In an effort to prepare for a summer trip that I don’t dare write about yet, for fear we won’t be able to manage it (financial reasons primarily) I have been dehydrating like mad. Because I dislike getting to the point where we decide we are going somewhere, and then there is no food prepared, and you can’t exactly whip up a weeks worth of backpacking meals in a few days. So we resprt to buying meals and that just costs WAY too much money. Plus it doesn’t taste as good.
Recently I have loaded the dehydrator with things such as this packaged coleslaw mix (basically assorted shredded veggies) which I thought would be brilliant in soup! And it’s already shredded, so I just emptied the bag onto a tray, and it was ready to go. While I would not usually buy something like this, it was a donation from my aunt. She also gave me a bag of shrimp, and a bunch of mini-cucumbers (which I dehydrated with the intention of powdering and adding to soup as well).
I also pureed some leftover baked sweet potatoes, to make what amounts to instant ‘tatoes, after you rehydrate them. And I thawed some of the bananas in my freezer, and processed them with poached apples, for some fruit leather. I plan on making more of that, and mix in some veggie juice I found in the freezer, for added vitamins!
Sydnie just helped me get some steamed chicken ready to go as well. Apparently steaming the chicken before you dehydrate makes it more easily re-hydrated later, so I wanted to test that out.
I also found out that if you want breadcrumbs in a hurry, you can just dehydrate the bread and put it through the food processor!