My mother has recently gotten a Food Dehydrator.
so far she has made some Good Beef Jerky, some Bad Beef Jerky
and a few differnt types of fruit roll-up thingies.
most of this has been pretty good snacks.

has anyone else gotten and used one of these Gadgets ?

11 responses total.

Sheesh, I hadn't even heard of 'em.  I've barely accommodated to the
concept of bread machines.  Just can't keep up with all this new food
technology.

I used to have one.  They are great, if you get in the habit of using
them to make things you'll use.  Otherwise, they're just another
appliance gadget.  I've done tomato slices -- they dehydrate/dry down
to paper thin pieces that stack nicely in a Mason jar.  Just crumble
them up and add water to make tomato sauce.  Fruit goes well, as
stated in :0.  Tried beef jerky once and it was okay, though it got
a bit too salty for my taste (of course that can be adjusted).
  BTW, if you don't release your trapped mother from her dehydrator,
you might not like the results (then again...).

RE 1: you must start watching more Ron Popeil infomercials, at once!
        They are hazardous to your health ( the infomercial, not the 
        dehydrator), so be careful.

  Just soak your mom for few hours and she'll be fine ;-)

It sure is another kitchen gadget   -   and the pricing is 
+all+ over the map. Ithink you can buy one of the RealMachines for
about $29.95 if you look carefully enough.
 
However, I took a close look at what it is, and what it does and
how hit does it and figured that the same functionality can be
achieved with a wire rack in the oven, with the temp set around 200F.
  
But, hey, it's no where near as pretty ...... <g>

Yeah, TS.  I've made beef jerky in the oven.  One thing you need to do, though
is open the door a little, put a small electric fan on a chair, and scoot
the chair close to the slightly open door.  You need some air recirculation
in there.  Come to think of it, a CONVECTION oven ought to work great, though
I don't have one to try.

As soon as my mom is dehydrated I'll use her "Food Saver  by Tila" to 
Vaccum pack her.

the best place to buy one is at a garage sale, mom got hers for 25 bucks.

she uses it alot, cause I keep eating up all the stuff she makes.

dried pears and peaches are good.  The library has books on how to preserve
things, in particular Putting Foods By.  There are suggestions about peeling
the fruit, using lemon juice, etc.  A friend of ours has tried drying about
anything you can imagine, including oranges, avocadoes, kiwi fruit, cherries,
blueberries, apples (the easiest).

My father every year dries tomatoes (romas), and mushrooms....they both come
out wonderfully! We've also done some fruit, but not much of that.

How do dried avocados come out?  It's hard to even guess what that would taste
like, but it does sound intriguing.

dried avocadoes are rather greasy, not the best for drying.  Bananas and
tomatoes were better.  I like pears.

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