Dehydrating- A New Old Favorite

One of my favorite new techniques that I have learned...that has just changed my life in the kitchen, and saved me a ton of money already...is Dehydrating. I started hearing a few people I know online talk about it, I did a little reading, and then someone mentioned their favorite website for dehydrating. http://www.dehydrate2store.com/ I can't say enough good things about her website and I hope you go and visit it!! (I don't get paid for my endorsements ;) They are just sites that have made my life better...and I want to share them with you!) You can also search Dehydrate2store on Youtube and find a bunch of her videos.

I didn't have alot of money to start with (which is nothing new)...so I headed to Walmart and bought the one and only dehydrator they had. DO NOT DO THAT!!! It's a waste of money!! The dehydrator the woman uses in the videos is an Excalibur. They're a bit expensive...I'm not going to lie to you...but you CAN save while getting one. If you go to their website here http://http//www.excaliburdehydrator.com/3900-R-Excalibur-with-10-Year-Warranty-184-37-regular-prod.htm You will see the one that I bought. Yes it's refurbished...but it also has a TEN YEAR warrenty and is $100 cheaper!! I saved pennies for a bit and cut back on my grocery budget till I could afford it. It's one of the best purchases I ever made! The difference between this and the el cheapo at Walmart is night and day!!

I thought I'd show you what I dehydrated so far this week. Kroger has their frozen veggies on sale for 88 cents a bag...so time to stock up.

This is my meat slicer...which cuts a whole lot more than meat...more on this in another blog another day. I made chicken chow mein in the crockpot last week and needed celery. We don't eat a great deal of celery unless it's cooked into something. I bought two bunches of celery that week at the store and then sliced up what I didn't need to dehydrate. This is how I save money!!! No wasting food or having things go bad in the fridge...well not as much anyway ;o) lol.

In this picture, in the jar on the very left you will see both bunches of celery dehydrated. The small jar in front has two bags of frozen cauliflower. The jar behind that has FIVE bags of frozen peas and carrots in it. My big jar is a little empty right now...I need to get more corn dehydrated...but that is still at least three bags of it. In the jar laying down is two bags of brocolli and cauliflower mix. In the jar to the right of the corn you will see FIVE bags of french style greenbeans. On the very right is one bag of crinkle cut carrots. The ziploc bag in front is dehydrated cabbage...just waiting for soups and stews this winter. That also was a savings...I had made stuffed cabbage and that was some of the left over cabbage.

What do I do with all these weird dried up foods? Well most of them I stick in the crockpot :o) Let me show you...

This is what I start with...this is a 2 quart crockpot that I got on sale Black Friday at Walmart...I need a few more!

This is two cups of regular cut green beans. To this I add 5 cups of water. After one hour of cooking this is what it looks like...

Still a little funny looking...but after four hours on high this is what's for dinner...

Amazing isn't it??? It still excites me every time to see it come back to life! lol I have not rehydrated anything that wasn't as good as what it would have been had I made it fresh...or frozen as the case may be. I plan on doing quite a few blogs about my dehydrating adventures. There are SO many possitives to it that I can't help but share. The dehdrated foods take up sooooooo much less space. They can be stored anywhere, leaving room in my freezer for meats I buy when they're on sale. They last must longer...frozen foods last about one year...these same frozen foods that are now dehydrated can now last years!! And it doesn't cost me anything to store these for all those years!! It's a win win win win win in every way :o) Certainly one of the best things that has changed my life for the better in the kitchen!