Handy Dandy Dehydrator

Over the weekend, I've been messing around with a food dehydrator Ryan and I bought on Amazon. We discussed it for awhile and decided that we would have plenty of tomatoes to dry and other projects we'd like to try (dried fruit, beef jerky, fruit leather, etc.), and we felt it would be a worthwhile purchase. We spent about $65 for it with free shipping.

The dehydrator we bought is electric with a fan that runs. There aren't any settings on it because we decided on a basic model since we are beginners. Of course there are more expensive ones that let you play with settings like timers and temperature control. That would be nice, but those models cost more around $200 and we just weren't ready to spend that much. One thing I like about our model is that the trays can be stacked one way for a shallow drying surface for thinly cut foods, and stacked another way for thicker cut foods, you just flip it over. That way, you don't smash your food or give too much room either.

For the first round, I kept it simple with cherry tomatoes. Later, I added basil, which didn't take very

long at all.  I cut the tomatoes in half and placed them cut side up. The tomatoes weren't too juicy so I didn't have to worry about them dripping into the fan, which is something I have to watch out for on this particular model. I didn't treat the tomatoes with anything at all, I just stuck them into the dehydrator after slicing them and turned it on.

A little bit later, I added some fresh basil from the garden. The basil only took 45 minutes to an hour. It was quick and the smell was amazing. I just stood there and smelled it all for awhile and enjoyed the aroma. When the basil was dried, I found a container and crumbled the freshly dried herb into it. Ahh, it smelled so good! The freshest dried herbs you'll ever use are ones produced this way. I opened my store-bought basil and compared and it just didn't make the cut. The store-bought stuff was gross compared to what I had just made. It's hard not to throw it out, but it's gonna happen eventually I'm sure.

Dried cherry tomatoes

Yesterday, I found some somewhat old blueberries in the fridge. They weren't yet moldy, but they were just a little shriveled. I thought, 'what the heck' and threw them in the dehydrator. Why not? I left them in for about 11 hours and they were almost all the way dry, except for the bigger blueberries, they were like little pebbles. The bigger ones were a little more like raisin-consistency.

I also dried some herbs -- thyme, basil, pineapple sage and rosemary -- but I did those first so the flavor wouldn't leach out into the blueberries. That wouldn't be good.

Next, we want to try bananas, peaches and maybe even some kiwi.