Dehydrating

[cristeen]

I came home from taking food to a new mom, and my Excalibur was sitting on my front step!! Thanks Dogmom!!

I'm looking forward to loading it up tonight with all the stuff that's cluttering my kitchen since my old dehydrator died.

My questions are:
has anyone dried melons? Sliced, pureed, what form? How'd they taste?
What about drying veggies? We're not a big soup family, so I'm not even sure how I'd use them if I did dehydrate them, but there are certain things that we just don't use much... like the leeks that will be in Fridays box, or the 2 bags of hot peppers in my fridge.
How about curing garlic? Season is probably over, but when my CSA sent me garlic this year, it obviously wasn't fully cured - can I do that in my dehydrator?

In case you can't tell, I'm itching to fire it up. And now that I've finished my dinner, I think I'm going to go do exactly that.

[julie80]

I have an Excaliber too and I love it. I haven't tried dehydrating any veggies because the thought never occurred to me. And I haven't done melon either but I have done other fruit like bananas which comes out very chewy. I would assume that the melon would be similar.

I'm interested to see how it all turns out since I've never thought of using veggies before.

[Koalamom]

Tomatoes dry great sliced thin.

Zucchinis are great dried and then thrown into soups, pasta sauces and chili on cold winter nights. Grate it to dry too and rehydrate for breads. Although I prefer to freeze bulk zucchini for breads.

We dried cod fish a while back and it is still keeping well, and great in potato chowders.

We use leeks all the time, since my ds is allergic to onions. You could slice them and dry them no prob.

[laohaire]

I have one, I love it! Except it does take a lot of power. Something like 550 watts? And you use it for hours and hours on end.

Melons - I dried cantaloupe this year, just a bit. I actually don't like melons all that much but the dehydrating made them taste good to me I started to make a dried fruit mix but I only got as far as the cantaloupe and apples, and then it all got eaten up. MIL feels the same about cantaloupe as I do, and pronounced them good dried. I just sliced them.

Veggies - Any regular veggies I dry (zucchini for example) are strictly for soup. I also dry carrots for soups, though it's really not necessary (they keep well throughout the winter).

Peppers - I've not dried sweet peppers. Hot peppers carry a warning - the hot part will linger in the air and sting your eyes while you're drying them. So put the dehydrator in its own room, maybe, if drying hot peppers.

Garlic - Sorry, no idea. My farm does all the curing. I'm kind of thinking it would be better to just hang them in a cool room (cellar if you've got one) and do it the old fashioned way, but who knows. You don't want to overdry the garlic, and I think it would be easy to do in the Excalibur.

Tomatoes - I actually find slicing thin means I have to scrape up a paper-thin sheet of tomato. But maybe I dry them longer than the PP. I like them pretty dry. I slice them probably around 1/2 inch, and then it still has some substance left when the water is reduced, without it being still "soggy" which I hate.

[Koalamom]

Yes don't cut the tomatoes too thin. With a choice, I prefer to can tomatoes over drying anyway since it is more practical to use that way.

I don't dry fruit as much as I used to these dats since it takes so long to cut, load and dry... and about 5 minutes to eat it all up.

[cristeen]

Thank you for the suggestions. Havent decided what im going to do about the veggies, but ive loaded, emptied and reloaded it 3 times already since the OP. Thats far quicker than my old one.