Home Dehydrating

If you're a gardener, hunter, gatherer, backpacker, any or all of the above, I hope this article will give you some ideas. 

This year hubby decided he wanted to backpack into his deer hunting area. So, that meant reducing weight on his pack and getting creative with food. Not only that, our garden has been doing quite well and I needed some ideas of preserving some of our harvests besides canning. Enter the dehydrator! I've had my Excalibur 5 tray dehydrator for several years now, and I'm expanding beyond just apple rings and beef jerky.

I prefer this type of dehydrator over the round ones because I can get a lot more surface area without the round tube in the middle. Allowing for long strips of meat, square fruit leathers and dried soups (yes you can do cream soups!). With 5 trays there's plenty of room.

This year I experimented with drying onions, zucchini, bell peppers and carrots to make my own vegetable seasoning. One tip, if you do onions put your dehydrator outside! Your whole house is going to stink of onions. I use a mandolin to finely slice my veggies directly onto the trays and just arrange them to maximize my contents.  This was very important with the onions, they were really strong and I was crying all over. I needed to get it done quickly!  You can also dice the veggies for soups and casseroles if you want bigger pieces.

Dehydrated zucchini, onions and carrots

Sliced onions on the trays

For fruit leathers and cream soups you will need a leather tray. Not actually made of leather, but some sort of plastic or silicone. Mine are silicone and fit perfectly in my machine. You can spread a thin layer of pureed fruit or cream of mushroom, celery, broccoli soup and dehydrate it.

For the fruit just roll them up in wax paper and the soup you can break it up and store in a jar or plastic bag. You can also do eggs this way, just scramble and cook all the way before putting them in the dehydrator.

Do look out with the creamed soups, some are high in sodium and that only enhances when you dehydrate. You can always look for low sodium soups. I also tried mashed potatoes to use as a soup base. 2 1/2lbs of raw potatoes cooked down and dehydrated to 8 1/2 ounces!

Cream of broccoli soup and scrambled eggs

Of course there's always beef jerky. With the jerky you need to make sure you use meat that is low in fat content, otherwise the fat could turn rancid. I usually get a round roast from Costco (I have yet to harvest an animal), and I can even get it pre-sliced for the same price.

If you need to slice it, either use a meat slicer to your preferred thickness or use a knife with slightly frozen meat. Having it slightly frozen helps with keeping the meat a little more solid against your knife. You will probably still want a smoky flavor and you can add that with a few drops of liquid smoke, works great. Add whatever marinade and seasonings and you'll have a tasty treat.

Another good backpacking food is beans. Use canned beans because they are pre-cooked, obviously you can't dehydrate dried beans. Rinse them and spread them out on either the leather or mesh sheet. They will crack while drying, but this will also help them to absorb water again.

And don't forget the herbs! I grow my own and fill all my herb jars every summer from my garden. Your house will smell fantastic with your herbs in the dehydrator and their color will not fade. Compare them with store bought herbs, what a difference! And you can make your own seasonings, I have a favorite Italian seasoning made with homegrown sage, oregano, parsley and a few other store bought spices. 

And of course there's always fruit. Sliced apples, bananas, I even did canned mandarin oranges! Add some cinnamon to your apples, the kids will love it! A great treat in the blind or the boat. Don't forget your other hunting buddies, the four legged ones! Dehydrated sweet potato slices make great chew treats.

Bananas and mandarin oranges

Cinnamon apple slices and mashed potatoes

Best thing of all is that you are in control. You control the preservatives and seasonings. Have you ever looked at the nutritional value on emergency and backpack food? Sodium is on the roof! 600mg+!

You can make up your own just add water meals for camping or emergencies. Pack them in jars, baggies, or vacuum seal for longer storage. Be sure to date your packages and rotate as needed. Much cheaper than a lot of the store bought stuff. I plan on making all I can this summer and storing the packages in a tote for emergencies and camping.

In this crazy time of uncertainty many of us have turned to locally sourced meat and produce, not to mention growing our own gardens. And of course hunting. I have always looked for ways of being more self sufficient, and with recent grocery store madness this just proved it. I am happy to have more food put by, canned, frozen and dehydrated. There's no better feeling than to go grocery shopping in your own pantry!

ReelCamo Girl Prostaffer - Erika Forsythe