good morning y'all. yesterday was a little misty and damp and today looks like it may be a little sunshiny, I can handle that. cool, damp, dreary days does a number on my achy bones. my feet are killing me and my shoulder feels like someone tried to rip my arm off. hahaha a little dramatic, but that's how it feels. but, even with all my aches and pains, I'm so thankful to God for good health and fall weather. He is so good and gives us good days. this is a good day. we'll see what it brings. it'll be a great day!! let's move forward and see what it brings.
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so let's do a "2 minutes in the kitchen with me". when I went to the grocery store the other day, I got 7 lbs of carrots and 3 bags of cranberries and I commenced to getting some on the dehydrator. I had wanted some carrots to roast with potatoes and onions to go with a loin roast. I didn't have any carrots and I was disappointed. I said I didn't want to be without carrots again. so I have started with 7 lbs. I just made big sticks out of them and made sure they weren't over 1/2 inch thich. they could be as wide as the whole carrot, just no thicker than 1/2 inch. any thicker and we risk "case hardening", which is where the produce dried on the outside too quickly and leaves the inside with moisture in it. we want everything to be "bone dry, craker crisp and rock hard". that is my "go to" formula for dehydrating. everything has to meet that criteria, one way or another.
also, thinking about case hardening and the produce dehydrating too quickly, the temperature of your dehydrator also plays an integral part in that. in my experience, I have found that a higher temperature plays a big part in case hardening. I have experimented over the years and found that a lower temperature when dehydrating not only helps prevent case hardening, but it also helps maintain the beautiful, natural color of the produce. that's also important to me. if I give away some of dehydrated goods, I want them to look beautiful. I have put up several pictures in the past about what some produce looks like dehydrated at higher temps versus the lower temperatures and the outcome is astounding. if looks of your produce doesn't matter to you, then this probably isn't something you're interested in. but if you're ever concerned about the color of your produce, you may want to experiment too.
I mentioned that I got 3 bags of cranberries. well, the first dehydrator full of what I got to be dehydrated had 3 trays of carrots and 3 trays of cranberries. for the cranberries, I just washed them and sliced each one right down the middle and put them on the trays. yes, it takes a little bit of time to slice them, but I can assure you, they get dry, 100% dry and I'll have no risk of mold due to some not drying completely in the middle.
any moisture left in your produce sets the stage for mold in your jars. that's not fun!!! anyone that has been dehydrating for any time at all has lost product to mold. a lot of people will not admit it, but I can assure you they have. sometimes we just don't want to swallow our pride and admit it. since I am all about trying to teach a little and share what I know from my own experience, this is what I know. because I have lost hard work and a lot of food to mold and I vowed and declared I would never lose food to mold again. I wish, when I started dehydrating I would have had someone to share with me, what I try to share here on my blog. it would have saved me a lot time, grief and money in the long run. I have always been someone that could, can and does learn from what others share. but I had to work it out the best I could and doing it the hard way is the best teacher. what I guess I'm trying to say is this, you don't have to work it out the hard way, I've already worked it out and that's what I try to share.
so when I get my dehydrator full, I set my temperature to 110* F and set the time for 48 hours and walk away. time means nothing, temperature means everything. if after 48 hours it's not dehydrated, I'll reset it and walk away again. I don't tell how long it takes to dehydrate something, because what takes me a little time may take you a lot of time and vice versa. we deal with the humidity in our homes, the moisture content in the produce itself, the thickness of the sliced produce........there's a lot of factors that go into the time.
and I'll jump in right here with something else too. sometimes I'll read where people are telling others to set their dehydrators outside. that may work for some areas, but it definitely doesn't work for all areas. we should NEVER tell someone to put their dehydrators outside. especially people new to dehydrating and they haven't learned about how humidity affects your end result. I don't know about anyone else, but I can't dehydrate the great outdoors. not only is humidity an issue when dehydrating outside, but insects are also. I try to be as clean as I possibly can. putting my dehydrator outside when ants and flys and all kinds of things have access to it is not conducive to being clean. so please, keep your dehydrators inside. and please stop telling people to put their dehydrators outside.
some will also say put your dehydrator in the garage. again, a humidity issue, flys, ants and possibly even rats and mice. you can't keep rats and mice out of things without a lot of hard work. we have to take everything into consideration when learning to dehydrate. most manuals have incorrect information in them. and most that incorrect information is dealing with temperatures. and some of that information tells you to dip everything in lemon juice to prevent browning. low temps prevent browning and using low temps, nothing tastes like lemon except lemon when you dehydrate it. dipping everything in lemon juice doesn't replace learning how to prepare your foods properly in the first place and then learning the proper temps.
my thing is this, learn how to do things the right way. I've also learned that there are very few people out ther teaching others how to do dehydrate properly. most everyone takes the manuals to heart and then they complain about something not being right. that's where I have always tried to be a voice in the wilderness, trying to get people to take their dehydrating in their own hands and LEARN proper techniques. I'll never tell you anything dangerous and setting your temperature to 110*F for produce is anything but dangerous. a lot people will say, well what about the nutrition value? I can tell you that if the natural sugars and starches in your produce is scorched and turned dark because of too high temperatures, that's not too nutritious. low and slow will always be best.
ok, enough about all this, let me show you a couple of pictures of what I took off the dehydrator yesterday. I'm pretty happy with these and I hope I can actually get 2 jars of carrots full. the jar with cranberries in it will hold about 7 bags of fresh cranberries dehydrated. and I don't know how many lbs of carrots it will take to get this jar full. I still have a 3 or 4 carrots that I didn't get on the dehydrator and I think I have some baby carrots in the fridge too, so I'll see what I can get done.
I can't wait to try these carrots. the next time I fix a beef roast or even roast some chicken, I'll try some of these. they are actually smaller chunks than I they would be if they were fresh cut and going with a roast. I said earlier, we have to take thickness into consideration, so these are no thicker than 1/2 inch. I can rehydrate and cut them up for soups too. I can even make powder from them. possibilities are endless.
this is the start of my cranberries. I get mesmerized by the colors. I plan on using these in breads and salads. just rehydrate them in a little orange juice or pineapple juice and yummy!!! I'm also going to use some of these, along with some of my orange slices and some monk fruit sweetener and make a powder. the possibilities for that will be endless too.
when it comes to using our dehydrated goods, we are only limited by what we don't and can't think of to do with them. that's true.
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well, that's about it for this morning. I pray that you have a most glorious day and that you thank God for allowing you to be a part of it. I hope you learned a little bit about dehydrating and don't let it be intimidating. if you need to ask a question, ask it below. I'll try my best to answer it for you. just know that you loved today. hugs, love and bountiful blessings be yours, patty
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