Drying herbs and vegetables is easy and can be done in small batches
Zucchini
Mushrooms Celery Carrots |
With as much as we cook from scratch in my kitchen you would think that celery never goes limp, nor carrots. Well, they do! and instead of throwing them in the compost bucket or giving them to the worms or "gasp" throwing them in the trash can, "shudder", you can chop them up and toss them into the dehydrator. Once dry, grind them up in a coffee grinder used only for herbs, nuts and grains. Store in a tightly sealed container labeled with the contents. Seriously I can't tell dried ground spinach from kale.
When vegetables and herbs start wilting it is because the cell walls are starting to break down, dehydration has begun. Drying them the rest of the way and being able to using them in recipes at some later time when, for instance, you are out of celery, etc. means that you have successfully managed your food budget in terms of waste-not want-not! Helpful hints and tips concerning dehydrating
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The conversions listed below are not meant to be recipes but rather, a guide to weights of foods before and after drying . I weight the item I am drying as it is going into the dehydrator and then again once it is done. I then see how many teaspoons, Tablespoons or cups my finished product measures. This tells me how much celery for instance I am adding to a pot of soup.
The information concerning weight to volume allows me to enter data for nutritional equivalents into my computer recipe program which has a nutritional value component derived from the ingredients for the recipes entered into the program.
The information concerning weight to volume allows me to enter data for nutritional equivalents into my computer recipe program which has a nutritional value component derived from the ingredients for the recipes entered into the program.