Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Survival Food: Adventures in Dehydrating Part 4, Microwave Results

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Well, here are the results of blanching from a microwave. There was some difference in some of the chips in colors, maybe a dark reddish color, and black of course like the first round. This might be due to different factors and could be anything from the process of blanching, to the types of potatoes. Total drying time was a bit longer than I expected at about 17 hours or so. These may not look pretty, but when you are on a VERY tight budget, or in a emergency situation, food is food. Plus these are a bit healthier than the boxed stuff, which is why I did all of this. Now, for storing them, you have several different options.

You can...

1. Leave them as they are and store them properly for later use, which I am learning to do right now.

2. Grind them till they are flaked and package them again in baggies if you are going to use them in the coming future. Or...

3. Get creative and make your own dry "instant" soups! Take other dried veggies and herbs and combining them with the potatoes. Make your own family creations! Of course if I do the same thing, then I will show you what I did.

So there you go, 10 pounds of potatoes that lost a lot of water weight. The actual amount after drying is probably all of a pound of weight. If you guys did something similar, please make a comment about it on here.

2 comments:

TheSurvivalMom said...

I have yet to master dehydrating potatoes so they don't turn that brownish gray color. I've tried blanching them but that didn't help. Have you had a batch that didn't turn color?

Unknown said...

You need to do more than just blanch potato's to make them look "right". You have to cook them almost completely before dehydrating them.