Boy howdy have we kept our two dehydrators busy for the last couple weeks. The poor beasts have been running near constantly, laden with all sorts of delicious foods. It started with blueberries shortly after the organic blueberry lady appeared in the Kitchener farmers market with her 4L baskets. 4L of blueberries = one ziploc freezer bag of dehydrated berries. We ended up making a run to the St. Jacobs market which is much more bulk-buy friendly. Observe our piles o' food!
I am a fan of the dehydrating 'cause you aren't adding a heap of salt/sugar/vinegar or requiring your veggies to be cooked so they lose their enzyme-y goodness. I do also enjoy canning and pickle making though.
Here is what the dehydrators have begot so far:
Blueberries : sometimes the insides dehydrate and shrink and the skin stays like an intact dry little puffy carcass. Neat!
Tomatoes : So sweet and delicious. A little dry and crunchy but I'll take that over something moist and preservative laden. Dried maybe 3/4 of a bushel for ourselves and another half for Dom.
Sweet red peppers
Peaches : Really delicious but we lost a whole bunch to bruising and general rot-ification. Make sure you spread 'em out right away if you buy a whole bunch at once and don't leave them all stacked in the bag.
Pears : Free complimentary of a local tree and despite the lack of pruning of the tree, super flavourful and delicious.
Apples : From John's apple farm.
Flax Crackers : these turned out really well. I used my home-made braggs substitute and added dried blueberries, some pumpkin seeds I chopped up and s
oaked a bit and some cayenne. The flax seeds get all gelatinous when you soak them which I found kinda pretty neat.Chickpea Bread : Tasty but would have been better if I had a food processor. It was difficult to blend the different sprouts in the blender becuase the mixture was too dry. We made some with red pepper in it and some with garlic and basil.
Pineapple : David bought a 3 pineapples for $2 from the dude who sells fruit from the food terminal up in TO. He gets what is pretty much on the edge for really cheap and sells it for really cheap. After the fuzzy bit was cut off the bottom David dehydrated these bad boys up and I am pretty happy to eat dried pineapple until my mouth starts bleeding from the delicious acid.
Beets : OK, these were a little weird. Not bad tasting but still a little weird and chewy.
Zucchini : I think we were a little surprised at how tasty dehydrated zucchini is. Then we ate all of the first batch really fast. Don't need seasonin' or nuthin'.
Taro Root : I love those taro root chips and thought I would attempt a healthier version on the dehydrator. They dried really fast and they taste pretty good but have a strange, powdery like texture and instantly suck all the moisture from your mouth and throat. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of that effect... maybe toss them with a bit of oil or something.
