The Dehydrated Food Thread

TrafficJam wrote:

CoachLou wrote:

first batch...... So far so good

i love dried apples! I soak mine in OJ and sprinkle them with apple pie spice before dehydrating.

Use real cinnamon or Ceylon cinnamon rather than cassia, you will be very pleased.

Last week I did some apples as well as some more bananas. I dropped both in OJ more to prevent browning than for flavor.

The apples turned out really nice. The bananas, I sliced a lot thinner this time but they still didn't get full on crunchy as I'd hoped for. I'm sure more drying time would/could have done the trick, but I wanted to pull them and bag them up ahead of time since I was supposed to go walking this past weekend (until I bailed on Rasty).

I am not sure if you know this, but your bananas should not come out crunchy, but kind of leathery. The crunchy banana chips are the result of frying.

yup. and the fried are soooo much better. this was my biggest disappointment/surprise from dehydrating.

Well damn. I knew the ones you buy in the store were fried, but I thought I saw something, somewhere, that mentioned getting chips/crunchy from going with thin slices and long drying time. I don't recall the total amount of time on these but it was in the 14-16 hour neighborhood. The edges are crunchy on some of them but not full through.

I may just have to fy some. A friend did suggest drying followed by a short fry.

if you figure out how to make dehydrated bananas taste like fried let us know. i've given up.

How about just taking fried bananas?

I may just take to frying them. I love my dehydrator so far but when it comes to banana chips I like the crunch.

I have not done this, but why not try dehydrating then frying? I'd cut them at about 1/4" and dry them. Then once dehydrated drop them into a deep fry for a few moments. I would not attempt to fry them without drying though,as the moisture would have to be a disaster.

i do. but dehydrated would be much healthier.

The second batch: 1 granny smith, 1 delicious, 1 bosc pear. I sliced them @ 1/4", remembered the cinnamon. They came out well. I tried a pint of Blue Berries. They took a long time. They are going in Ovs 'Lembas' cookie. Oatmeal, with dried chopped apple, pear, blue brrys, chopped coconut and craisins

Playing around in the kitchen I made up a turkey and stuffing casserole.

1 pound ground turkey
1/2 onion
3 celery stalks
Chopped mushrooms
Chopped broccoli
(Or any other veggies you like)
14oz store brand cornbread stuffing
1 can cream of celery or cream of mushroom soup
16oz chicken stock

I started off with cooking the turkey with onions, celery, and broccoli, then drained and added to mixing bowl. Added cornbread stuffing to mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl I mixed the stock with the soup along with other spices. Use any that you like to taste. I used onion and garlic powder, sage, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Pour into the turkey and stuffing and mix well getting everything moist.

Put everything into a 9in x 9in baking dish and bake at 350 for about 30 to 40 minutes.

I divided this into four portions, and had one for supper, packed one for lunch and dried two.

In the dried portions, after drying I added two teaspoons of chicken gravy powder, and a little more sage, oregano, and basil.

Awesome - They do make turkey gravy powder, so it won't taste like chicken. When you rehydrate add some oil. I like the mushroom soup as you are adding potassium. Give us a follow up as to how you prepared it on the trail!

WiseOldOwl wrote:

Awesome - They do make turkey gravy powder, so it won't taste like chicken. When you rehydrate add some oil. I like the mushroom soup as you are adding potassium. Give us a follow up as to how you prepared it on the trail!

Fixed a pack...

Put the dried meal into my pot, just covered with water (1 1/4 cup of water), and brought to a boil for a couple moments. Placed into cozy for 25 minutes... Perfect!

One note that when you open the cozy it may look like you put too much water and the meal is soggy. That is actually just the texture on the surface of the meal as a result of the gravy. Once you stir and eat you will see it's just right.

TrafficJam wrote:

How do ya'll organize and store your dehydrated food?

My stuff was in such a mess, I bought "Extreme Freeze" containers and freezer labels and got everything organized and labelled today.

I put everything is freezer quart size ziplock bags, write on it what it is, and stick it in a chest freezer in the basement. A chest freezer, unlike a fridge/freezer that is a no frost freezer is better for storage. A no frost freezer has no frost because the temperature in it warms up above freezing point periodically to melt any frost that is forming. This is what causes freezer burn. A chest freezer ( or a 'frost' freezer?) stays below freezing temp at all times.

TrafficJam wrote:

I've used up a lot of my store of dehydrated meals and need to make some more.

One of my favorites is Rasty's Jambalya. The recipe seemed complicated since the ingredients were listed in grams so I just dried the vegetables in whatever amount looked good. These got stored in one container.

When I'm ready to put a meal together, I put everything in a quart freezer bag with an unopened packet of olive oil and chicken broth.

1/2 tsp tomato powder
1/2 tsp creole seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup minute rice
1/2 cup vegetables

One time I added beans, sausage, and cheese before eating and last time I added pepperoni and cheese.

I did it in grams because I was also doing the nutritional analysis of the recipe at the same time.

TrafficJam wrote:

I've used up a lot of my store of dehydrated meals and need to make some more.

One of my favorites is Rasty's Jambalya. The recipe seemed complicated since the ingredients were listed in grams so I just dried the vegetables in whatever amount looked good. These got stored in one container.

When I'm ready to put a meal together, I put everything in a quart freezer bag with an unopened packet of olive oil and chicken broth.

1/2 tsp tomato powder
1/2 tsp creole seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup minute rice
1/2 cup vegetables

One time I added beans, sausage, and cheese before eating and last time I added pepperoni and cheese.

Where do you find these in packets?

TrafficJam wrote:

My other favorite meals are chili with Fritos and cheese and pasta with tomato sauce. Pasta with cheese sauce is ok but not my favorite, powdered cheese tastes weird.

on the rare ocassion i have mac and cheese when hiking, i get the velveta brand. instead of the powered stuff in a packet it has the velveta cheese "sauce" in an aluminum package that you squeeze into the pasta. it ain't the ritz but its head and shoulders above the powder. of course there is a weight and bulk price you have to pay.

edit to add: and its even better if you have some sausage that you can cut up and add to it.

TrafficJam wrote:

Drybones wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

I've used up a lot of my store of dehydrated meals and need to make some more.

One of my favorites is Rasty's Jambalya. The recipe seemed complicated since the ingredients were listed in grams so I just dried the vegetables in whatever amount looked good. These got stored in one container.

When I'm ready to put a meal together, I put everything in a quart freezer bag with an unopened packet of olive oil and chicken broth.

1/2 tsp tomato powder
1/2 tsp creole seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup minute rice
1/2 cup vegetables

One time I added beans, sausage, and cheese before eating and last time I added pepperoni and cheese.

Where do you find these in packets?

Trader Joes for the chicken broth, Pack it Gourmet for the olive oil.

Pack-it-gourmet also has powdered chicken stock. It is unsalted.

makebetterfood.com/recipes/homemade-banana-chips/ crunchy requires cooking oil.

What is a good dehydrater that doesn't cost a lot of money?

amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0090WOCM6/…ID=41u2BlxDkyL&ref=plSrch

I have the linked Nesco, a FD80, and think its a pretty good machine. It has temperature control and the fan is on the top of the machine rather than the bottom.

I think this is a great entry level dehydrator, especially if you're just learning to use a dehydrator or occasionally drying food. You can get better dehydrators such as an Excalibur if you are going to dry a lot of food on a regular basis. But I would not go cheaper than the Nesco.

They do carry Mountain House entrees cheaper than any hiking/backpacking site or store I've checked.

And the 3 day packages of meals MH makes are cheaper bought and shipped to store at Wal-Mart. I'm thinking about getting one of the buckets of 3 days of meals.

Bookmarked their site. I like the sampler and soup package set

I found a package of dehydrated soup vegetables at the import store. Carrots, parsnips, leeks, onion,potatoes, cut into very small pieces. They are from the Netherlands. Putting a couple of v spoonfuls in each recipe.

TrafficJam wrote:

Has anyone dehydrated fruit that has been soaked in alcohol?

not done it, but the vapor pressure of ethanol is greater than water so the alcohol should evaporate before the water.

dehydrate the fruit, add alcohol, then package the alkyhol fruit in zip lock or one of those plastic waterproof containers wallyworld sells.

I ordered it. Soon!

Welcome to the wonderful world of drying the dog out of food, pulling up a stump adding water and telling yourself..."Mmm, this ain't to bad"

You can buy lots of dried foods at a fraction of the cost of Mountain house or Packit from the Mormon church. Mormons keep a year supply of food on hand. Most major cities have an lds store or you can order online. Usually cases of #10 cans but you can split them up with hiking buddies.

store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/store…345616706370_-1_Y_image_0

Best source of protein I have found is Beverly Ultra 40 freeze dried liver pills. No prep no taste just swallow. 500 2 gram pills is about 1000 grams of protein for about $35 can't beat that and it comes from Argentenian grass fed cattle so it is much higher in absorbable minerals than American corn fed beef. I would hike without a backpack before I would hike without ultra 40, gotta keep the legs strong. Same amount of protein as 12# of raw chicken breast or 10.5# of 93% lean ground beef. 500 pills weighs about 2#.
bodybuilding.com/store/bev/beef.html

I buy dried seaweed at costco and carry a good bit of that for vitamins and minerals.

Betty Crocker sweet potato flakes, mix in freezer bag with brown sugar, Nido, baby marshmallows and chopped pecans just add hot water. Complex and simple carbs and fats.

1 Minute hydrate breakfast (the 1 minute is how long it takes to drink, mixing only takes a few seconds)
1 cup regular oatmeal run through the blender till it makes flour, add a couple scoops of vanilla powdered protein and some dried blueberries(just to make if feel like you have something to chew). Just mix into cold water and drink for breakfast. I do this most mornings at home (with frozen blueberries) or on the trail.

Hmm... Wallyworld's site search is really poorly written.

Anyway, they sell polycarbonate snap lid containers of different sizes with a rubber gasket. I have 3 or 4 of the boxes. Then come in light blue or orange. Tablet size, cell phone size, and two about square boxes of different sizes. I find them nice and handy.

I plan on drying some toe-maters, if they come in good...meaning more than I care to eat in a day.

I may force myself to eat crap on the trail but I wont do that to my dog.
As you can see, he likes his Edy ice cream.