>Hi There! I too am interested in gettig a dehydrator this year. >Thanks all for the suggestions. I get the feeling I'll be best >served by just going and seeing what is for sale (at a good deal!)in >my area, rather than set out for a specific one. Everybody seems to >be more-or-less happy with thiers. The better question might be, >are there any that we should avoid? I've only experience w/my American Harvest, so no evil tales of other brands... >Are these dehydrators also good for fruit and "fruit leather"? Never made fruit leather as I've never discovered just how in hell they *do* make edible (fruit leather) undies. Ah well. As for drying fruit, no problems really. Blueberries didn't do too well because there's a fine line between truly dried and too/over- dried, at least in my experience. Just wasn't satisfied w/the product. It may be a "berry thing". Except strawberries. They dry wonderfully (got a bowl full of oatmeal here w/dried sliced strawberries...good breakfast, jes!). Mango dries wonderfully. Peaches, pears (so-so), apples, bananas, kiwi (dried quickly, but not particularly "good"...seeds become Grit From Hell), tomatoes, etc. Fairly limitless as to what one wants to dry. >I'd also be interested if anyone knows a good way to make those >"dehydrated meals" - it could be fun... and they are so expensive at >camping stores. Something I've been turning over in my head a good bit lately. Seems to me it's just a problem of drying all/various ingredients and then concocting the meal in dried form. Not nearly as easy as throwing together, say, a soup from fresh, though, as dried tends to expand/etc. But experiments on small (single serving) scale shouldn't be too difficult/tedious/horrible. Things like beans, I'm not certain how they are handled. I'd assume such is either pulverized in dried (commercially) state to where it will "cook up" w/relatively little time. No whole beans, but bean flavor/thickening/etc., *or* beans are cooked to an al dente stage, drained well, and then dried. Have not done such so don't know about it, but what I said seems to be plausible at least. I don't know how creating such meals approaches health/food safety either, but such is always, of course, a concern. >Finally... I used the oven at low temp for last year's chile's.... >and left 2 full trays of habanero's in the oven... and a family >member decided to pre-heat to 450 without checking inside first... >...not pretty ouch. -- Peace, Hendrix, and Chiles....... Rael64 Monk of the TCS Order of Enlightened Twister [TM!]