I'm not canning anything this year

[TexasJerseyMilker]

My husband gave me a big new Magic Mill food dehydrator. It has 9 shelves. New jar lids and bands are just too ridiculously expensive so I'm drying the garden produce this year. So far I've dried apple slices, pears, Italian plums and tomatos. It is surprising how good dried tomato slices are for a snack. Apples, pears and plums cooked with oatmeal makes a pretty good breakfast. I froze the geenbeans and strawberries. The cucumber crop was disappointing but good thing we still have a lot of pickles from last year.

 

[Mountaintown Creek Ranch]

My husband gave me a big new Magic Mill food dehydrator. It has 9 shelves. New jar lids and bands are just too ridiculously expensive so I'm drying the garden produce this year. So far I've dried apple slices, pears, Italian plums and tomatos. It is surprising how good dried tomato slices are for a snack. Apples, pears and plums cooked with oatmeal makes a pretty good breakfast. I froze the geenbeans and strawberries. The cucumber crop was disappointing but good thing we still have a lot of pickles from last year.

Put you some fruit that you like in a blender with some vanilla yogurt.
blend it till it's really smooth and you pour it on one of those plastic dehydrator mats
it turns into like a fruit roll-up ....
best thing I've ever made in that dehydrator.

 

[Travlr]

My husband gave me a big new Magic Mill food dehydrator. It has 9 shelves. New jar lids and bands are just too ridiculously expensive so I'm drying the garden produce this year. So far I've dried apple slices, pears, Italian plums and tomatos. It is surprising how good dried tomato slices are for a snack. Apples, pears and plums cooked with oatmeal makes a pretty good breakfast. I froze the geenbeans and strawberries. The cucumber crop was disappointing but good thing we still have a lot of pickles from last year.

I dried a lot of butternut squash a couple of years ago. But it's pretty dismaying how everything shrinks. Apples are easy. This year I did some apricots and they sure don't look or eat like store bought dried fruit. But they are okay if you like them crunchy.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

The more it shrinks the more you can store. Store bought is soft that was because of added sulfer. Just put a little boiling water on those things and they swell and soften right up

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Those roll ups must be loaded with nutrients.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Trvlr, if your apricots are crunchy I think you might be over drying them.

I only have experience in Italian plums halves which are similar to apricots. You want then to not be sticky any more but still somewhat flexible. You cool them then put them in sealed jars for a few days out where you can see if there is water condensation. If condensation, dry them a little more.

 

[dave_shelby]

Do tomatoes come out like sun dried tomatoes you can buy at the store?

Sun dried tomatoes were the in thing back in the late 80s and early 90s. I remember my mother getting into italian foods when I was young. A few of the recipes called for sun dried tomatoes one of which was called pasta putanesca so named for prostitutes who also fed their clients.

 

[jltrent]

I have a 7 stack with a fan dehydrator and have never used it. This is making me curious as I need to use it. I just go ahead and can or freeze, but this may be another options for some things.

 

[Ouachita]

My wife got in to dehydrating several years ago. She does all kinds of things, but I think my favorite is strawberry chips. The flavor is more concentrated and I avoid juice squirts on my shirt.

 

[Lucky_P]

I cut tomato numbers to 20 this year, but bumped peppers up to nearly 200... grew somewhere between 15 & 20 different varieties - mostly sweet non-bell types like Elephant Ear, Ajvarski, Cubanelle, etc., and a half-dozen different bells.
Have been slicing/dicing and dehydrating peppers every day for the past 2 months. Have something like twenty 40-oz. peanut butter jars full of dried pepper cubes put up. Like the Frank's Hot Sauce commercial... "I put that S#!t in everything!"
Aji Dulce, Roulette, and Habanada have been really nice. My wife likes the Nadapeno, but I've also been dehydrating Jalapenos for my own use.

Have been dehydrating okra slices the last couple of weeks, as I'm pretty much out of freezer space, after a big blueberry & green bean harvest.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

I grew pepperoncinis this year and pickled them.
Does the slime rehydrate?

Yes the dehydrated tomatoes are like sun dried tomatos. I peeled them first making a slice in the skin on the bottom then dipping the batch in boilig water, then cold. The skin comes right off. Then slice about 1/2" thick. I dry things at 135F until they are dry but still flexible.