15 September 2016

Le déshydrateur

C'est l'appareil qui fait la déshydratation. I decided it was time to try one, and I found one on Amazon.fr for about 45 euros ($50). I'm not sure how much we will use it, but I'm sure we'll at least use it during tomato season each year. I also have a huge crate of walnuts in the garage that I'll try to crack open and dehydrate this winter.

Loaded up and ready to go

Yesterday I prepared enough tomatoes to fill three dehydrator trays. I used mostly small Juliet tomatoes, which are like mini-Romas. All I had to do was to cut each tomato in half and cut out the core. That took a while, but it's a kind of work I don't mind doing.

I had three full trays and one partial tray of tomatoes like this for our trial run.

I had some room left over inside the machine, so I sliced up a couple of zucchinis and an eggplant, just to see how well they would dehydrate. I turned the dehydrator on at about 11 a.m. and let it run for 10 hours at a temperature of 60ºC / 140ºF.

Here's how the tomatoes looked this morning after 10 hours of drying and 10 hours of resting overnight.

Because it's a new machine and because we want to watch the progress of the vegetables we're drying this first time, I turned the machine off at bedtime and just let it sit there, all loaded up, overnight. This morning, I can see that one tray of tomatoes is much dryer than the other two. The thinner slices of eggplant and zucchini are pretty much ready, but some thicker slices will take more time.

These thin slices of eggplant and zucchini are almost ready to take out and pack for storage.

The book that came with the dehydrator says to remove the vegetables that look sufficiently dried out as you go, leaving the others in the machine for a longer time. You want the vegetables to be completely dried out but not crispy. I haven't yet decided how I'll pack the tomatoes for storage when they're done. The easiest thing to do would be to freeze them, but I might put them up in jars the way I did the oven-dried tomatoes I made a few days ago.

Here's how it looked when I inspected the dehydrator this morning and turned it back on.

The dehydrator itself gets good customer reviews on Amazon.fr. The main criticism is that the plastic trays seem pretty fragile, so you have to handle them carefully. Noted.... The dehydrator can be set to run at different temperatures, from 35º to 70ºC (95º to 160ºF). It doesn't have an on/off timer, but I can use a lamp timer to add that option.

20 comments:

  1. You are really hard working person

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    1. I've never been busier than since I retired from "real" work.

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    2. It sure looks that way! But, no commute :)

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    3. It's true. Before coming to Saint-Aignan, I spent 2 to 4 hours a day, five days a week, in the car in traffic jams on the so-called "freeway" between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I'm glad to have those hours back for more productive activities like walking with Callie, cooking, gardening, photography, and blogging.

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  2. If your house is anything more than 10% humidity, don't turn it off at night.
    The ammount of water they will take from the atmosphere overnight is enormous!
    I've got five trays of assorted courgette and Yellow Crookneck chunks in ours at the moment on a 16hr run at 145F to make courgettey bits for soup'n'stews...
    they are quite thick... 1cm on each side... roughly [well, they are from rounded objects]....
    so I'm not too sure that 16hrs will be enough!
    I'll be checking at 10AM and might need to add another eight to ten hours.

    As for storage, we have used "under oil" for the tomatoes, as well as dry storage.... both work.
    The courgettes are always dry stored. For the dry storage....
    we put the items in Ziplock bags with all the air squeezed out....
    and then those go into Familia Wiss jars with some self-indicating silica gel at the bottom....
    [orange when dry, turning green when it needs microwaving to dry it out again]....
    that keeps the food really well.
    If you do decide to keep the tomatoes under oil...
    you will notice that they are giving something to the oil...
    don't worry about that...
    the slightly tomato-flavoured olive oil is easily used in the kitchen!!

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    1. Do you keep the tomatoes-in-oil in the fridge? Or do you have a cellar that stays cold year-round? I've read that tomatoes in oil need to be stored in the fridge. I'd prefer to store them dry and put them in oil just a day or two before I'm going to eat them.

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    2. Another question: have you ever dried walnuts? Did you soak them in water first? Salted?

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    3. Walnuts.... no... we hang them in bags in the cellier and crack and extract as needed.... same with hazelnuts [or in our case, filberts]
      Tomatoes in oil.... we just keep them in sterilized jars in the cellier... and it doesn't stay cold... but we've not had any problems. Once a jar is opened, we keep it in the fridge as if it was a purchase bottle.... and use reasonably quickly.
      Personally, I would like a proper root cellar... we had the equivalent in Leeds, the old coal cellar. It was long and thin, always damp and kept a steady 55F. Only one snag.... slugs and snails could get in... they liked the paper on the labels.... we therefore had the occasional "lucky dip" bottle!!

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    4. Supposedly, soaking and then dehydrating walnuts etc. makes them more nutritious and easy to digest. I'm going to have to try it. Here's just one web page about the process. There are many more out there of course.

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  3. Have you thought about drying bell peppers instead of roasting them and storing in the freezer?

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    1. Good idea that I hadn't thought of, but do you think the dried peppers would have that luscious texture and flavor that the slow-roasted ones have?

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    2. Ken, the dried peppers are only good for soups and stews.... flavour is fine, texture isn't.... they never seem to rehydrate properly.... and the skin becomes the most obvious texture... despite what the books say!!
      And, at the price Lidl charge for a jar of roast peppers, why bother.... in season roast your own as needed.... out of season, Lidl!!

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    3. I get the jarred roasted red peppers at LIDL and other supermarkets, and they are good, but they are often packed in sugary vinegar, which I like less than the ones I make in olive oil with garlic and no vinegar or sugar added.

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  4. Your hydrator is photogenic. I'm wondering what you will do with the dried walnuts...

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    Replies
    1. Bake them into pumpkin and zucchini loaves, or make something like pecan pie.

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  5. I bet your house smells delicious :)

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    1. It does, especially because we've closed all the doors and windows to keep the warm air in. It has turned chilly outside -- though I did enjoy my p.m. walk with Callie.

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    2. A nice walk in the cool air can make you happy to come home to that smell and a cup of hot tea and some pumpkin bread :)
      (she types as she turns up the a/c in the house )

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  6. When I had my dog I cut sweet potatoes into uniform slices and put them in my dehydrator. Gabe liked them as treats. He liked them even if I got them crunchy.

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  7. Margaret, I'll try that. The only problem is that sweet potatoes are pretty expensive here (all imported).

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