Home dehydrating

[peterk1234]

Picked up a good little book called Recipes for Adventure. My goal is to try to make my own backpacking meals.

Well, all I can say is wow. I've done mashed potatoes, ground venison, veggies, deli ham, pasta and scrambled eggs. While it takes time, it's very easy to do. Made some meals at home to test. It tastes like I cooked it fresh.

It weighs nothing. Each meal is about 600 calories and there are zero preservatives in it. Now it's time to make it bulk. I just need to figure out the best and safest way to store long term. For now I'm vacuum sealing and freezing. The freezing might be overkill though.

Mashed potato:


Rehydrated:

 

[millerkiller77]

Haven't tried doing mashed potatoes yet, looks good!

I'm using a 9 tray Excalibur and regret not getting a bigger one

 

[peterk1234]

Haven't tried doing mashed potatoes yet, looks good!

I'm using a 9 tray Excalibur and regret not getting a bigger one

I am using a 6 tray. It would be nice to at least double the capacity. If this goes well, I may have to. I've had the dehydrater for ten years and it's still going strong though.

 

[nwihunter]

I am using a 6 tray. It would be nice to at least double the capacity. If this goes well, I may have to. I've had the dehydrater for ten years and it's still going strong though.

How much tending to does it take once you have it loaded up and going?

 

[peterk1234]

How much tending to does it take once you have it loaded up and going?

Nothing really. My dehydrater has temp and time settings. Pretty much set it and forget it. I will run a batch at night and another during the day. If takes a lot of time to do it all, but not much work.

 

[COHunter67]

Three pounds from yesterday

 

[Cammy]

I did spaghetti sauce one time and that went better than expected. Just spread it out on parchment paper and dried it. We do cherry tomatoes every summer. Cut them in half, sprinkle with sea salt and dry. Makes a great addition to sauce stew or soup. The tomatoes store in a glass jar in a cabinet all year.

 

[ccc23454]

Great work! Not nearly as challenging but i do a bunch of potatoes sliced thin (and consistent) on slicer then dehydrated. Just store in old coffee can in cool dark place, amazing how well they rehydrate when cooking and gives so many possible meal opportunities. I need to seriously upgrade my old rotary dehydrater before getting too adventurous.

 

[peterk1234]

Did a rehydration test at home. Success.

Scrambled eggs with ham and veggies. The polenta makes the eggs less eggy, for lack of a better term, but very good. 600 calories or so.


Mac and cheese with venison. This came out excellent.