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[at-l] Re: dehydrating

On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:00:04 -0500 (CDT) (at-l-digest) writes:
--------------------
>
>From: Valerie Henderson <vlh1@acpub.duke.edu>
>
>
>3.  To dehydrate or not to dehydrate:  Is dehydrating worth the 
>trouble?  
>I love fresh veggies and fruits and am worried about the lack on the 
>trail.  So, next best thing: dehydrating.  How much is feasible to 
>carry?  Are there any particular varieties that don't dehydrate well 
>(or don't keep very long after dehydration) that I should be aware of?  
>Also,  what's this I've heard about dehydrating yogurt or spaghetti
sauce?  
>Does that actually work???
>
Hi Val,
Just thought I'd let you know that I'm your neighbor over in Raleigh, NC,
so if you ever want to talk to someone local, feel free to drop me a
line.

Concerning the dehydrating, it was absolutely worth it for me.  I spent
about two months dehydrating veggies and stuff before my thru-hike last
year and I'm so glad I did.  I was able to turn your everyday Ramen
Noodle Soup into a veritable vegetable stew that had everybody else in
the shelter salivating.  It really added a lot of variety, color,
different texture, flavor, etc to all those plain old pasta dishes.  I
think the veggies were also a great source of fiber, vitamins, and
minerals, which can all be pretty scarce in those prepackaged pasta
dinners.

A great time saver for you on the labor:  buy the huge bargain bags of
frozen vegetables at your local grocery store and use those.  No
chopping, no peeling, no blanching..... I don't even bother thawing them.
 I just break up the big clumps and spread them out on the trays.  My
favorites to dehydrate: corn, peas, spinach, broccoli, and fresh sliced
mushrooms.  I didn't have much luck with carrots.

As far as fruit is concerned, apples are a little more labor intensive
since you have to slice them up.  I also buy cans of sliced pineapples
and dry those.  They come out wonderful, and very little labor involved. 
I didn't have much luck with the mandarin oranges, they pretty much
dehydrated down to absolutely nothing.

As far as packaging "the fruits of your labor"  (ack--had to do it), I
used my seal-a-meal machine that I got at Service Merchandise.  Another
money-saver tip on the seal-a-meal, use the disposable bags sold for baby
bottles to seal your food in.  They're cheap, and although not as heavy
duty as the seal-a-meal bags, they come in very convenient 4oz and 8 oz
sizes that seem just perfect for single servings of dehydrated veggies
and fruits.  They also don't take as much time to seal.  Other people
just use the ziploc type bags, but I don't think those will keep for
quite as long.

I also did fruit leathers (whirl up some strawberries, applesauce, and
bananas in the blender and spread the resulting glop out on the solid
drying trays), spaghetti leathers, and other miscellaneous things.  With
the spaghetti leathers, I would break it up into smaller chunks and toss
it into the water that I was going to be boiling the pasta in.  This way
I rehydrated the sauce and cooked the noodles at the same time.  It
required a little trial and error on gauging the amount of water
correctly, but you've got tons of time to practice.  Never tried the
yogurt, I'm not a big yogurt fan anyway.

Well, my fingers are tired of typing.

Happy trails,
Rachel
"Solophile"  '97

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