Hunting & Fishing Official dehydrator/smoker/drying recipes for preserving vegetables, fruits and what-have-you

sirhrmechanic

Command Sgt. Major
Full Member
Minuteman
So in addition to my Jerky thread... thought I'd get one started on preserving vegetables. fruits, etc.

I've done a lot of meat, but just starting to get into fruits, veggies and peppers. I have a huge pepper garden planned this summer, so will be doing a lot of dehydrating when that starts to produce. But in the interim, will be playing with tomatoes, mushrooms and other stuff.

Best thing I have done so far is pineapple. In March I hit a motherlode of pineapple slices in juice at the grocery store. Clearance? Expiration? Whatever. It was cheap. Bought it all. Put the slices in the dehydrator (and saved the pineapple juice for a pig roast coming up in a few weeks). Absolute pineapple candy! Super easy. Put in the slices. Turn on dehydrator. Presto, pineapple candy.

Anyway, post your successes, failures, good recipes, creative ideas for dehydrating, etc. Also if you are using smoker or sun drying... interested too. I love sun dried tomatoes. I just think it's too humid to do them here. But there are all kinds of tricks to doing this. Few of which I know. But I bet there's some wizards here when it comes to this stuff.

Again, some of this is just for good 'foodie' stuff for cooking with. Maybe for doing something with leftovers now that inflation makes 'throwing out food' expensive. Some of it may come in handy if a real hard rain falls. Might as well learn to do it now! Because you got to do something with the stuff that comes from your Victory Garden.

Cheers,

Sirhr
 
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I have done: aaple, banana, peppers, tomatoes, oranges, grapes, orange pulp in the dehydration unit. Really juicy stuff put on rack with catch pan under it so some of the moisture drips off before putting in machine. I enjoy eating dried fruit. This season going to smoke orange and tomato slices then dry.
 
O have used my dehydrator to make beef jerky. Start with brown sugar and add your spices and some liquid smoke and water. Marinate and then set in the dehydrator.