Dehydrating: A Fun and Practical Way To Preserve and Store Food

Dehydrating foods is a fun, economical, and space saving way to store the bounty from your garden. In fact the whole process can be a bit addicting! Once you begin to dehydrate foods and realize the ease of re- hydrating or just plopping them into soups and stews, you will want to try your hand at many different types of food. If you don't have your own garden you can buy organic produce from local farmers.When there are good sales in the grocery store on fresh or frozen produce, many people take advantage of these deals. I bought bags of frozen peas on sale for a dollar a bag. 8 bags of peas turned into 2 jars of peas when dried. I don't have to find room for them in my freezer and if the power goes out, they are safe and sound. It takes a little bit of electricity to dry them but once they are dried you are able to store them for free.

The jar on the left in the photo above holds  orangy yellow heirloom tomatoes that dried a pretty deeper shade of orange. Dried food , if it is going to be stored longer term, should be kept in a dark dry place. However, if you plan on using them within the year, they look beautiful stored on countertops and hutches....but out of direct light. The jar in the middle contains eggplant on the bottom and dried yellow squash near the top. And of course the jar on the right is filled with dried corn that was once fresh corn on the cob bought from a local farmer.The corn rehydrates well and tastes delicious with butter, salt and pepper! The corn, in particular, will last for years...especially if you pull out the air with either a FoodSaver V2244 Advanced Design Vacuum Sealer, Black  or oxygen absorbers Oxy-Sorb Oxygen Absorbers for Food Storage ....or some people use both. There are special attachments for drawing the air out of jars.  Foods are most often dried in an oven or dehydrator but they can also be dried outside or even in the backseat of a car near the back window. Some people have made solar dryers. This is the dehydrator I like and use.

Nesco-American Harvest FD-1010 1000 Watt Gardenmaster Dehydrator

 Some people prefer the Excalibur food dehydrator...something to do with even distribution of the hot air. However, the Excalibur only has a set number of trays. You cannot add more trays to the machine like you can with this Nesco dehydrator. The Nesco machine holds up to 30 trays. It  has a fan that circulates the heat and it also has a temperature setting which the cheaper dehydrators don't have. The fan is moderately noisy but I just put it in another room where it won't bother anyone. The foods in the jars below...from left to right are Shiitaki mushrooms, peas and string beans. The mushrooms...in the photo.... I bought already dried from Mountain Rose Herbs but I have dried my own that are growing outside on logs. When I dried the mushrooms I did it outside because from what I have read about the mushrooms... they gain phenomenal amounts of Vitamin D by drying in the sun with the caps faced towards the sun.

Here are my carrots and peppers. Some veggies, such as string beans are best blanched first before drying while others such as green peppers can be dried raw.

 It's also fun and practical to grow and dry your own herbs. When you grow and dry your own, it is much more economical, fresher, and you know exactly what kind of soil and fertilizer was used. Herbs are fairly easy to grow and have many health benefits. The photo below shows the sage I was drying this year. Aren't the purple flowers gorgeous against the green?

Some of the health benefits of sage are: sage boosts memory, it has antimicrobial properties including anti-fungal properties, sage helps with digestion and the herb is a powerful antioxidant. It tastes great added to food and makes a soothing tea, either by itself or in combination with other herbs.

Nettles are another superior herb/green for the health. I started a nettle patch ...oh...maybe three years ago now from just two little plants that a friend gave me from her patch. I now have enough to dry and last all winter. Nettles spread so if you plant them, put them in a spot where you can mow around them to keep them controlled. Imagine...a health-food weed! Nettles make a wonderful infusion/green drink that is basically free! The dried nettles can also be added to soups and stews...or even crumbled up fine into dishes like chili. They add great flavor and nourishment! Young nettles can be cooked from fresh nettles also...like spinach. But watch out...before they are dried or cooked they will sting! Wearing long sleeves, pants and gloves is a must when gathering nettles.

 The seeds from Nettles (below) are also a very valuable part of the plant. They are collected at the end of the summer and set aside to dry. You don't need a dehydrator to dry them. Nettle seeds are extremely good for the adrenal glands.

My most exciting project for this year was finally having enough elderberries from our own 3 year old bush to dry enough for making a medicinal tincture and with two jars left over of dried elderberries to add to herbal teas. The first photo shows our three year old bush, the next photo shows the berries and the third photo shows the elderberries soaking in alcohol which becomes our winter flu prevention.

The herb I was drying in the photo below is lemon verbena. I cook it with rice and add it to my herbal teas. It is very easy to grow!

I just thought I would add a photo of dried calendula from my friends herb shop. The natural color is just so pretty and soothing.

I suppose late fall is not really the time of year to talk about drying food....but I started this article at the end of August and got sidetracked . You can still find various foods to dry at the grocery store and now you can start planning for what you might like to do next year! If your freezer is too full, try drying some of your frozen veggies and stick them on a shelf somewhere. I used my dried carrots the other day in a soup and I wouldn't have known the carrots had been dried first!
There are many you tube videos on the subject of dehydrating. Check them out and join the fun!

If you can't wait to begin growing your own food to dehydrate.... Mountain Rose Herbs has all the herbs I have spoken of here and much much more.

A FUN and DELICIOUS WAY TO PRESERVE CORN

Dehydration is an excellent way to preserve food and is a method which has been used for thousands of years.While some foods , such as herbs, may lose some color and flavor during the dehydration process, other foods, such as corn, are reported to actually gain flavor. I was reading Heirloom Gardener and came across an article which included instructions on how to dry corn and how to rehydrate and cook the corn when ready to use. I am a very visual person so when I saw photos of the dried corn in the above magazine, I was almost ready to dry corn just for the natural decorative effect! See how wonderful the corn looks in the jars above....warm and earthy.

It's not too late to buy 30 or so ears of corn to blanch and dry. The information I have read says that corn, when thoroughly dried, will last for years in airtight jars. As I write this I am drying ten more trays of corn in my dehydrator. It's a very simple process. You husk the corn and drop it into boiling water and let simmer or steam for 3 minutes. Remove the corn, let cool and then shave the corn off the cob with a sharp knife. If you don't have a dehydrator, you can dry the corn in a 250 oven ( stirring the corn occasionally) until the corn turns a brownish golden color....and is very hard. If you like to experiment you can place the corn on trays and put them outside on a sunny day. You would want to cover the corn with cheesecloth to prevent bugs from congregating on the corn. It may take more than one day when drying outside and it would be wise to bring it in a night to prevent the night dew from slowing down the dehydration process. Some people have dried food in the back window of their car. I use the Nesco Gardenmaster dehydrator and I like it very much. It has a fan which circulates the air to dry all the stacks of trays evenly. There are other dehydrators available at this link

or there are different types available at Amazon.

You can use dried corn in many different ways. You can add the kernels directly to soups, stews and chilis or you can make delcious stewed dried corn. I have not yet reconstituted any of my corn. I am waiting for the cozy days in fall and winter to try it out. It seems pretty failsafe however and is supposed to be delicious.

To make stewed dried corn (basic recipe from Heirloom Gardener) you gather together 2 cups of dried corn, 3 and one half cups of water, 1 TBS of sugar (or other natural sweetener), 2 Tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper to taste and a cup of whole milk or half a cup of milk and half a cup of cream.

Soak the kernels in water that has come to a boil. Shut off heat and soak for an hour. Then simmer until corn is tender and the corn has absorbed much of the liquid. Add salt , sugar and bring to a boil. Add milk and cream and heat gently for 5 more minutes.

You can dehydrate canned or frozen corn also to save storage space but personally I think it makes much more sense to buy fresh corn in season and then dry and store it. The flavor will be much better and the corn will not have already gone through an extra step of processing (canning or freezing). The more processing that is done to a food, the less nutritional value will remain with the food. Since we  lost power for a week during Hurricane Irene, the idea of  learning the art of drying food seems to be more important than ever.Remember....if dried correctly, this corn will last for years in a tightly sealed jar.

Preserving The Harvest

                                Dried Eggplant

When my kids were little my parents bought us a Ronco Food dehydrator..... Ronco FD1005WHGEN 5-Tray Electric Food Dehydrator . It was very useful at the time for the tasks I wanted to accomplish. The kids of course always begged me to make fruit rollups. I can remember making two basic flavors...blended fresh strawberries mixed with sugarfree applesauce and their other favorite was blended peaches in season mixed with sugarfree applesauce. I would also dry apple and orange slices for decorating grapevine wreaths.Sometimes I would make beef jerky. The Ronco dryer had no temperature control and there was no fan to circulate the warm air so I had to rotate the trays to enable the food to dry evenly.

The kids have since grown up and moved away. With my extra time, I increased the size of my vegetable garden and I also planted an herb garden. A neighbor friend who is an herbalist has been teaching me how to harvest the herbs, dry them and how to make teas and tinctures. She dries most of her herbs by hanging them but I find that too risky in our humid climate and prefer the quaranteed results of a food dehydrator. I decided I needed a larger more efficient dehydrator so I researched a bit and decided on the Garden Master Food Dehydrator w / Optional Trays & Clean-A-Screen


  I can honestly say that I am not at all disappointed in my choice. This is my second year using this dehydrator and I love it. It's much easier to clean, you can have up to 30 trays and because this unit has a fan to circulate the air, there is no rotating of trays. So far I only seem to need 10 trays for my drying needs.

At this point I am mostly drying herbs to use for teas, infusions and cooking...but the other day I dried some of my overflowing crop of eggplants (picture above). I figure that during the fall and winter I can use these dried eggplant slices in stews, soups and casseroles. The other great thing I love about the Nesco food dehydrator is that it has a temperature adjustment. This is especially important to me for drying herbs due to the fact that they need to be dried at lower temperatures than other foods.


The only negative aspect that I found is that the fan makes some noise. It's not obnoxious but I do find that I don't necessarily want it running in the same room where I am relaxing. So....in the daytime I run the dryer in one of our bedrooms and that solves the problem.

There are so many uses for a dehydrator...especially if you have a garden or enjoy buying local organic produce. Once the food is dry, there is no need for electricity to store it. I am trying to weigh the benefits of drying vs freezing with all of the different foods. Some foods are of better quality when frozen. Some foods freeze well ...like parsley...and take up so little room that I prefer to freeze it rather than dry it. I bought a book last year.......
The Dehydrator Bible: Includes over 400 Recipes and it has been very helpful...with a section on how to dry specific foods and then plenty of recipes which show you how to use the foods once dried. There is a hopeful trend where people are beginning to realize the need to go back to growing and preserving their own food. This way we have total control over its quality and of course its also less expensive. People in America spend so much time and energy on growing and maintaining lawns. When you think about it.....how much more worthwhile would it be to grow food? See the video in the sidebar entitled Homegrown Revolution...very inspiring!