How to dramatically increase your food storage

 

For food storage, we have all heard the saying “Store what you eat, eat what you store.” I’m going to tweak that a bit and suggest you “store what you didn’t eat” through dehydration. Almost everything can be dehydrated and if you dehydrate the foods you normally eat, but just didn’t get to finish, you can preserve them and eat the foods you are accustomed to later on. Dehydrated foods can last a very long time if preserved correctly, and they can be mixed in with many foods.

First, you need a decent dehydrator. There are very expensive dehydrators available, but to stay within my budget I needed to spend less than $50.00. I decided on the Snackmaster from Nesco, and found it on sale for $39.99. I added the fruit leather trays and fine mesh trays for another $5.00. After dehydrating for just a few weeks, I really wished I had another dehydrator because I could do such amazing things with it. But now that I have used it for over a year, I have figured out how to get everything done with just this one machine – I use it a lot.

Second, dehydrating is much easier than canning. I have canned vegetables, meat, and tomatoes for years, so I thought dehydrating would be similar. Wrong – it is very easy. If you’re uncomfortable with canning, but want to try preserving your own food, dehydrating is a great way to start, especially if you start with your own leftovers.

Third, the hardest thing about dehydrating is knowing how long to leave the food in the dehydrator. Various books and websites will list times with enormous ranges (4-20 hours) for each food. I didn’t understand this at first, but then I thought about how much humidity there is at my location each time I run the dehydrator and I can plan roughly how long I need to run the machine. In the summer with its higher humidity, it takes almost twice as long to dehydrate the same item in the winter. This accounts for the ranges. I keep notes with dates and times to refer to the next time I dehydrate something.
Here are examples what I have dehydrated:

Batch 1:

• Fruit leather tray with cottage cheese that was going to expire in a few days
• Fruit leather tray with leftover plain white rice
• Fine mesh tray with celery cut into ¼” slices
• Regular tray with leftover plain pasta

Batch 2:

• Fine mesh tray with diced apples
• Fruit leather tray with ½ jar of applesauce
• Regular tray with banana sliced ¼”

Note that the foods without much smell were all in one batch, and the foods with more pronounced smells were in a different batch. You want to plan for the smells because they can intermingle, especially when you dehydrate a variety of foods. Plan to dry foods that have similar smells together, example fruits, strong-smelling vegetables (broccoli, cabbage), weaker smelling vegetables (carrots, celery, potatoes), foods from one meal (beef roast, carrots, potatoes or refried beans, taco meat).

Temperature – fruits, vegetables, rice/pasta, cottage cheese, already cooked meat all dry at 135 degrees; raw meats (beef jerky) at 145-155 degrees. Arrange each different food on one tray so that there is a little space between each piece. This makes it easier to put the dried food into the little baggies after it is fully dehydrated. Example: beef roast cut into ½” cubes on one tray, carrots sliced into ¼” slices on another tray.

Storage – I label and date small snack size baggies, add the cooled, dehydrated food, then squeeze out all the air. This little baggie goes into a freezer type baggie with other baggies of the same food, again squeeze all the air out, then store in the freezer. Example: “green pepper 12/28/11” on the little baggie, then the larger baggie says “Green Pepper”.

Fruits:

• Apples – core, cut into wedges about ¼- ½” wide, then slice into ¼” pieces. Great in oatmeal, biscuits, trail mix, etc.
• Applesauce – spread ¼” thick and dry into fruit leather – can be mixed with other leftover fruit, but don’t add any sugar or honey as it makes the fruit leather sticky and too sweet. Eat as is.
• Bananas – peel, cut into ¼” slices. Eat as is or rehydrate for banana bread, muffins.
• Berries – mix with applesauce for fruit leather, or dry whole.
• Peaches – great mixed with applesauce for fruit leather, or cut into 1/4′” pieces. Eat as fruit leather, mix the pieces in trail mix, oatmeal, biscuits, etc.
• Pears – core, cut into wedges about ¼- ½” wide, then slice into ¼” pieces. Great in oatmeal, trail mix, etc. Or put in blender with applesauce for fruit leather.
• Rhubarb – cut into ½” pieces.

Vegetables:

• Beans (green) – dry in whatever size they were when you cooked them originally. Great in minestrone soup.
• Cabbage – we dry the grated kind that comes in a bag for making cole slaw.
• Carrots – cut into ¼” slices
• Celery – cut into ¼” slices
• Corn – dry individual pieces, if on the cob, shuck first.
• Onions – NOTE: smells very strong – place dehydrator outside or in garage. Dice in ¼” pieces.
• Peppers (green, red, yellow) – dice into ¼” pieces
• Potatoes – Boiled – cut into ¼” slices or shred, depending on how you want to use them later

Mashed – spread thinly (1/8”) onto the fruit leather tray. Dry until brittle, crush into powder, use to thicken liquids for gravies or soups. (The first tomato soup recipe I ever made called for one boiled, mashed potato to thicken it instead of cream or milk. In an emergency situation you wouldn’t need to use your stored milk powder to have a creamy soup.)

Tomatoes – Mostly we dry tomatoes after they have been made into something else. Everything dries and rehydrates well. Examples: spaghetti sauce, salsa, ketchup, the liquid leftover from canning tomatoes that isn’t enough for another jar, etc.)

Zucchini – Grate and squeeze between paper towels before drying to get out excess moisture. Add 1 tablespoon to spaghetti sauce to add vitamins and help thicken it slightly.
Or, slice into thin (1/8”) slices. Dip in your favorite salad dressing mixed with equal parts water. Drain, then dehydrate. Yummy veggie chips.

Meats:

• Cut cooked meat into ½” cubes or strips about ½” wide. Dry until leathery.

Jerky is made from uncooked meat, spices, and salt. I buy the packets to mix with ground beef but there are tons of recipes available if you want to try jerky. Meat jerky must be dried at 145-155 degrees until leathery. Leftover jerky can be broken into small (1/4”-1/2” pieces) and rehydrated with other ingredients to make jerky stew or soups.

Dairy Products:

Cheese – grate, then spread out on paper towels cut to fit your trays exactly (no overhang). Dry until hard. Leave pieces as they are or crumble for cheese powder. NOTE: use real cheese, not processed cheese. All the books I have say that you can only dry already hard cheeses like parmesan, but I have had good luck with Cheddar and Colby. I add it to dishes that require the cheese to be melted into it or melted on top. It doesn’t rehydrate into a product like regular cheese.

Cottage cheese – spread on trays. Dry until brittle. Crumble into a powder. Can be added to cooked recipes to thicken them or add flavor. A good example of this is when I made Norwegian Meatcakes and the sauce was just not thickening. I stirred in 1 teaspoon of dried cottage cheese powder and let it simmer for a few minutes. Not enough, so I added another 1 teaspoon of the powder and again let it simmer. Then the sauce was the desired creaminess.

• Yogurt – plain – add to applesauce or other fruit to make interesting fruit leather. Use about ¼ yogurt and ¾ applesauce/fruit.
• Flavored – dry like fruit leather, eat like fruit leather.

Grains:

• Pasta – place on trays with a little space between them. Dry until brittle. Bag gently so they don’t break. These rehydrate quickly in room temperature water.
• Rice – place on the fine mesh insert, stir occasionally during drying to break them apart. Dry until brittle. Bag gently so they don’t crumble.