This year, I wanted to preserve some of the veggies we’ve grown in our little veggie patches. We don’t have a lot of room to have a large garden so we have a few little spaces around our home where we are growing tomatoes, cucumbers, a little bit of okra, yellow/summer squash, zucchini and some jalapeños. (I am also growing birdhouse gourds, but those will not be for food. I will post about those later when I paint them and turn them into pretty birdhouses.) Even with the few plants we grew, we’ve had quite an abundance of some of these veggies. Also, since we have such a small home right now, we don’t have a lot of room in the kitchen to do a lot of traditional canning, nor do we have much room to store a large number of jars. And, after some disastrous experiences in the past with losing LOTS of food (and time and money) in a couple of freezers that decided to go “kaput,” I wanted a more stable way to preserve our harvest since I really hate to waste good food. So, I decided to try dehydrating our harvested veggies, as well as a few that we’ve bought at the local farmer’s market. Finally, I have also read a number of articles online that report the nutrient retention value of dehydrated food is much higher than that of traditional (or commercial) canned veggies. This was another factor in my decision to try dehydrating this season.
This article will discuss how we initially became interested in dehydrating, the books I’m using as a guide, a little about our growing process for our veggies, the dehydrators and equipment I’m using and how I’m storing my dried foods. Along the way, I will share what I’ve learned and how this process has gone for us so far and what I may try next year.
Dehydrating, You Say?
Our interest in dehydrating food began about 2-3 years ago when we started making beef and chicken jerky for our own use. This partly stemmed from the fact that we liked jerky a lot but we couldn’t find any commercially made jerky that we liked very well or that I could eat with my digestive issues. At the time, I had a small home dehydrator I bought at the local super center, but it wasn’t really intended (or safe) for making meat jerky. I did use it to dry apples, some berries and to make some fruit leathers but nothing serious. We tried a little jerky with it but I was concerned about food safety and also really wanted to “up my game” with a better dehydrator that would safely make meat jerky and make it in greater quantity. I did some research online and found a Tribest Sedona Express dehydrator that had good reviews and ratings so I bought it.
Once the dehydrator arrived, we started making homemade jerky. It was SO much better than any store-bought jerky we had tried. From making small batches of jerky for personal use, we started sharing with friends and family who started requesting it and, of course, we were happy to oblige and our batches quickly started getting bigger. We stopped making chicken jerky because of the higher risk of contamination, but the beef jerky just kept getting better and better as we tweaked our recipes. Our friends and family started asking us to do large batches for them and they would pay us for the ingredients and making it for them. Within about 3-4 months, we were making jerky 4 days a week in 5 pound batches and averaging about 40-50 pounds of raw meat a week. We continued that process for a few more months and the demand kept growing. A few months later, we invested in two large commercial dehydrators (Commercial Dehydrators America) and 8-9 months in, we reached a point where we were processing about 80-100 pounds of beef a week for jerky. We were even approached by a few people asking us to make and sell it at markets and events. For better or for worse, it was turning into a full-time second job!
During that time, my husband retired from his “real” job and became a part-time jerky salesman. lol! I was still working full-time in a “real” job and making jerky in the evenings. It became quite an endeavor and adventure. After doing this about 12-14 months, we realized that it had grown into such a large process that we had some big decisions to make. We either needed to consider a separate place just for making jerky and making it a full-time venture and possibly hiring part-time help; or, we would need to scale back or stop all together. In considering all the factors at the time (our health, my vision, being unable to find reliable/willing help), we sadly decided to stop making jerky all together. So, with heavy hearts, we “liquidated” by selling our two large commercial dehydrators, some of our remaining ingredients and a few other items we had purchased along the way.
Initially, I was sad to see it go, but now I can say now that it has been kind of a relief to stop since my vision declined so rapidly over the last 2 years. I am also very happy to share that with the exception of a 16-foot enclosed trailer (which we were going to turn into a commercial kitchen) and a little bit we owed (to ourselves) on the large commercial dehydrators, the jerky pretty much paid for everything. We weren’t making a lot of clear profit, but we were returning all profit back to the business to grow it and everything was paid for as we went along. The only other exception was my initial investment in the first two Tribest Sedona Express dehydrators and our first little vacuum sealer which I had owned for a few years. So, all in all, I think we did pretty good… especially given that most new businesses do not make a significant profit within the first five years of existence. (At least that’s what I learned in some of my business classes in college.) We were not making a killing, but we were able to make it “float.”
After letting the jerky making go, I still wanted to dehydrate other foods. Because I had bought the first two dehydrators myself, I decided to keep them to possibly make jerky for ourselves again. Plus, I thought maybe I’d use them to dry some herbs, fruits and veggies. I wasn’t exactly sure how much I’d use them, but I knew I didn’t want to get rid of them just yet. (And, for those who are curious, we are now turning the 16-foot enclosed trailer into a camper! We’re going to haul that crate to different places and have a nice little place to lay our heads. lol!)
Some of you may be wondering just how much space dehydrating saves. Well, I can tell you that on one shelf (approx. 15″deep x 36″ wide x 18″ tall), I have stored: about 10 dozen ears of corn, about 2 1/2 bushels of green beans, about 1 bushel of squash, close to 2 bushels of cucumbers, and about a half bushel of tomatoes. There are a few random jars of jalapeños, zucchini and bell peppers. If I had traditionally canned all of these foods, I would have needed at least 3-4 times that space, not to mention most likely some freezer space as well.
*Please keep in mind, this shelf is in our storage room. Please excuse the binocular bag and dim lighting. Thank you!*
Disclosure… I do still freeze fresh meat. Dehydrating meat usually requires marinating and then drying. Even with the use of commercial curing salts and processes, it typically still doesn’t have as long of a shelf life as the veggies and fruit. Thus, I do not feel it is beneficial for us at this time to dehydrate our meat. I do hope to be able to start canning meat at home as it can be stored longer than dehydrated meat (depending on the process used). But, for now, I try to keep a decent supply of store bought canned meat (chicken, tuna, ham). This is something I need to look at a little more at some point in the future. It is my understanding that freeze-dried meats and food are about the most shelf-stable food available. In looking at some systems on the market, they are very expensive. Maybe at some point in the future, we might consider one of those systems but, for now, we’ll use what we have on hand. For those who may be wondering, “shelf stable” meats from the grocery store is packed with preservatives. Even though we have some put back and stored, I try to rotate my “inventory” to ensure we don’t let something go out of date. I don’t want to use a lot of preservatives personally so that is why I still buy canned meat at the store. Likely, the freeze-drying system would be beneficial here.
Confession… I did not dehydrate any okra this year. We only had 5 plants and they only produced a little okra at a time. I should have dehydrated what we harvested and kept them in small batches, but the book I’m using as a guide (listed below) only mentions using okra in soups or stews. I like okra in soups and stews, but my husband is not too fond of many different soups. So, until I figure out a way to use dehydrated okra for frying, I probably won’t dehydrate it much, if at all.
Books, Guides and Safe Food Preservation Information
When I bought my first two dehydrators, I found a book on Amazon that really looked interesting. It is “The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Drying Food, Plus 398 Recipes, Including Making Jerky, Fruit Leather & Just Add Water Meals.” While we did not use the recipes in this book for our jerky making adventure, I have used many of the instructions for drying veggies and fruits and found them to be excellent. I am not to the point of being able to make any of the meal recipes yet, but hopefully in a couple of years I’ll be able to get to that point. I hope to make some fruit leathers soon for some kiddos that I know and love. This book really does provide some great information on drying almost everything! And it has recipes to use the dried food for meals and snacks. It says there are only 2-3 foods that are not able to be dehydrated at home, one being avocados. I can’t remember the other ones, but with being able to dry everything else… I don’t think I’ll miss the 2-3 I can’t do at home. lol! Additionally, the authors of this book (Tammy Gangloff, Steven Gangloff and September Ferguson) also have a website Dehydrate2Store where they share more information and recipes about dehydrating foods for storage. Great resource! This has been my primary source for drying veggies and fruits.
A second book I’ve used a little bit is Country Canning Cookbook, by James R. Coffey, Carlisle Publishing, copyright 2009, third printing 2020. I found and purchased this book a couple years ago at Yoder’s Country Market, Bulls Gap TN, a local Amish store. (This little store is great for buying bulk items, fresh baked goods, fresh made deli sandwiches, various home goods, and so much more. Everything we’ve had from this store is delicious! If you live in or near East Tennessee, it is worth the trip!) This book has a lot of great recipes for canning foods with a little information about drying foods too. I really like the variety of recipes in this book, as well as the “old fashioned” feel of the recipes. A lot of these recipes put me in mind of how my grandparents might have preserved foods. It does have conventional measurements and instructions, but just has an “old timey” feel to it. (This book may prove beneficial for meat processing and canning.)
I’ve also looked through the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. This book has a great assortment of recipes for canning, freezing and a few for dehydrating. I haven’t used this book as much for dehydrating, but I have compared a few of the recipes in it to others. I have used it in the past for canning pickled jalapeños and dill pickles, as well as many other foods when I used to can foods traditionally. Ball Corp. is often considered a “gold standard” in canning and preserving, so it is a very reliable source for food preservation information. (Check out their website for some great information on preserving food and some really cute and easy crafts with jars. Christmas will be here before you know it!)
Another resource I’ve used quite often is the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service website. This website is great for finding current food safety standards and guidelines, including dehydrating meat and other foods. I have not found a lot of “recipes” per se on this site, but it is good to compare the information I have found on other sites and know it is safe. The parent site for this website is also great to keep up to date on recent food recalls as well.
A word of caution: There are MANY sites on the internet that share recipes for making jerky, drying foods, preserving foods, etc. PLEASE use good judgment when visiting those sites to ensure you are not risking your health or the health of others through unsafe food handling and processing. If you are unsure about a recipe, process or procedure, you can always visit the USDA site, call your local/regional USDA office or contact your local Extension Office for guidance.
Finally, another of my favorite resources is UT Extension (a branch of the University of Tennessee). You can search the Publications page and find lots of great resources for a number of different topics. Some of these topics include nutrition, food safety, growing fruits and veggies, food preservation, and much, much more. While it doesn’t address dehydration directly, there are still some great resources for almost anyone. UT Extension also offers a variety of classes and programs for farmers, producers and home economists. One office in my area frequently offers bread making, jam making, canning, fermenting and cheese making classes and many others, as well as testing pressure canners for safety and accuracy. And, if you can’t find what you’re looking for on the Publications page, you can always reach out to your local county office. As a former employee of UT Extension, I can assure you that the information they provide is research and science based. (If you live outside of TN, you should be able to find an Extension office in your state that can provide you with relevant information there.)
While I do prefer to dehydrate to save space and to reduce food loss (the freezer dying trauma lives on), I do still can some foods. My husband really likes pickled jalapeños, some jellies and a few other "old time" favorites he grew up eating. I haven't made jellies/jams in a number of years, but hope to do so since I have a little more time on my hands nowadays. I hope to learn from his sister how to can green tomatoes. She made some delicious fried green tomatoes for us last winter and you would never have known they had been canned if she hadn't told us. They were amazing! Yes, I will share the recipe once I get my grubby little hands on it. lol!
How Does Our Garden Grow?
As I mentioned before, we have limited space where we currently live. For growing things, we have been using one space approximately 20-feet by 6-feet and another space that is approximately 20-feet by 3-feet (odd shaped). There is additional space outside but some of it is shaded and filled with pine tree roots, so it is not suitable for growing much except the birdhouse gourds. We also have a decent sized yard, but we can’t plow it for growing veggies. (Our landlord/landlady are great folks but we really don’t want to push the limits of their graciousness and kindness.) In the first space, we have been very successful this year with growing tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and okra. In the second space, we have grown squash, zucchini and jalapeños. Mixed in with the veggies in the second space, we also have grown some wildflowers to attract pollinators and hummingbirds.
We have tried other ways of growing veggies in the past few years. The first year here, I tried straw bale gardening. I personally used large plastic storage bins with holes drilled in the bottom and sides, and put the straw bales inside them. The idea was to be able to move the plants in the bins as soon as we were able to find a home to purchase. (All I’m going to say about trying to buy a home is… gee thanks, COVID! ugh!) Aside from the storage bins, I followed the instructions from UT Extension. I planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeños and cucumbers in the straw bales. They did magnificently!
The second year I reused the containers and the first years’ straw bales had broken down into a super rich compost! From a gardening standpoint, it was a beautiful sight to behold! lol! I added a few new straw bales on top of the previous years decomposed straw bales and planted green beans, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapeños. They also did really well. I really liked the straw bale gardening and can see a ton of value in it but the plastic bin idea was not usable by the third year. So, we cleaned out the plastic bins and spread the compost out in the areas we are currently using.
I would like to note at this point that we are very fortunate to have a creek running behind our little home. The first two years we grew veggies, we carried buckets of water from the creek to keep our veggies from dying during the hot, dry summer months. The third year, my husband bought a small electric water pump to which we connected some water hoses and this made watering our plants so much easier. Without this water source, our veggie harvests would not have been as plentiful. Using the "paid for" water was not optimal (due to chlorine, etc.) or affordable.
I should mention that we have also grown our own plants from seed the last two years. We started with a little AeroGarden Harvest Elite I found on Amazon Outlet. I had seen these little countertop gardens and knew that hydroponic gardening can be an eco-friendly way to garden. So, I “indulged” and bought the returned garden system to play around with. Well, we had seeds start growing in less than 10 days! I started with the herb seed kit included with the garden, but my husband quickly decided we should grow some jalapeños and habaneros for our jerky recipes at the time. (We used a lot of peppers for two different flavors of jerky we made.). The pepper plants quickly outgrew the AeroGarden and we transplanted them to soil in some small containers until the threat of frost was passed. Then we started a few more seeds in the AeroGarden just to make sure we would have enough peppers to supply our need. By the time we got them outdoors, we had pepper plants over 2 feet tall! I kid you not! The next year we started with the AeroGarden and purchased two more grow lights and starter kits. We were amazed at how well everything did with the grow lights. We learned very quickly that grow lights were a huge factor in starting our own seeds and having a successful little garden.
Additionally, over the last few years, I have been trying to move towards a more “organic” style of gardening. While I am not completely organic gardening, I am trying to use less commercially produced fertilizers and more natural soil enrichers. I dry and break up egg shells, use coffee grounds, banana peels, vegetable and fruit peels and anything vegetable based to put in the growing areas to help enrich the soil with nutrients the plants will use. I also added “black cow” (processed manure) to the soil when rototilling at the first of the season. Similarly, during the season, I use additional organic based fertilizer to feed the plants. I typically add epsom salt in the soil to help prevent some forms of blight (especially around the tomatoes and cucumbers). I have used a little Miracle-Gro this year, but nothing compared to what we used in years past. I tried to find an organic Miracle-Gro, but wasn’t able to find it at our local farm store. I may look online next year for organic Miracle-Gro… if there is such a thing.
As far as pest control, in the past I used Sevin dust/spray, but wasn’t a big fan because of the potential for residual in the plants and produce. I usually plant marigolds near the house and around my veggies to help keep insects at bay, but that was only minimally successful. This year, I have tried neem oil. I read some articles about it and it seems to work well to eliminate fungus and most pests. A word of caution about neem oil… read the directions carefully. Using too much, a mixture that is too strong or on fragile plants can damage your plants. Follow the directions on the packaging. Neem oil is supposed to be safe even to the day of harvest and I’ve had good experiences with it. Next year, I may consider trying some of the dish soap, vinegar and water based recipes I’ve seen online and see how that works. I am also researching other methods of natural pest control so I may add other methods or recipes to my “arsenal” of pest control next year. lol!
At the end of each season, I typically like to let the plants die, cut them down and lay them back on the soil. This serves at least two purposes. First, it helps protect the soil somewhat from potential erosion during the winter. Second, the old plants break down and also return nutrients back into the soil. The winter season’s snow and freezing temperatures help break down the plants and makes them easy to turn into the soil in the spring. Some folks feel there will be a lot of volunteer plants come up in the spring from “leftover” seeds that land in the soil, but my experience has been that these seedlings can be turned under a few times and causes little or no trouble afterwards. Other folks prefer to have a winter cover crop of some sort. Their reasoning is that it prevents erosion and adds nutrients to the soil, similar to what I do. Some larger farmers also use cover crops to help with moisture control in the soil. But, for my small garden, this is not a huge issue.
Confession: I have never had a winter cover crop but would not be averse to doing this. I have given thought to trying it in the upcoming fall/winter season but will need to do more research on what types of grasses or plants to use for my region and purposes. I think I've read where some folks have used winter wheat and other winter hardy greens/beans but..... I will do more research on this in the upcoming weeks before winter. UT Extension publications, here I come!
Alternately, instead of cover crops, I am considering simply adding some straw and leaves (from the trees in our yard) to the areas at the end of the season to let them break down and enrich the soil. Interestingly enough, a person I used to know would collect grass clippings from a neighbor who had their lawn treated by a commercial company. This person would add the grass clippings to their garden and seemed to feel it made a huge difference in the produce results. I know the commercial companies use chemical fertilizer sprays for yards they treat, but it did increase the persons garden yield. A different person I once knew would collect chicken coop “clean out” from friends and spread that through their garden. The chicken coop “clean out” is very high in nitrogen and will definitely make your grass or garden verys green, but too much of a good thing can be harmful if not utilized properly.
Ultimately, increasing nitrogen, potassium, and other nutrients in your soil can help increase your yield but I highly recommend soil sample testing to determine your soil’s needs for optimal production. Sometimes some soils need lime to balance pH. Other times, soil needs more nitrogen. In my area, the UT Extension offices offer soil sample testing for a small fee. This is especially helpful if you are a larger farm producing cash crops. If you are a “home gardener,” you can do this occasionally, or as often as you like, to see the values of your soil. The report you receive generally tells you how much of what nutrients to add to your soil for specified crops, better fruit/nut production, greener lawns, etc., based on what garden/plant options you select on your submission sheet. Your Extension Agent/Office personnel can help you complete the form.
As you can see from my trials and experiences, as well as from many other websites online, there are numerous ways to garden. But, I can tell you this… there is not much that feels better than picking and eating a fresh cucumber or tomato from the vine of something you intentionally put in the dirt with the hope and anticipation of what was to come. Gardening is good in so many ways. You control what you grow. You literally “reap what you sow.” The feeling of soft, rich, fresh turned soil in your hands and under your feet is something I learned to appreciate as a child from my grandparents and parents, and I will always treasure those memories. I guess you can call it “dirt therapy,” “grounding,” “connecting with Mother Earth,” or whatever your thing is. Moreover, it is an incredible family activity that teaches children and youth about patience, commitment, the value of investing time and effort into a future return, and, last but certainly not least, how to provide for themselves. And, much like myself, the time you invest with your children and family is something they will remember and treasure as they get older. Whether it be a small indoor tomato or pepper plant, or a half-acre garden… give it a shot. You might find you have a green thumb you never knew you had.
Disclaimer: I know it seems like I may be shamelessly plugging UT Extension but, after having worked in a local office for a few years, I learned so much about the services and how they help the community in so many ways. I also learned that their services and information is research based and not just "hokey" made up ideas. As 'they' say... sorry, not sorry. Alternately, I do listen to the advice of some of the "old timers" as they have tons more experience than I do and they can tell you what has or has not worked for them. If you're looking for experience based advice, you should be able to find some "old timers" at the feed & garden stores in the early spring.
Equipment and Tools
As far as equipment, I now only use the two Tribest Sedona Express dehydrators, a manual mandolin/slicer, a couple of kitchen knives, cutting boards, baking sheets/parchment paper, a vacuum sealer, O2 packs, food grade silica “dry” packs and either mason jars or vacuum seal bags. Depending on the process, I may also use a speckled water-bath canner, a large stock pot and some random plastic bowls/tubs. In my kitchen, I have two stainless steel tables (leftover from the jerky venture) and an otherwise typical household kitchen. We had two 20-amp outlets installed to run the large commercial dehydrators (which we no longer have) and I use these to plug the dehydrators into since they can handle the electrical load.
As mentioned above, I use two Tribest Sedona Express 10-tray stainless steel tray dehydrators. Outside of the superstore shelf model plastic tray dehydrator and the large commercial dehydrators, this is the only other ones I’ve used. I really like it because of the triple mode settings, the option to use ambient air and the ability to adjust the timers to a specific number of hours or continuous run. The stainless steel trays are dishwasher safe and generally easy to clean. For wet items like tomatoes and fruit leathers, I place parchment paper, silicone or copper baking sheets on the trays. The dehydrators have plenty of room to do quite a bit of food. In both of my dehydrators, I was able to dehydrate just under 1 bushel of green beans and about 5 dozen ears of corn cut off the cob. So, that should give you a good idea of the capacity of these machines. The only down side to these dehydrators is that if you start pressing the Set/Light button, it may mess up your timers. I recommend either making a mental note, a note on a notepad or a sticky note on the machine recording the start time. This will help you remember when you actually started the drying process just in case you happen to be like me and start impatiently pushing buttons thinking that you might should have set the timer longer or you set it for too long or just because you like pushing buttons… lol! Some people like having a dehydrator that will do minutes or half hours. The large commercial dehydrators we had would allow you to set the time to the minute but I found this was not really a huge factor for what we have done.
We bought the speckled water bath canner at Tractor Supply a month or so ago so I could blanch the corn. My regular stock pot wasn’t large enough to do the amount of corn I was processing. It is nice to have for those larger items like corn and pumpkins, among other things. (Alternately, they are also great for soaking tired, sore feet in a warm epsom salt soak. Of course, cleaning and sterilizing the pan afterwards is required.) You can find these or other large stock pots at various retailers or markets.
The manual mandolin/slicer is from The Pampered Chef. I used to sell Pampered Chef and have had it a long time. I use it quite often for slicing about everything since I can NOT slice anything evenly. I end up with a thick side and thin side. But, of course, if you put two together on opposite sides, they do make a fairly even slice. lol! I have used this to slice plenty of cucumbers, peppers, and squash. Alternatively, you may be able to use a food processor as well; I just haven’t found one that has all the features I need or want.
The other item I use a lot is a vacuum sealer. We have a FoodSaver Food Preservation system. Ours is an older model than what is linked, but essentially the same machine. I can advise that if you watch their site and sign up for their emails, you can usually find a really good deal. I know some folks like to use a chamber sealer system, but I am not familiar with these and the FoodSaver is just what we had and started with, so we will use it until it dies and then look for another sealer. With the FoodSaver, we received the jar sealer for regular mouth jars. I ordered the wide mouth jar sealer to have on had for some of the wide mouth jars I have, but we primarily use regular mouth jars since they take up less space. The other thing we have learned is to use the heavier bags. When the food is dehydrated, it can cause little pointy edges or tips. These are notorious for poking holes in the bags which can break the vacuum, allow air/moisture into the bag which will promote food spoilage.
The knives, cutting boards and plastic wrap/parchment paper/baking sheets are just general items I’ve purchased at the superstore or other markets. I have a variety of knives which includes a filet knife, a chef’s knife and a paring knife. (I typically sharpen our knives myself since I became pretty good at it when we were processing so much jerky. You can have your knives sharpened professionally, if you choose.) I do not reuse plastic wrap or parchment paper. They are not usually something that can be used repeatedly. The cutting boards I use are food grade polyethylene and bacteria resistant. The silicone and copper baking sheets are reusable and, after each use, I wash them in bleach dish water, rinse thoroughly and dry before storing them. A few things to mention here… First, keeping your knives sharp is imperative! Dull knives are more likely to cut you than a sharp knife. Second, dirty equipment and surfaces are likely to promote bacteria growth that can cause food-borne illnesses. Third, if in doubt, clean it. Fourth, wash, wash, wash your hands throughout the entire process. Fifth, gloves are also a good idea to prevent normal skin oils from contaminating foods and for cutting/processing hot peppers.
Important!!! Keep the tools, equipment and surfaces you are using clean and sanitized! There is nothing worse than to enjoy a seemingly healthy and delicious meal with food you've worked hard to preserve, only to be sick for a few days (or weeks) from salmonella, botulism, listeria, etc. I always use a little bit of bleach in my dish water to wipe my counters and surfaces, as well as to wash my hands and rinse with clear, clean water. Frequent cleaning and hand washing is a great way to stay healthy. This concludes our unsponsored public service announcement. Now back to your regularly scheduled show... lol!
Finally, food grade oxygen (O2) packs and silica “dry” packs are smart to add to your jars or bags to help extend the life of your preserved foods. We have found that these are readily available on Amazon at very reasonable prices. In regards to bags, it is recommended to use mylar bags to store your packaged food in to keep them from light exposure. Threats to the life of your preserved foods include light, air, moisture and heat. If you have not stored your food properly, it will not last the estimated 10 years. The book I mentioned above (The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Drying Food, Plus 398 Recipes, Including Making Jerky, Fruit Leather & Just Add Water Meals) provides great information about storing your preserved food in length and correlates or exceeds the USDA standards.
Storing and Using Our Food
For us, I have decided to use mostly pint mason jars but occasionally a few half-pints and an occasional vacuum bag. I find they take up much less space than the quart jars we would normally use if we canned food traditionally. (See photos above.) They are also easy to stack if placed back in the cardboard trays in which they were originally purchased. Currently, we have a small room in our home that is now used for storage. We keep the blinds closed which eliminates most of the light in the room and the shelves are against an inside wall. (The inside walls stay at a more consistent temperature than outside walls. Outside walls are more susceptible to changes from heat, sunlight, cool/cold air and humidity.) As mentioned earlier, we have tried using standard vacuum bags but they often get holes in them from the pointy edges of the food. The heavier bags do better but jars just seem to be the most convenient for us. In the future, I may try to find a chamber sealer and use the mylar bags but we will use what we have for now. (You may think me cheap, but I call it frugal. lol!). Also, we are not at the point of processing food for “long term storage.” The small amount of food we have processed will only last us the next year or so. With that said, I am not too concerned about the life of our food stores spanning the estimated 10 years.
I do hope to continue dehydrating food in the future. It is with noting that the first book I mention above (Ultimate Dehydrating…) discusses buying frozen food and fresh produce from the grocery store when they go on sale. I have started watching some of our local store sales papers and may consider this option as well.
You may be wondering how we will use our food. Since most of our food is what I call “staples” (corn, beans, tomatoes, etc.), I will typically rehydrate the food with water and season to taste. I have already tried a jar of the green beans. I place them in a crock pot with a small piece of ham bone and they turned out delicious! I will not always use ham/pork bones, but will likely continue to cook them in the crock pot. If I am in a hurry, I will probably put them on the stove or rehydrate them in water and cook them in my pressure cooker. For the corn, I rehydrated it on the stove with a little water, then added some butter and salt. You could also add some cream, cream cheese or other items to it to your liking. As far as the tomatoes, I can see those being cooked into a sauce or soup… maybe some tomato basil soup… yummm!!!! With the squash, there is a recipe for squash casserole in the book that sounds delicious. I will be giving that a try at some point.
Conclusions
Overall, I am very pleased with the dehydrating process this year. It was a good year to try the process and get a feel for how it works. I did appreciate the fact that I feel like I spent less time dehydrating the veggies versus canning them. I have two pressure canners and one water bath canner. If I had canned the food traditionally, I feel like I would have spent more time with that process. My reasoning is because you typically have to stay at the stove watching the canners so they don’t go above or below the correct pressure. With the dehydrators, I feel like it was a “set it and forget it” process. I did go back about halfway through the dehydrating process to rotate my trays, but this only took a few minutes. I did not make note of the time I spent preparing the food because that would have been the same either way. I also did not note how much time it took to put the veggies on the trays but still feel it was minimal compared to the time it would have taken to put the food in jars for traditional canning.
So, that being said, this was not a “scientific” process this year. I am only stating my thoughts and feelings on this topic. In the future, I may start keeping notes on the time factor for prepping the food on the trays, etc., just to see if it is as time saving as I think. Once I start that, I will add another post with that information.
As far as any things I would do differently… I would for sure utilize the farmers market more! I will also take the advice of the author of the ultimate dehydrator book and buy frozen fruits and veggies when they are on sale to dehydrate. I will also do more research on the freeze drying processes and equipment, as well as chamber vacuum sealers and mylar bags. I have read where some people put their food in sealable 5-gallon buckets (some after being vacuum sealed, others just in the bucket). I may check that out as well.
Would I recommend this process? Absolutely!
For posterity’s sake, I will try to post updates or addendums to this information regarding how the food is after it’s been stored for some time, as well as any recommendations for rehydrating the food, recipes, etc.
Thanks for stopping by! I will try to keep up with comments and respond accordingly.
Take care!
Rebecca
P.S. I know this was supposed to be an August post, but we were out of town for a medical trip to Philadelphia, PA, and I have been a little under the weather the last few days. (Gotta love the East TN allergy seasons… NOT!). The trip to Philadelphia will likely be my next post, so be sure to come back for that one since it will have some really positive news regarding my CORD-5 prognosis!!! I hope to post soon about the pickled jalapeños I made recently. If you like jalapeños, you’ll like that post too. A little sweet heat going on with the pickled peppers.
P.S.S. After uploading this post, I checked it on the web and the layout looks very different than what I tried to do. A learning experience that I will work on and try to get it to look better. Remember, learning as I go. Thanks for your patience.