Dehydrated Foods

[Doc]

I have a gift certificate for Bass-pro shops for $50 and wound up today snooping around for something at BPS to spend it on. I ran across a basic food dehydrator for approximately $50 and kind of thought that might be an interesting preservation method for fruit and vegies and such. Then I started wondering what you do with all thee little strips of dried up fruits and veggies. How do you cook with the stuff? Is it any good? is there any flavor left in these little dried up hunks of sh.. stuff. Anybody know anything about cooking using dried food? Do you have to re-hydrate it? What happens to the texture? What happens to the flavor? Any tricks or required tricks? Maybe a food dehydrator will be a waste of the gift certificate and I should be looking at bullets or something instead.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

I have cooked with them. I have rehydrated and used in soups. I've even done it with apples for use in things like cobbler. I think the best pairing with a  dehydrator is a vacuum sealer.   BUT the flavor is NOT as the fresh was. Not bad but not as flavorful. As a bonus Doc they maker very good jerky too. 

Edited August 25, 2016 by Culvercreek hunt club

[Lawdwaz]

1 hour ago, Doc said:

I have a gift certificate for Bass-pro shops for $50 and wound up today snooping around for something at BPS to spend it on. I ran across a basic food dehydrator for approximately $50 and kind of thought that might be an interesting preservation method for fruit and vegies and such. Then I started wondering what you do with all thee little strips of dried up fruits and veggies. How do you cook with the stuff? Is it any good? is there any flavor left in these little dried up hunks of sh.. stuff. Anybody know anything about cooking using dried food? Do you have to re-hydrate it? What happens to the texture? What happens to the flavor? Any tricks or required tricks? Maybe a food dehydrator will be a waste of the gift certificate and I should be looking at bullets or something instead.

Bullets..............

 

Buy some fresh fruit and enjoy WHILE fresh.

[fasteddie]

I havn't dried anything and later cooked with it . My wife has sliced apples and bananas and put them in the de-hydrator and they taste great . she has also done that with tomatoes and cherries . The dried apple slices were nice for deer season . 

[grampy]

My buddy makes some darn good jerky on his dehydrator. He always makes us a big bag with any venison we have left. Right before the season starts. Another reason I so look forward to opening day!

[DirtTime]

3 hours ago, Lawdwaz said:

Bullets..............

 

Buy some fresh fruit and enjoy WHILE fresh.

Agree with this. ^^^^

 

You can get some great jerky from a dehydrator, but you can get just as good from a smoker or even in an oven.

[Will_C]

We use ours for jerky. Worth just for that, although we have dried bananas-there are a tasty treat.

Will

 

[Doc]

I always thought a gift certificate was the perfect gift, but when it comes to things that are worth up to $50, I've already got everything. If I want it, I've already bought it. I checked with the wife last night and she is telling me the same as a lot of the replies on here, "get something else". I'm not a big fan of jerky, and the thing would probably find its way down into the basement where we keep all the other cooking implements that we never use.

I guess the search goes on. These days $50 doesn't go very far. You should have seen me trying to spend a $25 card at Walmarts. I finally went over to the grocery side of the store and bought a pile of junk-food ..... Just what I needed.....lol.