Re: [CH] dehydrators
VoodooChile (rael64@qwest.net)
Thu, 27 Jun 2002 08:26:26 -0600
>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!]