Dehydrators - anyone got one?

I am mulling over the idea of getting a dehydrator, with a view to further reduce on wasted food, be that food from the garden or shop.

My initial thoughts were for tomatoes, so I could have jars of sun-dried style tomatoes for soups and stews through the winter, but then I got to wondering what else they could be used for?

 

I've been posting to the wrong thread

Parsnips starting to regrow

My dehydrator is made by Andrew James, it's does a good job in my limited experience (had it just over a year now). At the minimum you need a model that has temp control and a timer. The bad news is that it takes up to 36 hours to dry things (depending on how thick you slice them), also mine is fairly noisy so it wouldn't be good to leave it going in an open plan kitchen - mine is in the Utility so noise isn't an issue for us.

I have only ever dehydrated fresh raw veggies, not cooked. I doubt you could dehydrate already frozen stuff, I should imagine they would break up, but it's not something I've tried.

We store our dehydrated stuff in different ways, the tomatoes are in big screw top jars but we didn't have enough of those so we also used tupperware type plastic boxes and ordinary sandwich bags as well. Last year they stored just fine through to May when we ate the last of them.

I've tried drying quite a few different veggies, Kale was horrible (although folk on YouTube raved about it). Onions were nice but a bit pointless as I manage to store enough in the shed overwinter to last. The tastiest thing I found are dried bananas, they are scrumptious ! but again a bit pointless as I obviously don't grow those and they can be bought all year round fresh.

 

... and some photos ...




Pumpkins sliced to about 3" by 1" - shows how much they shrivel up:


Beetroot cut to 1/4" come out like crisps:


Rehydrating in balsamic vinegar and oil - Yum!

 

A couple of old threads helped me decide a while ago:

Food Dehydrator - any recommendations?

Preserving Our Surplus Tomatos

 

Yes they are raw, and in our family some liked them whilst others including me didn't like the floury taste. I wasn't intending to make crisps just an experiment on how thin to prepare them with the intention of adding them to stews etc.