Freeze dried and dehydrated main dishes, such as those made by Mountain House, are on many a prepper’s To Buy list.  However, for some families, the extra expense or unwanted additives place these commercially produced meals off limits.  With a little planning, you can make your own.  Here are a few tips for getting started.

image by Nina Matthews Photography

1. Although you can definitely include your own dehydrated foods, keep in mind that putting together numerous meals using the same recipe will require a lot of each ingredient.  Therefore, it might be worth spending a bit extra to purchase commercially dehydrated or freeze dried foods for this project.  DIY dehydrated foods have a shorter shelf life than do their commercially dried counterparts.  Keep that in mind.
2. Three good resources for dehydrated foods are Honeyville Farms, All-in-One Preparedness, and Harmony House.
3. The shelf life of your finished dinners will be equivalent to that of the ingredient with the shortest shelf life.  For example, a recipe containing pasta will have a shelf life of about seven or eight years, maximum, because that is the shelf life of pasta.
4. Some freeze dried vegetables are more delicate than their dehydrated counterparts.  You may want to place those veggies at the top of the mix to prevent them from being crushed over time or use the dehydrated version.
5. Dehydrated eggs, sour cream, butter and milk will have to be purchased.  Both Honeyville Farms and All-in-One Preparedness offer these ingredients.
6. IMPORTANT!  If you’re making a mix from one of your own recipes, your first batch will be experimental.  Combine the ingredients, keep a record of the amounts, and then prepare the recipe as a meal.  How much water did you add?  How long was the cooking time?  Be sure to record this information and make adjustments before preparing the remaining meals.  Make sure to have your family do a taste test!
7. It makes sense to prepare several batches of each recipe rather than just one.  Be sure to have enough of each ingredient on hand.  You may be surprised by how much is required, but keep in mind you’re preparing many future meals.
8. In addition to ingredients, you’ll need some sort of storage container.  Canning jars and mylar bags are your best bet.  Use oxygen absorbers if you plan on storing the mixes long-term.  If a camping or backpacking trip is in your future, the mixes can be kept in large zip-loc bags.
9. A Food Saver system works as long as none of the ingredients are likely to puncture the plastic bag.
10. For storage, keep in mind the five enemies of food: heat, humidity, oxygen, light, and pests.
11. Here’s a tip for organizing your mixes.  Store mixes of the same ingredient in a labeled food-grade bucket.
12. To get started with your own recipe, choose a soup or a casserole.  The ideal recipe will contain ingredients that can all be converted to a dehydrated version.  Be prepared to do a bit of tweaking.  Choosing the right recipe is the hardest part of this process.
13. Recipes that contain a lot of cheese aren’t good candidates for Dehydrated Dinners.
14. If a recipe contains an ingredient that is normally canned, such as diced tomatoes, it’s perfectly fine to omit that ingredient in your dehydrated mix and then plan on adding that canned item when it’s time to prepare the meal.  Just make a note of it, and then be sure to have enough stored in your pantry.
15. One dehydrated recipe to master is marinara sauce.  Combine tomato powder with garlic, herbs, and salt.  Taste test small amounts with a bit of water until you have a combination you love.  You can store the mix in jars or mylar bags or use it in recipes that call for prepared marinara sauce.  Emergency Essentials carries tomato powder or you can make your own by processing dehydrated tomato slices in a blender until completely powdered.
    

    image by WordRidden

16. Start searching for recipes!  Here are a few I found at AllRecipes.com that have a lot of potential as Dehydrated Dinners: Chili Bean Soup, Pasta Bean Soup, Flatlander Chili, and Homemade Pizza Supreme.
17. If you only convert five recipes to Dehydrated Dinners and prepare eight of each recipe, that’s forty dinners!
18. Dehydrated Dinners will only be one part of your food storage.  They’ll come in handy when you’re too sick to cook or the family needs a really quick meal.  Their main purpose is convenience.
19. It’s better to give than receive.  Having multiple Dehydrated Dinners will allow you to share them with others in need.
20. Jump right in!  The more practice you get in spotting suitable recipes, the easier it becomes.  Once you have a recipe your family enjoys, it’s just a matter of converting it to a dehydrated version and assembling all the ingredients.

Coming in Part 3:  Recipe conversions.  From fresh to dehydrated!

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

image by trekkyandy

I tried a new chili recipe recently and decided to play around with it a bit.  I dehydrated the tomato sauce, kidney beans, added a few seasonings and stored it in my pantry for about a month.  When I decided one night to make one of my family’s favorite meals, Chili and Rice, I added four cups of water to the dehydrated chili mixture and was amazed!  I think it was one of the best pots of chili I’ve ever made!  Give it a try.

2 cans tomato sauce

2 cans kidney beans, drained

1/4 c. chopped yellow onion*

1 T. chili powder

1 t. cumin

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. garlic powder

1/8 t. ground black pepper

In a food dehydrator, dehydrate the tomato sauce, kidney beans and chopped onions.  To dehydrate the sauce, spread it evenly on two fruit leather trays and dry until it can be easily peeled up and no moisture remains.  The dehydration time for these three ingredients varies from dehydrator to dehydrator, but plan on at least six hours.

To store, combine the sauce, beans, onion and seasonings in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, a Food Saver bag or even a Zip-Loc bag, depending on how long you wish to store it.  The sauce can be rolled up or even torn or cut into small pieces to better fit into the jar.

Cooking the dehydrated chili is a dream.  Pour the dry ingredients in a large saucepan or pot, along with four cups of water.  Cook over medium heat for at least 15-20 minutes or until the beans are completely rehydrated.  You can add cooked meat or canned tomatoes at this point, if you wish.  As the chili heats, the sauce thickens quite nicely, but you may want to add a bit more water for a thinner consistency.  Of course you can cook this in your Sun Oven!  Just place the ingredients in a covered pot and set outside in your oven for a couple of hours. 

Serve alone, over rice, topped with grated cheddar cheese, saltines, tortilla chips, sour cream, or your own preferred chili toppings.

*As long as you’re dehydrating this amount of onion, you might as well dehydrate a whole lot more.  Chop enough onion to fill the rest of your dehydrating trays, and you’ll be a step ahead the next time you need chopped onion.

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

Yummy dehydrated pears. Image by norwichnuts.

My food dehydrator has been working up a storm this past week as I’ve been transforming pounds and pounds of tomatoes and jars of applesauce into very, very dry versions of their former selves.  I love dehydrating foods, and here are just a few of the reasons why.

1. Dehydrated fruits and veggies have intense, INTENSE! flavors!  Each thin slice of dehydrated tomato packs a wallop of flavor that you don’t find in a fresh slice.  Something amazing happens to the flavor once all the water has been removed.
2. It offers something different in the healthy snack category.  My kids are loving the applesauce fruit leather they made themselves.  They never get bored because one day it’s apple-cinnamon leather, another day it’s apple-peach leather, and a tasty apple-strawberry version is on tap for tomorrow!  A #10 can of applesauce from Sam’s Club or Costco provides sheets and sheets of fruit leather, one of the easiest snacks in the world to pack in a lunch bag or backpack.
3. Something is always in season!  The best bargains in produce are usually found when a particular fruit or vegetable is in season.  Farmer’s markets, food co-ops, fruit stands, and pick-your-own-produce farms can offer amazing bargains.  All that fresh goodness is easily transformed into dehydrated versions at a cost far less than commercially dehydrated foods.
4. Food dehydration is simple!  Basic dehydrators can be picked up on Craigslist or eBay.  You don’t need anything fancy.  My dehydrator is very basic, but it does the job just fine.  Unlike canning, you don’t need a lot of additional equipment, and the internet is filled with websites that give directions for dehydrating every type of food imaginable!
5. Variety!  One day you can dehydrate apples and the next, pasta sauce!  Cook up several pounds of ground beef and turn them into, “hamburger rocks”!  When you find #10 cans of a fruit or veggie on sale, pour out the liquid, and place the food on your dehydrator trays for a few hours.  Bags of frozen vegetables dehydrate just as easily. 
6. Dehydrated foods don’t lose their nutritional value and maintain water soluble vitamins and minerals. 
7. Dehydrate your own herbs and you’ll never have to pay top dollar for them again nor watch them rot in the fridge.
8. If space is an issue, dehydrated foods are your friend!  Twenty pounds of fresh tomatoes filled two large glass jars in my pantry once they were sliced and dehydrated!
9. You’ll never have to run to the grocery store at the last minute for carrots or onions or potatoes or celery or green beans if you have jars of the dehydrated versions in your pantry.

If you have a garden and expect a decent harvest this year, put food dehydration on the top of your To Learn list!  Once you’re past the initial purchase of the dehydrator, it’s just a matter of looking for bargains at the grocery store and then getting busy!

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

There’s no need to thaw your veggies first.  Just lay them out on your dehydrating trays.  The first time you dehydrate a specific veggie, check on its’ process every two to three hours to determine what the total dehydrating time will be for future batches.  When the veggie pieces are completely dry, without a trace of moisture, pour them into jars with an oxygen absorber or store them in vacuum sealed plastic bags.  Just think.  A couple handfuls of veggies, some chicken broth, and rice will make an excellent soup this coming winter or in the winter of 2020!

© 2009, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

I found out for myself that dehydrating food is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to stock up.  Now, if I say it’s easy, you know.  It’s easy!  The foods are fresh with no additives of any kind, so I know exactly what my family is consuming.  I save money since commercially dried fruits and herbs, in particular, have a premium price at the market.

I purchased a NESCO American Harvest dehydrater on Craigslist for $30 one January morning and went to work.  I’ve had some hits and misses, but here is what I’ve had the best luck with so far.

• Canned peaches.  Easy, easy, easy and so good!  Buy #10 cans of peaches at Costco for $5 or so.  Pour the fruit into a colander and rinse with water.  Lay out the peach slices on the dehydrator trays and dry at a medium setting until the peaches are chewy.  These are a great travel snack and will last for years if you store them using a Foodsaver system.
• Herbs.  It’s amazing how quickly these dry and are ready for storage.  Kellene over at Preparedness Pro recently wrote a great article about growing and and preserving herbs.  I love having jars of fresh herbs and have saved a pretty penny because I no longer have to buy fresh and then need them for a recipe only after they’ve turned slimy.
• Applesauce!  Buy a #10 can of applesauce at Costco for right around $5.  Spread a thin layer of applesauce on a plastic tray and dehydrate.  When it is dry, you have your own fruit leather!  Roll it up, and store.  Add cinnamon, pureed strawberries or peaches, or anything else you can think of for variety.  My kids love this treat.
• Mushrooms.  This is another veggie that spoils all too quickly.  Slice, dry, store.  Couldn’t be easier!  Dried shrooms can even be ground into a powder and added to sauces and gravies for flavor.
• Sliced carrots and celery.  These are a staple in my soups and stews, and I hate having to run out to the store when I don’t have them on hand.  Again, slice, dry, store!

One of my camping-crazy friends dehydrates sheets of spaghetti sauce, rehydrates them with water over a campstove and has almost-instant pasta sauce.  She’s also been known to make hamburger rocks in her dehydrator.

It does take time to prepare the fresh food to dry (peel, slice, chop, etc.), but once they’re on the dehydrator trays and a timer is set, I can spend my time chasing kids and doing laundry.

This doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby.  Seek out farmer’s markets, produce co-ops, produce stands, and the like to get the freshest food at the lowest prices.  Check Craiglist, Freecyle and eBay for bargains on dehydrators.  The Excalibur brand is considered to be top of the line, but there are directions online for making your own from scratch.

For more specific how-to details, check out these websites, and have fun dehydrating your own foods!

Budget 101 – Dehydrated Foods

Mother Earth News

© 2009, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.