover the meat plus another inch or two then boiled it. As it boils, I work at breaking up the beef to the size that I like.

By boiling it, it cooks evenly and also removes excess grease (you want to eliminate grease when you dehydrate). When it's all cooked through I pour it through a mesh strainer to get rid of the water (you can save the water and can it - beef stock). Then I pat it with paper towels and put it lay it out evenly on the dehydrator trays.

Hope that helps.

 

[goshengirl]

Forgot to add, I do not use bread crumbs. I'm thinking that with boiling the beef, that wouldn't work too well...?

 

[neldarez]

NOT a dumb question at all! I'm pretty new at it myself - Badge Bunny is the one who got me started - we all learn from each other here.

I boil my ground meat before dehydrating. I just put it in a large pan (like a stock kettle, but not quite that big), added water to cover the meat plus another inch or two then boiled it. As it boils, I work at breaking up the beef to the size that I like.

By boiling it, it cooks evenly and also removes excess grease (you want to eliminate grease when you dehydrate). When it's all cooked through I pour it through a mesh strainer to get rid of the water (you can save the water and can it - beef stock). Then I pat it with paper towels and put it lay it out evenly on the dehydrator trays.

Hope that helps.

Thanks so much, do you then put it up in jars or do you bag it?

 

[DJgang]

Question : Is dehydrated ground beef taste better than canned?

I have canned about 30 pints of ground beef, haven't tried it yet but it will go into rotation this winter..

Also, would cut up pot roast do well? Although I having a hard time finding roast on sale, just on case I do, I was going to can it ...but now I am thinking aboutngetting a dehydrator...