Since so many seem to dehydrate your own "MRE"s would you mind sharing your technique

[JustAPrepper]

Lady, I love the Dehydrate to Store series. Like Molly, she's the one who convinced me to get the Excalibur.

Also, I have two of Mary Bell's books...Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook. This is THE book to have if you're going to get in to dehydrating. It's like an encyclopedia of dehydrating and I absolutely LOVE it. She covers every fruit and vegetable from A-Z and also covers jerkies, fruit leathers and a section on complete recipes for things like breads, cookies, cakes, main courses, salads and even pet treats. This is my Go-To everytime I put something in the dehydrator. The second book of hers I have is Food Drying With An Attitude. It's quite a bit newer than the other and has some nice pictures but is mostly a cookbook and I don't find the recipes all that interesting.

[bacpacker]

We've never tried cheese, but the way we go thru it this is something we need to get started on. BTW, do you smoke your own cheese as well? I love me some smoked cheedar, gouda, or edam.

[Sniper-T]

yep! I smoke all kinds of cheese. I loves me smoked cheese as well!!

if there is interest, I'll throw up a thread with the procedures, as it can be finicky, else I'll just PM them to ya

[Evolver]

This some good info and thank you for posting it. It looks like I'll be playing with the dehydrator a little more often.

[Sniper-T]

I have no experience with the excaliber model... and really don't even know much about it. I have the Garden master, that I bought in the early 1980's and am still using the same one. Yup that's right 25+ years with thousands of hours of work against it... and it is still as awesome today as it was then. I can still buy extra trays, and liners, basically anywhere. My only complaint is that it is round, and took some mods to my cupboard to fit it and the trays nicely. but if it were square, I would have had to modify my cupboard too.

It has a fan and a thermostat control, and in my mind has stood the test of time better that any other applience I have ever owned!

[ladyhk13]

Lady, I love the Dehydrate to Store series. Like Molly, she's the one who convinced me to get the Excalibur.

Also, I have two of Mary Bell's books...Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook. This is THE book to have if you're going to get in to dehydrating. It's like an encyclopedia of dehydrating and I absolutely LOVE it. She covers every fruit and vegetable from A-Z and also covers jerkies, fruit leathers and a section on complete recipes for things like breads, cookies, cakes, main courses, salads and even pet treats. This is my Go-To everytime I put something in the dehydrator. The second book of hers I have is Food Drying With An Attitude. It's quite a bit newer than the other and has some nice pictures but is mostly a cookbook and I don't find the recipes all that interesting.

Justa I will look into that one! I am so excited about this thread! I love to collect different ways to cook things and save foods.

[ladyhk13]

Try and buy an EXCALIBUR dehydrator. They cost a little bit more but are sooooooo worth it! I've had mine for about 2+ years now and have dehydrated many, many pounds of veggies and fruits. I can't believe you don't already have a dehydrator ladyhk13! lol! It has been used by far for the bulk of my food preservation supplies. I have stored a lot of water to use to rehydrate all that previously dehydrated food. I've canned a lot too, but using the dehydrator is so much easier and it's simply amazing how much you can dehydrate in one full load. There's loads of "how to" videos on U-tube. My favorite and the one I learned how to dehydrate from was this series of videos: How to dehydrate and store food PART 1 - YouTube

I must have watched them all at least 3 times now. She's very good at explaining it all and got me into dehydrating. I use the type of dehydrator she uses and love it.

LOL...well I have never really liked any fruits dried and only liked jerky so I didn't think it was worth it for us to get a dehydrator but listening to everyone here it seems as though there are a lot of other options as far as entrees that I might like if I could get some examples and recipes from ya'll to see if I would really want one. I did try to do eggs a while back and it was a disaster so that really made me not want to get one. My mom's old dehydrator is still sitting in the corner after that experiment! It doesn't have a theremostat and it took like 16 hours or something and they were still like rubber and all ikky!

[ladyhk13]

This some good info and thank you for posting it. It looks like I'll be playing with the dehydrator a little more often.

Please post what you are drying and how it turns out, ok????

[ladyhk13]

I do most my drying and making jerky with the oven , I have a 8 tray dehydrator , just don't use it ...........The oven has more capacity, in winter the heat does double duty(I leave it cracked open to allow moisture out), Most food is dried by morning instead of days, I can keep temp more regulated around 170F to kill most food borne bacteria...Clean up is easier , Depending on your situtation I would look around for cheap stove and modify it for drying food....That is my plan.......You can buy drying racks, I get mine from basspro.............I just hang jerky from toothpicks over a drippan or aluminum foil lined in the bottom.....

Of course the wife doesn't mind too much, But I have been on the receiving end of her finding a intake mainfold in her dishwasher.........

My main reason for using oven, such a small thing to do.....when done drying, just close door turn heat up and the Spores are destroyed after about 6mins...........Key word is spores, toxins will be killed around 185F making it safe to eat...........But in my opinion killing the spores prior to storage is the way to go......Right or wrong, who knows??

I have a convection oven with 2 fans (LG) so I guess it would be good for the blowing part but my husband says that it runs on 220 and for it to be on for 10 or more hours would use a lot of power. So I guess I'll be looking for a dehydrator (I have heard the Excalibur was the best) after Christmas if I don't get one under the tree. I thought from my Microbiology classes oh so long ago that spores and bacteria should be heated to the boiling point in order to be killed...but college was a long time ago :0 so I may be wrong!

[ladyhk13]

You can dehydrate anything that you would normally make to eat. Whenever possible, I just make extra of whatever and dehydrate what's left over after our lunches are packed.

So, for instance, One day I made lasagne... with meat, cheese, veggies, in a tomato sauce over homemade pasta. I cook the meat first, and drain it VERY well, make the pasta, and give it just a quick boil to keep it together, layer my lasagne and then bake it until done.

I'll blot the oil, and let it cool a bit, and then dice the whole pan up into bite size pieces. Then I put them onto the fruit rollup trays and dehydrate at about 150 degrees.

lasagne:



and some more:



lasagne: (almost done)



like anything else for long term storage, I dehydrate it until it is dry dry dry. Crumble everything except the noodles up and fill bags.

It is the same procedure for everything else too. as long as you cook it first, you're killing anything that might harm you or spoil the food.

I follow the same procedure for other meals, like:
Beef stroghanoff
chili
turkey pot pie (without the crust)
chicken pot pie
spaghetti sauce (with meat and or cheese)
etc

Ok....so now when you want to reconstitute what do you do? So ya have a thousand little pieces of lasagna so what kind of consistancy do you get instead of one nice piece like before? We do beef stroganof a lot so that would be great to learn how to do that. I actually have the stew beef canned so I can make it anytime, but how does the sour cream dehydrate?