Free up more space in your pantry and refrigerator by drying food to take on your next motorhome trip.
By Janet Groene, F47166
September 2012
It’s been a few years since I dehydrated foods for RV trips, but now dehydrator fever has struck again. Harvest season is the perfect time to travel country roads, attend fruit and vegetable festivals, and buy by the bushel at farmers’ markets. For motorhome travelers, one of the great pleasures of roaming is stopping at roadside stands run by growers themselves. Chatting with these folks is the best part of the transaction.
These days we are all concerned about the high cost of food and the fuel cost of hauling around excess weight. When the folks at Ronco asked me to test their five-tray electric dehydrator, I was eager to try it. Dehydration is a time-proven preservation process that goes back thousands of years. It is primarily a matter of removing moisture from the food to the point where it does not have enough water content to support spoiling.
On the minus side, a large dehydrator is too big for most of us to take on the road. Plus, the process of drying is slow. Even though the machine automatically does the work, it can take 24 hours or longer before the drying is complete. Savings are elusive until you get the hang of it. To make the best use of dehydrating food, one must buy and prepare food right; dehydrate it correctly; package it well to preserve flavors; and prepare recipes that work with dehydrated foods.
The plus side is the pleasure of mastering a new skill that enriches family travel. I once visited a living history farm where a family dressed in pioneer clothing was stringing “leather britches” beans to dry them for the long winter ahead. Like shucking corn, pitting cherries, or competing to make the longest apple peel, dehydrating can be a wholesome, old-fashioned team sport. Another advantage is that it saves space. When we carry dried items, that leaves more room in the pantry for other foods.
Whether you have your own garden or buy food from others, here’s how a dehydrator might work in your travel life. Start by experimenting with different foods. Almost any food can be dried, but many won’t suit your taste buds or cooking style. Some will be awesome discoveries, such as homemade fruit leather (pureed fruit that’s dried and then rolled); banana chips for healthful snacks; dried tomato paste for convenience; and freshly dried, homegrown herbs.
Dehydrators come in many sizes and styles. Use the instructions that come with the appliance, or do an Internet search for keywords such as “survival foods” or “backpacking.” Dozens of Web sites can provide information, most of them run by knowledgeable, avid amateurs.
Homemade Croutons
1 loaf of stale sandwich bread
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
3- to 4-ounce packet real bacon bits
Stack the square bread slices four to six at a time and dice them according to the size croutons you prefer. Add the bacon bits and dry until the bread is crisp. Mix the garlic salt, sugar, pepper, and paprika. Put the dried bread in a large, clean bag with the other ingredients. Shake gently to mix and package the crouton batches in plastic freezer bags. Store in a cool, dark place for up to two weeks. The croutons can be used atop salads, to make panzanella (a bread salad with fresh vegetables), bread stuffing, and snacks.
Cook’s note: With one stop at the discount bakery outlet, I purchase bread for croutons, croissants to dry to make bread pudding on the go, and coarse peasant bread to dry for future use in baked French toast.
Healthful Honey Maple Banana Chips
Slice several bananas. (The thinner the slices, the faster they will dry.) Mix one part maple syrup, one part honey, and one part water. Use tongs to dip the banana slices one at a time in the liquid; shake off the excess; and place on trays in a single layer. Do not overlap. Dry the banana chips until they are crisp, and package them. Don’t expose the chips to the air again until you’re ready to use them.
Apple Leather Pie
2 1/2 cups dried apples, cut into bite-size pieces
Water
½ cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon apple pie spice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter
2 pieces piecrust
Cover the dehydrated apples with water and cook, stirring occasionally, until not quite tender. Drain any excess water. Add the sugars, spice, and lemon juice. Line a pie pan with pastry, add the apple mixture, and dot with bits of butter. Add a top crust, flute the edges, and cut small slits in the top for steam to escape. Bake the pie at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes or until the crust is golden.
Cook’s note: To rehydrate apples without cooking, soak them in cool water for three to four hours (no longer).
Sassy Salad Topper
It’s expensive to buy ready-made savory mixes to sprinkle on salads. Savings can be substantial when you make your own. Proportions are the same whether you measure by the tablespoon, cup, or quart.
One part each:
Sweet red and/or green peppers, diced
Plum tomatoes, diced
Sweet onions, diced
Whole-kernel corn
Zucchini or yellow squash, diced
Dehydrate the vegetables until they are leathery; mix together; and measure into bags by the half cup. When you are ready to serve the vegetables, mix a half cup of the topper mix with the following ingredients:
1/4 cup unsalted sunflower nuts or slivered almonds
2 teaspoons mixed Italian seasoning
1/3 cup salad oil
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Mix the ingredients; pour over the salad; toss and serve.
Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes
It’s inexpensive to buy a boxed mix for scalloped potatoes, but when you make your own you can omit chemicals, reduce the sodium content, and package the potatoes in batches sized to suit your family needs. Best of all, you can experiment with different types of potatoes, with and without skins.
4 cups dried, sliced potatoes
1/4 cup dried, diced onions
2 cups very hot water
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon dried chives
Salt, freshly ground pepper to taste
1 cup half-and-half
Grease a casserole dish and add the potatoes and onions. Cover with hot water, using a lid or plate to keep the potatoes underwater. Allow the potatoes to stand until the water cools, and drain the excess liquid. Stir the cheese into the potatoes and sprinkle with chives, salt, and pepper. Pour half-and-half over it all. Bake the casserole, covered, at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake until the potatoes are tender and the top is golden.
Cook’s note: You also can package dried, diced potatoes with dried carrots, onion, celery, and perhaps other vegetables (such as corn, turnips, parsnips) to make stews and soups. Rehydrate the vegetables and cook with meat or poultry. If you use the dehydrator to make beef jerky, package the jerky and vegetables together and cook in hot water to make backpacker-style stew.
More Dehydrator Tips
- Create your own dried fruit combinations to make fruit leather, pies, and compotes.
- Don’t throw away orange and grapefruit rinds. Cut them into strips; boil in syrup made with one part water and one part sugar; drain; and dehydrate. Tiny bits of candied rind add a burst of flavor to muffins, biscuits, snack mixes, and hot cereal.
- Making granola in the oven requires frequent stirring. Use the dehydrator instead and just rotate the trays. (The Ronco design is circular, so rotation is easy compared to using a dehydrator with slide-in trays.)
- Puree canned baked beans until smooth, spread in lined trays, and dry until brittle. Once dried, the beans can be broken into pieces and packaged. Add warm water to rehydrate for bean dip and season to taste. You also can spread pumpkin puree in trays, dry it until brittle, and rehydrate it to make pumpkin pie.
- When making fruit leather or drying other thin substances, line the tray with plastic wrap. (Do not cover the vent hole in the center.) Trays also can be lined with cheesecloth for drying small items such as parsley flakes.
- Yogurt can be dehydrated. So can sourdough. Reconstituted, these cultures can be brought back to life and used to inoculate new milk or dough.
- Use the steady heat and even airflow of an electric dehydrator to refresh stale crackers and potato chips.
- Make your own instant rice by dehydrating rice that has already been cooked. Try it with red rice, jasmine, and other unusual types of rice.
- Wash and dry greens, dehydrate until they are very brittle, and crumble them into powder. Use to make cream soups or sprinkle the powder into muffins. Dry shredded zucchini and carrots to stir into quick breads.
- In general, items are reduced in size by one-third to one-half when dried. When rehydrated, they don’t quite return to their original size.
- Just as dehydrating requires experimenting, so does rehydrating. Instead of using water, you might try using broth to rehydrate vegetables or tomato juice to rehydrate instant rice. Rehydrate corn kernels in milk, thicken with a little cornstarch, and add butter for delicious cream-style corn.
- Make your favorite mashed potatoes and add broth until they are about the consistency of heavy cream. Line trays with parchment paper or plastic wrap and pour the potato mixture in a thin, even layer approximately 1/4-inch-thick. Dehydrate the mashed potatoes, break up, and package them. Reconstitute with boiling water. Spaghetti sauce, cheese sauce, and gravies also can be dried in this way.
- Dehydrate rings of pineapple, then rehydrate them in water or juice to use in pineapple upside-down cake.
- People who do a lot of dehydrating usually package foods using a vacuum bag sealer. For those who use a dehydrator only occasionally, plastic freezer bags work fine. Force out as much air as possible before closing them, and keep them cool and dry. In many instances, you can just add water to the bag for easy rehydration.
- Backpackers put an entire meal in one bag for convenience, but many combinations taste better if kept separate, then assembled and seasoned when they’re cooked.
- Commercially dried fruits, such as ready-to-eat prunes and raisins, have higher moisture content than the brittle and leathery dehydrates you make at home. They could cause spoilage if packaged with dehydrated foods. Carry them separately.
- An excellent hobby for travelers is making souvenir sachet, potpourri, or herb tea mixtures from items foraged along the way. Flowers for art uses also can be dried in a dehydrator. If you use a desiccant such as silica during the process, wash the trays thoroughly before using them for food.
- To dehydrate medium-hard cheese such as Cheddar, grate it (I use the food processor) and toss lightly with approximately 1 teaspoon of cornstarch per pound of cheese. This makes it lighter and easier to spread in trays. Spread in shallow layers. When the cheese is dry and leathery, separate into clumps and package.
- Grow or buy your favorite chili peppers and dry them to make killer chili.
- Make infused vinegars using dried herbs, peppers, or berries.
- Dry hearty breads to make baked French toast. Arrange the dried bread in a buttered casserole, cutting to fit the pieces as tightly as possible. Whisk eggs and milk together, along with a little sugar and vanilla, and pour over the bread the night before. Cover and refrigerate. In the morning, bake the French toast at 350 degrees until it is set.
{loadpositionEndBlurbCooking}