Food Dehydrator

My Excalibur 2500 food dehydrator arrived last week! I had been considering going with a larger model but I'm glad I didn't because it is big. I found a spot for it on top of our fridge yesterday (we only have three 3-pronged plugs in our apartment despite having 4 rooms with plugs). It was delivered to my folks place and I picked it up on Friday. Now, I spent a good amount of cash on this thing so I intend to get my money's worth out of it. As it turns out, I had a lot of free time yesterday.

On March 31st we returned our cable box so we could cancel our cable but when I got home we still had cable in the spare room. We just decided to wait it out and see if got charged for it. I guess our company turns it off mid-month. On Thursday we had cable before I left for work and when I got home it had been disconnected...except for the weather channel, Discovery, and CNN...weird.

Anyway, now that we really have no TV, except for what's downloaded, I have a bit more free time to fill. Yesterday I went on a cleaning frenzy around the apartment; folding laundry, separating laundry, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floors, preparing dinner, re-organizing the kitchen, and trying out a dehydrator recipe.

I did a bit of research online and it seemed like fruit leather would be the easiest thing to try out first. I through a couple of cups of frozen berries and 2.5 bananas in my blender with a tbsp or two of honey and pureed. And that was it. The dehydrator comes with special sheets to make things like fruit leather on so I poured it onto the sheet and spread around. I could tell I had spread it a little thinly, but since it was my first time dehydrating ever, I was pretty pleased with it.

The National Centre for Home Food Preservation (recommended by Well Preserved - Thanks!) told me it would take anywhere from 6-8 hours to dehydrate but the book that came with it said 4-6. I just decided to check it every hour and ended up right at the 6 hour mark. The leather came out great. It's nice and tangy and a lot more tart than something like a Fruit-to-Go. I rolled it up in plastic wrap and have it in the fridge and it'll be a tasty snack all week.

I was actually really impressed with how easy the dehydrator was to use. I read the whole instruction booklet and then read up on the NCHFP and felt pretty confident. I had advice on how to position the door and how to make sure everything with situated in the right place. It was easy to check in and see how the food was doing and the fan wasn't too loud. The temperature control is a really nice feature and I'm glad I didn't go with a cheaper model.

So, that's the first experimentation with the dehydrator. Over the next week I'll probably be trying out some different types of leathers and I'm hoping to do a jerky. I'm not sure what kind of fruit or veggies we'll end up drying yet. We don't have too much extra to work with this week, but The Forks Market sells food that's teetering on being unusable in big bulk bags for 1 or 2 dollars. I'm going to keep my eyes open for the type of food they have. Last week they had cheap, slightly over-ripe strawberries, which would have been great for a leather. Hopefully I can get use out of my machine at least once a week. I'll keep you posted!

*I know, I didn't post a F.O.O.D. Wednesday post this week. I had plans Wednesday night and completely forgot to take a picture of our box. Oops! As consolation, here's last night's dinner made with some of our box items (kale, chard, onion, garlic, sweet potatoes, potatoes) and ribs from Frigs (recipe from Great Tastes of Manitoba - but it was a bit bland - BBQ sauce is my own).