Dehydrator - Need help planning for the zombie apocolypse!

CindiLou wrote: ..the hangers is what convinced the hubby that he needed to get the rack finished! I haven't use the other attachments yet. I have the mini ravioli one that looks interesting.

Was looking at dehydrators online. I think I will be getting a new one soon. I want some square trays, not round.

Mini ravioli? How large? My 2 year old will only it the toddler pasta pick-ups by gerber. Turns his nose up at anything bigger. I estimate the Gerber stuff is 1/2x 3/4".

We have the pasta attachment for the kitchen aid stand mixer but need a ravioli press. We picked up one of the rolling pins but it's too big.

For dehydrators, we have a Nesco FD-80 Square. It works great and you can get extra trays which you just stack.

Dried tomato slices are good, much like sun-dried tomatoes. Veggie chips aren't quite right yet. Need more experimentation. Not 'chippy' enough flavor.

Beef jerky is superb but I don't make it often as I tend to eat it all over the next week. I process about 4 lbs at a time turns into a good gallon plastic bag of jerky. Much like a good brisket, cut across the grain on Jerky. If you don't you'll rip your teeth out.

I have another batch in right now, bananas, strawberries, apples, and a fruit leather. I really need to get my hands on a jerky gun so I can make the ground beef jerky, I heard it's much more tender than the sliced beef jerky!

And for ravioli, I don't have an attachment I just roll out a sheet and place filling so far apart over half the sheet, then rub water with my finger between the seems, fold over with the other half of the pasta sheet, and cut with a pizza roller. You could make any size you want that way!

camprn wrote:

Kelejan wrote:Video not available in my country (Canada)

Oh dear! Did you try it at the Youtube site?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wLCmxKs4oXU

Just tried it, it says the same thing, video not available on your country.
But thanks for trying, camprn.

No_Such_Reality wrote:

Mini ravioli? How large? My 2 year old will only it the toddler pasta pick-ups by gerber. Turns his nose up at anything bigger. I estimate the Gerber stuff is 1/2x 3/4".

The best I can figure would be less than an inch. I haven't made any yet to measure. Might be a good afternoon thing to do today lol..

The raviolini attachment has the white part measuring 5" and there are 4 sections in it with a little space in between each.




Showed hubby the Alton Brown Blowhard 5000..thought he would die laughing! He says no reason it wouldn't work...has the airflow!

Look up dehydrate2store on youtube for a lot of great video's and tips on dehydrating. She got me so excited about it, I had to buy an Excalibur. It took me 2 years, but I finally got one this past summer. In the summer, it was going almost daily. I've started to store my food using my food saver with an oxygen pack in it, then store that in mylar bags. They say, it will last up to 25 years that way.

Oh that sounds like fun, I will deffinately look up some videos!

Oh gosh, all of you are so amazing with what you have done! I just love all the pictures and stories! I love the granola recipe Ericam and will be copying it!

Stripesmom, that sounds amazing storing things for 25 years! What are you able to store? I just wouldn't have known that you could store dried food for that long!

after reading thru ....i want beef jerky for breakfast

happy gardening
rose

I have an electric smoker that works great. I keep it stored it the garage and only dig it out a couple of times a year for a number of reasons: 1) It's a pain in the arse to clean. I'm not willing to store it without thoroughly scrubbing it out. Secondly, since it's so much trouble, I feel like I need to "get my time and money's worth" when I do you it, so I load it to the gills. This of course means we eat all things smoked for days on end until we are generally sick of it and have smoke coming out of our hair and pores. That being said, I do have some favorites. I love doing pork tenderloins...usually 5-10 at time. They only take about 2 hours to smoke because they are small. I smoked several along with our Thanksgiving turkey, and my mom-in-law froze them to serve at Christmas. They warmed up every bit as moist as the day they came off the smoke! People raved about them. I also like doing a nice port butt/shoulder. Since the kids are off at school, it's just the wife and me, so I pull the pork and store enough for 2-3 barbecue sandwiches in those air-tight Seal-a-meal pouches. When we don't feel like cooking, we can simply drop the bag in boiling water or 7-10 minutes and Viola! Dinner is served.

For Thanksgiving I brined a turkey breast. It was [url]Ree Drumman's brine recipe[/url], but I smoked it instead of baking. I made a Mediteranian spice rub of salt, pepper, cumin, corriander, cinnamon...basically all the "C's" in your spice rack as Rachael Ray would say. It was absolutely delicious....best Thanksgiving turkey I've ever had, and was still MOIST a week later when we finished it off with turkey/apple/avocado BTL's! Try it. You'll love it, and I highly recommend brining for any lean meat.

Triciasgarden, take a look at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVpIHre2ao
I think this is her first video on dehydrating. Food has to be dehydrated, then using a food saver (or any other product that will seal food) you put an oxygen pack in the package, draw out the air, seal it, put that in a mylar bag, seal that and store it in a plastic bucket or box so it is dry, dark and the temperature should be steady, around 50-70 degrees. I put it in my basement. I barely started and I will say, you can really store a lot of food in a small space. You can store many veg or fruit this way.  There are a lot of possibilities and lots to learn.

I had a bumper crop of misc hot peppers, so decided to dehydrate. I dried, then ground up in a coffee grinder, put some in a shaker, for on misc. food. (chili!) I'm the only person here that likes hot food.

Peppers, if they are really hot, should also be dehydrated outside! For the first batch, I wore gloves to wash and cut off the tops. Then I put in dehydrater on the racks on kitchen counter. A couple hrs. later, I couldn't figure out why my eyes were burning!

A smoker makes some good food! It is recommended to cook poultry and turkey before making jerky because of salmonella. Smoke in the smoker, and make jerky out of the leftovers! Hint: You may not have any leftovers!

I just string my hot peppers with a needle and thread and hang them on the porch to dry.

SO this was how I made my soup last night:
Sliced shallots, carrots and garlic (from the garden). A jar of home canned tomato juice, a handfull each of dried summer squash, eggplant, poblano peppers, cherry tomatoes. Less than a TBSP of chicken stock paste, 2 anchovies, 1/4 cup red wine, 3 cups water 1 bay leaf. Simmer for 30 minutes add one can of corn and one can of black beans. Garnish with a few small chunks of Vermont cheddar cheese. Delicious!

Made a batch of granola yesterday, thought you might like to see the results...

Bump. I watched this embedded video and I think it is worth watching for serious electric dehydrating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVpIHre2ao