{"id":329,"date":"2008-06-06T13:34:53","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T20:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=329"},"modified":"2008-06-06T13:34:53","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T20:34:53","slug":"fun-with-a-dehydrator-fruits-vegetables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/06\/06\/fun-with-a-dehydrator-fruits-vegetables\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun with a Dehydrator: Fruits & Vegetables"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m loving this dehydrator a coworker of Michael’s gave him.\u00a0 So far, I’ve made Fruit Leather<\/a> and a bunch of dried fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 Below are some of my experiments.\u00a0 Everything was dried at 115*F to keep it raw.\u00a0 I run the dehydrator all day then turn it off at night (or when going out) and run it again the next day.\u00a0 Most things took 12-15 hours.<\/p>\n

\nBananas:<\/h2>\n

I sliced the bananas in half (thirds for longer ones) then lengthwise into 3 or 4 strips, and placed them on the tray.\u00a0 As close together as possible without overlapping.<\/p>\n

\"Sliced<\/p>\n

They came out smaller but not as tiny as some of the other foods.\u00a0 I couldn’t get them crispy though, even though I ran them through the dehydrator for several days.\u00a0 They were leathery and chewy and really delicious.\u00a0 They were also dried plenty for safe storage.<\/p>\n

\"Sliced<\/p>\n

My first attempt to make them was with banana chips.\u00a0 The results were similar but arranging all those chips on the tray was a pain, so the strips are easier.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Banana<\/p>\n

\nCarrots:<\/h2>\n

I tried both chips and strips here.<\/p>\n

\"Raw<\/p>\n

Like with the bananas, I never managed to get them crispy, though they were close. These shrunk up like crazy and some of the chips fell through the grate.\u00a0 The chips would be good in soup I think.\u00a0 These were tasty.<\/p>\n

\"Dried<\/p>\n

Beets:<\/h2>\n

I’ve made beet chips, with both red and golden beets, many times, and they have come out reasonably well.\u00a0 I got them crispy and firm and able to be used for eating hummus.\u00a0 I cut them by hand and dried them in the oven, at 150*F (the lowest I could go).\u00a0 They work well in a convection oven.\u00a0 But I had trouble with some burning or over-drying and also with the thickness.<\/p>\n

I have been looking forward for a long time to making the chips with a mandolin (which I bought a few months ago) and a dehydrator.\u00a0 But these were a disappointment.\u00a0 The chips I made in the past tasted wonderful, but these were bitter.\u00a0 Maybe it was the beet I used, not the method.\u00a0 I think the slices were too thin also.\u00a0 I can set the mandolin thicker, or I can cut by hand.<\/p>\n

And I never got them past the leathery stage.\u00a0 Maybe I’m being impatient, but it did seem that they got to leathery and then stayed there for hour upon hour of additional drying.\u00a0 The other items were the same.<\/p>\n

I’ll keep experimenting though, because I really do love beet chips.<\/p>\n

This is one large beet.\u00a0 It covered two trays.<\/p>\n

\"Golden<\/p>\n

This is what it it came down to.\u00a0 You can see the other tray under the top one.\u00a0 This is about the amount of shrinkage I got from oven drying.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Strawberries and Peaches:<\/h2>\n

A few apricots made it into the mix too.<\/p>\n

\"Fruit<\/p>\n

Oh wow, these were amazing.\u00a0 The peaches stayed a bit juicy (but were still storage safe) and all the fruits were chewy and stick-to-your-teeth delicious.\u00a0 Despite having plenty of the fresh versions around to eat, Miriam is begging me to make more.\u00a0 “Can you make some more of these chips?…Will you do it right now?”<\/p>\n

\"Dried<\/p>\n

Happiness is a dried peach.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m loving this dehydrator a coworker of Michael’s gave him.\u00a0 So far, I’ve made Fruit Leather and a bunch of dried fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 Below are some of my experiments.\u00a0 Everything was dried at 115*F to keep it raw.\u00a0 I run the dehydrator all day then turn it off at night (or when going out) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,3,23],"tags":[7,6,8,51,77,34,5,12],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-recipes","category-snacks","tag-dairy-free","tag-egg-free","tag-gluten-free","tag-photos-family","tag-photos-food","tag-raw","tag-vegan","tag-vegetarian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}