This site has really been inspiring me on cooking & preserving... wanna try solar cooking this summer, the pressure canner thread has me thinking about pulling mine out, and this Sunday I'm bringing home my Mom's dehydrator.  I'd like to start with whatever's easiest or works best.  Upon doing a search in this Food section, I found a couple threads from last summer with good info.  I'd like to do onions and mushrooms.  Banana chips sound good too.

Any tips for a beginner?  Anything I should avoid?

 When dehydrating foods, first you have to think about how you are going to use the items in the end.  For example the onions.  If you are going to use them in soups or stews, do you want a diced or sliced onion?  For bananas, are you going to eat them out of hand or use them for baking banana breads or making puddings?  Now mushrooms are simply mushrooms, they are best sliced in and on anything in my opinion!  lol

Now that you have decided on how you will begin prepping them, it is time to think about getting your products for the best price.  Mushrooms are now mostly cultivated year round, but if you watch at your local grocery store they do put them on sale or mark down frequently because they are very perishable, unlike onions, and very much like bananas. 

For bananas, I like to soak them in a mix of 1/4 cup of lemon juice(frozen concentrated mixed lemonade works well also) to 1 gallon of cold water, even a nice lemon vineagrette is a wonderful treat to nibble on.  You can break this recipe down to the amount of bananas you are drying at one time.  I do the same with my mushrooms, although I like to also add a handful of minced fresh thyme to the mix, makes them quite tasty when rehydrating them for cooking or on pizzas.  Or using a nice vineagrette on these before drying is also nice.

For onions, I just cut the way I want them and start drying them.  I also dry shallots, chives, leeks, garlic in the same way on the same trays.  Gives everything such a nice flavor and I mix some into dips, into a bowl of popped corn or potato chips.  We love the kick it gives the bland nibbles.

Do remember these tips:

Lightly spray your trays with a vegetable spray, clean up is so much easier. 

The items you dip or process in lemon juice(ar any juice)will always be darker than the items you see packaged in the stores.  Also to rehydrate the ratio of product to liquid is 1:1.  And it can take from a few minutes to overnight to rehydrate some dried products. 

I put my dried products into cleaned out peanut butter jars with lids, and glass jars.  I always keep my mushrooms in glass canning jars, just a personal preference.  I do not store all my stash in one container just in case there is some moisture left in one or two pieces, I dont lose the whole batch.

Give yourself at least 24 hours for each fill of your dehydrator, dont push it.  It can get very overwhelming to see all that product sitting there needing to be sliced, diced or chopped.  And this way you know your first batch is dried enough and cooled enough for proper and long term storage. 

Brianschef Michelle 

onions - remove paper shell and either slice or dice. to dehydrate

onion at 100 degrees for 20 hours or until brittle .

to make onion flakes or powder -simply place dried onion in the blender , grinder , or food mill and ground until desired size.

to make onion salt mix eaual parts of salt and finely ground onion .

mushrooms  dry at 10 for about 18 hours or until crisp

to rehydrate : cover wth cold water, soak about 1/2 hour and drain

no necessary to rhydrate before adding to soups or stew

these ar excellent in spaghetti sause and creamed dishes , savory caseroles or stuffing .. 

There are several excellent dishes .. Did you know and make an excellent jerky with Ground meat ?

Thanks for the input.  Gayla50 - onion salt/power or even garlic salt/powder is a great idea.  And I just bought some onion salt not too long ago!

Brainschef Michelle,

For bananas, they would be just to eat.  I had some dried banana chips once and thought they were good.  Questions:

~ Do you soak them, or dip them in the solution and put them in the dehydrator?
~ If soak, how long?
~ Storing in jars - whatever size, you fill to the top, right?  So there's less air in there?

We eat a lot of broccoli.  Is that not dry-able?  I tried blanching and freezing once, but when I unfroze and cooked, it was mushy.

Thanks!!

 CharlieB ~  I just dip the bananas and dry them in the dehydrator.  If you let them set in anything liquid for too long they will disintrigate. 

For broccoli: Cut and blanch for 2 to 3 minutes, then drain well and dehydrate.  I rehydrate by dropping the pieces into boiling water until nice and crispy but cooked thru.

I also find that most dehydrators dry at different times, I have one that dries bananas in a matter of hours and another one that takes almost 24 hours to dry them thuroughly.  Yes I fill my plastic peanut butter jars to the top with all my dried foods.  Air, moisture, heat and direct light are all things to avoid when storing dehydrated foods.  I have my main stash stored in a closet on shelves, we have no basement.  

Brianschef Michelle 

Kewl!  Canning and solar cooking will come later, so I'm looking forward to getting that dehydrator this weekend and start trying it!  Copied and pasted all this info to Word so I have it handy.

Oh and Michelle, at this very minute I am mentally urging the snow your way.  Started this morning and now everything's covered in white.  : )

 LOL  I thought if you wanted it to go away you asked for more!  I have been praying for snow for so long now I am seriously thinking of taking a vacation to a dear friends in Michigan during the winter months!

Let mekow if there is anything you need when it comes to dehydrating, I have tons of recipes that covers everything from picking the products to setting it on the table.  :)

Brianschef Michelle 

Will do!!

Thought I'd follow up on my dehydrating!  Picked up "The Food Dehydrator by Mr. Coffee" on Easter and it's a pretty nice one.  Five big round stackable trays that are clear with a clear lid.  You can see what's going on in there!  My mom misplaced the instruction book tho, but it seems pretty easy to use.  It also looks like if I don't need all the trays, I could use 2 or 3 - the lid fits each tray.  So I finally bought stuff yesterday.  Last night started with onion and celery pieces.  Plugged in the machine at 9:30 pm and let it go all night.  Early this morning the pieces closest to the wall (set the dehydrator on the kitchen counter) were done.  Is that normal?  Stuff on the opposite side needed more time.

Those guys really shrunk up!  I cut fairly smaller pieces and when I took off the lid, they'd fall thru the holes.  I got 8 oz packets of mushrooms for .89 cents at Aldi, so next up... mushrooms.

 Yes it is!  lol  It is normal because the machine is sitting against the wall, the heat has no where to go and is heating the wall.  Not a big issue, I set my dehydrator on my glass top stove.  This tends to keep the heat more under the dryer and things dry more evenly for me.

You can twist the individual tray to get more even drying, and you should check on things about half way thru the drying process to make sure it is drying evenly.

Dont forget to write down(I keep a journal)the date, what you paid for the items, where you bought it, picked it, or gathered it, how you cut it, where you set the dryer, and how long it took to get the finished product.  This way you can do the same next year for the best price, allow for the time it took to get it all done, and track how much you use in a year or so.

Mine always falls thru the holes!  : )  I take a dispodable roasting pan and tip my trays into that to catch all the items, especially peas. 

MMMmmmm, mushrooms....

Brianschef Michelle