Survival Food: Adventures in Dehydrating Part 1

Hey guys, back with another article. Last fall I happened to spend a little bit of cash and bought myself a dehydrator (It was on sale and I got a good bargain on it). I am looking to save food as much as I can while on a budget. Finally today I am starting to get some use out of it. Best way to save money is how to save, preserve and re-use food. Well here, I am going to learn how to dehydrate food and re-use it. Then post what I am learning. So far, I am just taking the baby steps as starting easy. So for my first try, I am doing...



Potatoes! They work well dried for soups and mashed potatoes. I found a 10 pound bag of Russets at my local grocery store for cheap. Right now I just did only two racks to start with and with a some advice from a friend, got myself started. The type that I bought is a NESCO Professional Food and Jerky Dehydrator, my family has had good luck with NESCO products, so I think this one would work well. Simple to work as this has a temperature control dial, and to turn it on, all you need to do is just plug it in.

When starting it helps to read the instruction manual for the care and use of the machine. READ EVERYTHING THAT COMES WITH IT! Just wanted to say that as a disclaimer... Then what I did was washed the potatoes and cut them pretty thin, The thinner they are the faster they dry. Usually the drying time is about a day to a day and a half, or so I am told. These should be done in about a day or less. I was told that to test them just take one and break it in half. If it snaps like a potato chip, they are done. If not, or if they seem soft, then they need to dry a bit longer. At the end of the drying time, I will show you the end results. I am just doing two racks as a test because there are several different ways to prepareing the the food. One way is just cleaning and cutting them up. Another is several different ways of blanching, which I will try out too. Maybe you can learn from what I am doing.

Coming up, part 2 of my first batch of dehydrated potatoes.