And dry air - but no fire! A few months ago, Nick and I got a lovely Excalibur Dehydrator. Why? I remember the round, plastic thing Dad got for Mom many many years ago. It made apple slices and that's about it. It also required a ton of work to rotate trays and keep things balance. So when Nick suggested the dehydrator, I was skeptical. I did hours of research and we ended up with the Excalibar dehydrator. Why that model? It has a rear fan and blows air evenly across all of the trays in the unit so technically no flipping around every two seconds. And my research proved accurate. This has been wonderful so far. I can fill up the trays, set the timer and go out for a run and my food will be done when I get back.
Of course, I started with apple slices since that's what I had in the fridge and it would be a good test of how it worked. The apples came out delicious. OK! Time to practice with some more complicated things. The ultimate goal is to be able to make meals for Nick while he is out bike packing. That means meat, a carb like rice and some veggies - all complicated except for the veggies. I did some more research and found a good online resource for some of the complicated menu items like rice. I also practiced with the vegetables I had in the fridge. My first real meal was rice, chicken and a variety of vegetables. Everything except for the chicken turned out perfectly. Looks like when the cookbook says use a specific kind of chicken there's been a few episodes of trial and error! Even Nick was thrilled with the first attempt at a home-made camping meal we each had a serving on our last camping trip and it tasted great. Much better then any of the store bought meals. And we knew for sure it was gluten-free.
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| Apple slices! Much better home made! |
Of course, there are some things that I need to work on - like water to food ratios for rehydrating, but over all I would say this is going to be a very useful kitchen tool. There are plenty of other ingredients I need to practice with, both for my snacking and for Nick's meals. Fruit leathers require a little work, so I need to try them again. The apple slices are fantastic for traveling and I got a chance to try mango slices as well. Those were a lot of work but tasted really really good. What I personally like about doing my own I know exactly what is in them. I know the ingredients won't last as long as the store bought cases because there are no preservatives. But with good packing and sealing we can get an entire summer's worth of meals into a very small amount of space. The weight of the dehydrated meals is next to nothing which will make by packing even better for Nick. And with dehydrating fruit and making fruit leathers I'll have some good snacks for our camping trips without worrying about spoiling. I am looking forward to experimenting with some other ingredients and starting to combine things for meals. It's going to be a fun and productive summer with my new kitchen toy.
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| Before - a meal worthy of camping with! Chicken, rice, peppers, spinach and carrots |
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| Same meal after adding water. Looks good! |
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