The next produce which is up at the top of my list (as far as ease of dehydrating) is citrus. Read; oranges, limes and lemons, grapefruit. These fruits have HUGE nutritional benefits and are so easy to prepare and use that you may consider yourself silly if you don't at least give it a try.
The only prep that you have to do in order to dehydrate citrus is to simply slice them, peel the skin off of the slices and put on the dehydrator trays. ( TIP: We have found that it is easier to work with them if they are cold. Not frozen, just cool.) We purchased a meat slicer for uniform slices of all of our produce. It makes it so much easier, but if you want to just use a knife, feel free. It will make no difference- as long as your slices are fairly consistent so the machine will dehydrate them in the same basic time frame.
Again, you can not dehydrate food for too long. One manual recommend dehydrating them for 16-24 hours at 130 degrees and another says not to put them in the dehydrator at all. Know that they will not reconstitute back to the slices that you started out with, but you can use them in so many ways. At this point in time, we add them to our water and tea for an extra boost of vitamin C. Any recipe that you have that uses lemons, or any other citrus, these are perfect. Always on hand and ready to go.
What to do with all of those peelings? Put them in the refrigerator until you have space in your dehydrator and then dehydrate them as well. I leave them in whole strips and when a recipe calls for lemon or orange zest, just go to the pantry and pull out a few pieces, throw them in a grinder and grind them into zest. Easy! And there is no wasting the peels!
This link will take you to my guru-mentor. I swear, the smartest food prepper out there! She has taught me about the endless possibilities in the world of dehydration. I am striving to reach her level! This video is a salmon dish that uses dehydrated lemons. Yumminess in action!
www.dehydrate2store.com/videos/?id=23
Enjoy~
I left out the part about the peelings in the first publication. It will not do to waste food around here! Waste not~want not...
ReplyDeleteAnother use for your peels....put them in a canning jar and cover with white vinegar...after a few weeks of sitting, use it for cleaning! Smells great and cleans AMAZINGLY!!!
ReplyDeleteYES, I will do this!!!
DeleteThank you...