I'm getting a small food dehydrator, and I would like to hear about what to use it for
that does not include making jerky. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

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Food for thought -
Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or another to be a deadly poison, and everything I don't eat has been proved to be indispensable to life...But I go marching on. ~ George Bernard Shaw
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Do you garden? I use mine a lot for drying herbs (parsley, basil, sage, etc.) and vacuum seal those in canning jars for use all winter. I dry cayenne peppers (or any hot pepper you like, I've done habaneros too), whirl them in the blender to make a powder and store them like my herbs. I've done chopped carrots and celery to use in soups. Onions are nice to have too when you can get them on sale and dry them for use later. Just be sure to do your onions and peppers outside or your house will STINK for weeks!!!

Supposedly you can dry any veggies (i.e. green beans, peas, corn), but I've never tried that. I would like to, but when summer comes around and I'm dealing with alll the produce from the garden, somehow dried veggies just don't seem as appealing as frozen to me.

Fruit. I've done banana chips when they are on sale but have never been very satisfied with how they come out. We usually get tons of apples from my b-i-l and we've got several gallon bags of dried apple slices. This past summer I dried watermelon and was surprised at how tasty that turned out. When grapes are on sale, make your own raisins. SO MUCH better than what you can buy in a box or container. You can also make fruit roll-ups. We don't particularly like those so I've never invested in the sheets you need for making them.

My big thing right now is yogurt, but you need to have a thermostat on your dehydrator for that. And depending on how small you are talking about, that might be a little difficult. You could probably put it in small canning jars (like the ones for jelly) and have individual servings though.

I've always wanted to do this, but never have. You can dry tomatoes, powder them, and then mix the powder with water to make tomato paste. I think that would be great for when you need just a small amount of paste and don't want to open a whole can for a tablespoon or so.

Have fun with it. Let us know what you do. I'll keep trying to think of other things I've used it for and post again.

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Linda

Thanks. lfaivre for the great suggestions. We don't plant a garden, just a few tomato and pepper plants in the Spring. We do have a large year-round farmer's
market where we buy fresh fruits and veg. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

__________________
Food for thought -
Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or another to be a deadly poison, and everything I don't eat has been proved to be indispensable to life...But I go marching on. ~ George Bernard Shaw
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