Three reasons to dehydrate for me: 1. I am going backpacking. 2. I have too much stuff, freezing or canning not an option (no time/freezer full), and dehydration will work. 3. Dehydration is the absolute best way to preserve this particular item. I have two dehydrators. One is the inexpensive cylindrical stacked (Norco?)type, purchased on sale for $20. It will work well for (1) and as a back up for (2) or (3). In the summer, I also use a solar dehydrator we are building out of recycled materials, and still making adjustments to. Will take pictures and post when it is complete. Major issue is what to do at night! So we are thinking of implementing a back up fan/heater for nights. So I'll start with #3. For us it is only three items: tomatoes, figs and smoked peppers. I will not preserve figs any other way. Tomatoes are very good either canned or frozen, however, sun dried tomatoes are a different item, with many uses and that cannot really be replaced. Also, dry them really dried and pulverize them to make instant tomato paste! I smoke my peppers (pecan) and either put them directly in the freezer, or I dehydrate them until they are completely dried using the little dehydrator. Afterward (and after storing temporarily in ziplock bags or mason jars to even out the moisture) I grind the dried peppers, ending up with a product that is the powdered equivalent of chiles chipotles adobados. Much better on the user end since you can use just a teaspoon without having to worry about what to do with the rest of the can. Now jumping back to #1, I have successfully dried: kale, cabbage, onions, celery, bell peppers, bananas, apples, pineapple, mango, carrots, peaches, nectarines, zucchini, green beans, who knows what else I am forgetting. Unsuccessful: potatoes! this is because I did not cook them first. If the items above do not get used during a trip to the mountain, I simply pulverize all the remaining vegetables together, and use as part of my favorite recipe for instant vegetarian burgers. I can post if anyone is interested. I grow heaps of fresh herbs, but do not need to use a dehydrator to dry them since I live in an area with very low humidity, they dry just sitting on a basket in the counter.

Hey! I like the idea of hanging strips of bananas between the racks. It has interesting images, although I'm not sure if they would hang together enough to stay put. I've sliced them and put them on cooling racks then on the oven racks so we will see if the pilot light in the gas oven is enough to dry the fruit. There was extra papaya, so I put some of that there, too. Wonder how many days it will take to dry? Especially since rainy season is about to start. It is a gas oven since being off the power grid running an electric oven wouldn't be feasible unless we had a huge photovoltaic system. Since the pilot light is already there and running, we may as well get some use out of it.

plllog- It sounds like you are describing freeze-dried food, which unfortunately, CAN'T be duplicated in a dehydrator. Freeze-drying is a commercial technique that forms a vacuum while the food is freezing. Stored properly, freeze-dried food has a much longer shelf-life than home-dehydrated, and freeze-dried foods are much higher in nutrients than those made at home, and freeze-dried foods rehydrate in a fraction of the time as home-dried foods. I store and use both home-dehydrated and freeze-dried. jennieboyer, Home\-dehydrated foods need to be used fairly quickly because they don't have any preservatives, and the nutrients degrade quickly \- even if they still "look" fine, and may even taste fine, after years on your shelves. Recommended storage times for home\-dried foods range from 4\-months to one year because the quality is affected by oxygen, temperature, and light. Most dried fruits can be stored for one year at 60\-degrees F, or six months at 80\-degrees F. (room temperature is considered 70\-degrees F.). The cooler the storage temperature, the longer the shelf\-life, and this is true for all stored foods. For each 10\-degrees above room temperature (70\-degrees F) the faster food degrades (nutrients are lost, color and texture may change). Because home\-dehydrated vegetables don't have as much natural (or added) sugar as fruit does, vegetables have about half the shelf\-life of fruits. I consider home\-dehydrated foods pantry foods which need to be rotated and used quickly. Unless you are 100% sure a home\-dehydrated food has 10% moisture or less, don't vacuum\-seal it because if any bacteria is present, it could potentially grow into a toxin \- even in the oxygen\-free container. In order to know the amount of moisture, you have to weigh the food before and after dehydrating. For more specific information on the subject, I suggest getting the book "How To Dry Foods" by Deanna DeLong. You can often find this book at the library and used book stores. As a general rule fruits dried at home normally have about 80% of their moisture removed and vegetables \- 90%. Only a small percentage of foods dehydrated are done until they are crispy dry. I do crispy apples for snacks (which store longer), and leathery apples for cooking/baking, which get used quickly. In my case, unless the dehydrated food is being used, they are stored in a dark, cool, food storage room in the basement. I always try to store enough apple slices for a year, but that's the only item I plan on doing that. Even foods that seem bone dry can still have some moisture in it. Each time you open a container of dehydrated foods, it will reabsorb moisture from the air, so make sure you don't leave the lid off a container any longer than needed, and use more small containers (pint and quart jars). The same problem of reabsorption occurs after the dehydrated food is done drying. Once the food is dry, allow it to come to room temperature, then place it in a container/s and be sure to condition it (an important step many people skip and find they have moldy food) before placing it in storage. If you pack warm food into a jar, moisture will continue to be expelled from the warm food and can be trapped in the jar, causing the food to mold. I would avoid using a timed dehydrator because it is possible for the food to sit for a long period of time after the timer has gone off, and it will most certainly have reabsorbed a lot of moisture, especially in a place where there is high humidity. I typically don't store home\-dried foods in large batches \- especially potatoes which are notorious for molding. Crispy apples destined for snacking I place in a snack\-size zip\-lock bag, then place the bags of apple slices in a quart jar. This way each time the jar is opened there is less chance any of the apple slices will reabsorb moisture from the air. There is an alternative method called dehydrofreezing where only about 70% of the moisture is removed, however, these foods MUST be stored in the freezer to prevent microbial growth. There are some advantages to dehydrofreezing \- the food has better flavor and color than traditional drying, and they reconstitute in about half the time it takes for traditionally dried foods. They also take up less space in the freezer than fresh\-frozen food. If you don't have plastic fruit leather sheets you can use plastic wrap to cover the trays, or you could try a produce bag with some cutting required to make it cover the round trays (both will require some over\-lapping). Caution \-\-\- do NOT place the food on the printed side of the bags because the ink is NOT food\-grade. I will also bet once you use a plastic bag or plastic wrap for this process, you will find the stiff plastic fruit leather sheets much easier to use and well worth the money. \-Grainlady

I use a lot of dehydrated produce in a lot of recipes. Like last night there was dehydrated corn, kale, and wild chives in the potato and ham chowder. A few nights ago I made stuffed shells, and the tomato sauce had a heap of dehydrated quartered tomatoes and dehydrated sliced mushrooms in it. I always have dehydrated celery and carrots in the house so I have the stuff on hand for mire poix for whenever I need it without having to use up my fresh produce. When onions go on sale for super cheap, I run a few days worth or minced onions and usually have a few quarts in the pantry- right now I've run myself down to the last couple handfuls in the pantry to prep up for restocking onions soon. Herbs of course too, we use heaps of fresh and dried herbs around here. I do up tomatoes sliced, quartered, or halved depending on the kind and size. They get powdered up for instant tomato sauces and pastes, and left in bigger pieces to stew up in soups, stews, and sauces. Summer squashes get grated and dried up- used in all sorts of stuff like soups, casseroles, stews, or even rehydrated for zucchini breads. Winter squashes get cooked, pureed, and dehydrated on jelly sheets till crispy dry- then made into squash flour for baking- it is wonderful in quick breads and hearty breads- you simply replace some of the flour with squash flour. Actually you can make flour out of pretty much any pleasing combination of produce- add veggie kick to any breads, or make tasty veggie crackers. Sometimes I'll grate winter squash raw and it can get added into soups, stews, or sprinkled on pizza like cheese. I do this with sweet potatoes too- we love garlic, spinach, sweet potato, and mushroom pizzas with either white or tomato sauce. Dried and minced/powdered, you can make your own seasoning mixes, dip and dressing mixes, dry vegetable broth mix, and more. For recipes that use the green beans, try looking for it under "leather britches" recipes. Leather britches is what the old timers called the green beans they would hang on strings to dry out and eat up during the winter. I use them mostly in soups and stews, and a couple casseroles. Peppers can be dried up- I tend to do them either in rings, halved, or quartered depending on the size, but I never leave them whole. They are great for additions to all sorts of foods, or ground up into spice powders. If you have a smoker, you can smoke them before drying them too :)