FOOD
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We've
had a dehydrator for several years; along this
line ,
it made a lot of noise and was slow as hell. Used it
sparingly. In truth,
we would haul it out when enough time had lapsed that we forgot how
useless it was. Like apples; 24 hours to do
4 or 5
trays, maybe longer.
When I was shopping for
Christmas eve food at
BJ's, I bought a dried fruit tray, looked something like
this ,
for $20. Mo Sup went nuts for it.
So, when her birthday rolled around last week I gave her a
LEM 5 tray dehydrator.
I looked at a
dozen or so on Amazon, and even when getting a positive review it
wasn't unusual for the writer to add "no
timed shut-off." I looked for one with that feature—without much success Another
wish many reviewers expressed was a rear mounted "stronger fan" so they
didn't have to
rotate trays so often. So rear fan went my
list. Fast
forward.
Didn't
buy it at Amazon because they didn't sell the 5 tray (then). After
searching about, I ordered one from Gander
on Jan. 15th; it arrived the next day.
| Products
|
Status |
Qty |
Price
|
| 754014 |
LEM 5-Tray
Countertop Dehydrator w/Digital Timer |
| |
|
In stock |
1 |
$104.99
|
|
Subtotal:
|
$104.99
|
|
Shipping & Handling:
|
FREE |
|
Additional Freight:
|
$0.00
|
|
Tax:* |
$6.30
|
|
Total:
|
$111.29 |
|
Following
only these directions in the product manual (8 whole
pages), I threw in some apple, papaya, mango, bannanas, and Kiwi.
Everything but the unevenly cut mangoes and papaya were done in about 4
hours, those took an additional 6 hours. Which brings us to
another lesson that I learned. Uniform thickness really is
important, so
three words.
Mandolin.
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Mangoes
are a pain in the ass to cut because of that breast bone.
Voila.
Today I peeled the mango, set the mandolin blade depth to ¼
inch and
sliced until I
hit bone. Then, turned over until bone, and then the sides.
The
result was that for the first time ever I got 90% of the flesh off a
mango, and all of it was ¼ inch thick!
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Put
it out here in the sunroom; you can get an idea about the
footprint. Took some pics of a batch of stuff I began at this
morning.
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The
mangoes took 8 hours.
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Same
with the pineapple; the dates need another 3 hours.
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Half dozen
apples
done in 4 hours.
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What
in the hell is that? It's pumpkin "leather" I bought the
"Dehydrator Bible" shown up top, and was immediately confused by
instructions to dry certain items on parchment or leather. That was
a can of pumpkin, spread to about ¼ inch.
If you like dried pumpkin, there you go.
Actually, this is meant to be reconstituted and made into a
pie in your hide-out shelter.
There you go. If you've had a notion, now
you
have a leg up. Next, I'm making squirrel jerky.
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