Question for 5/28/2018... Dehydrating the Veggies...

[daylilydude]

Those of you that dehydrate your vegetables, what are some of your favorites? Is it an all day affair when you start dehydrating them?

[brownrexx]

I only dehydrate fruits and herbs. I tried dehydrating cherry tomatoes but we didn't really like them.

[farmerjack41]

Onions and garlic. (Done out in back yard LOL)

[pepperhead212]

Peppers, of course. I dry all of the ripe peppers of some types, but I use fresh ripe and greens of others, which I freeze. Some I dry and freeze, and those I dry the early ripening peppers, since it doesn't really matter how long those are dried, then I freeze the later ripening crop, then freeze the last green crop.

Eggplants are another that I dry a lot of, mainly because they were producing so many in those SIPs that I couldn't keep up with them! A lb dries down to 1.45 oz.

I dry some tomatoes, but not a bunch. I much prefer fresh or frozen; I do use some rehydrated tomatoes in things like Mexican sauces, that are blended smooth, then "fried", to cook down, but most recipes that call for dried tomatoes, where the tomatoes are the main flavor, just don't appeal to me. I have dried sunsugars, when I have excess, and they are delicious - like eating raisins.

Tomatillos I dry, and they turned out really good. To sort of imitate grilling them, I toast them in a dry pan, when toasting the chiles, then soak them in enough water to almost bring them up to their original volume (these dry to 1.35 oz from 1 lb), before blending them.

Butternuts I usually only dry when I have some old ones, left from last year. These probably take the longest, since I have to peel and de-seed them, before cutting into cubes. These, and tomatoes shrink the most - down to 1 oz from a lb.

All the rest are fairly fast to prepare. Small peppers, like Thai, just go in whole, while larger ones I cut in half - otherwise, they can take a long time. Eggplants are fast - skinny ones, I halve lengthwise, the little bit fatter ones I quarter lengthwise, then cut into about 1 1/2" chunks. For tomatoes, I use smaller ones, and cut them in half. Tomatillos I cut into quarters, though the very large ones I cut into sixths. It doesn't take very long to make up a pile of 8 trays for the dehydrator!