So I had a fun adventure in dehydrating a couple weeks ago I wanted to share with you. While Jodi has dehydrated before and I’ve seen/helped my mom dehydrate before I had never taken on a dehydrating project of my own. And while this wasn’t 100% on my own because I went to my friends house to use her dehydrator… it was my plan and I’m pretty proud of it.

TIP: A great way to try new things is to get together with friends who have the appliances and know how. You learn things, you find out if it’s something you’d like to invest more time and resources in, and it’s fun.

So I had a bunch of peaches I needed to use from a bushel I had bought. I also had a whole #10 can of misc freeze-dried fruits. I had collected all the powders from my freeze-dried fruits over the past 6 months or so. The can also contained broken pieces of fruits that appeared after my kids had fun shaking the cans a few times. My friend had told me how she had been making fruit leather in her dehydrator so I asked if I could come try an experiment at her house.

So I combined peaches with freeze-dried fruits and water and blended it up to a tomato sauce like texture. We poured the mixture on the dehydrator sheets and it magically turned in to AWESOME fruit leather. We added bananas to some batches but not to all. It was SO impressed with how it turned out. It was a great way to use the fruit and my kids ate the fruit leather right up. Seriously – fruit roll ups with no refined sugars, additives, preservatives? YES PLEASE!

After experiencing this great success with dehydrating, I’m curious to learn more. This couldn’t come at a better time because recently the writers of the Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook contacted us about giving away a copy of their book to one of our readers as a giveaway. Here’s a little more about their book. I’ve seen it… and I’m excited about it.

The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook

The Gangloffs are the founders of Dehydrate2Store.com, the leading online resource in food dehydration education and Tammy’s instructional YouTube videos on dehydration have had over a million views. In The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook, they tell you everything you need to know to get the greatest value from a home dehydrator. It features:

• Tips on selecting a dehydrator, proper sanitation, strategies for long-term storage, and rehydration techniques
• Individual entries on how to dehydrate all types of berries, fruits, vegetables, greens, and herbs, including their proper preparation and dehydration temperatures and times
• Recipes for making teas, herb blends and rubs, flavored oils, baby food, jerky and fruit leather, as well as nearly 400 recipes for creating nutritious meals from your dehydrator pantry

Personally I love seeing a table of contents when I see a book. To me that gives you so much information. Here is what is contained in the book:

1. How Dehydration Works
2. Your Dehydrator Toolbox
3. Dehydration 101
4. Dehydrating Fruits & Nuts, A-Z
5. Dehydrating Vegetables, Greens, & Mushrooms, A-Z
6. Powders & Leathers
7. Dehydrating Herbs & Flowers & Making Tea Blends
8. Making Jerky and Dehydrating Tofu, Eggs & Dairy
9. Backpacking and Camper Food
10. Breads & Crackers
11. Flavor Boosters, Snacks, & Instant Soup Mixes
12. Gifts from the Dehydrator
13. Breakfast & Brunch
14. Soups, Stews & Chili
15. Main Courses
16. Slow Cooker Recipes
17. Sides, Stuffings, Pickles & Salsas
18. Desserts
Terms & Techniques to Know
Metric Equivalents
Index

In the sections where they instruct you on how to dehydrate items they have dehydrating temperature, preparation, dryness test, and storage info. It’s very thorough. It’s like an encyclopedia of everything you could ever want to know. A great resource. It’s also available on Kindle if you are interested.

ENTER TO WIN A FREE COPY

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER DEB LOVELACE.

Enter to win your own copy of The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook by following us on Facebook and on Pinterest. Once you do, leave a comment on this post saying so and you’re entered!

Winner will be announced Friday November 7th and contacted via the email left on the post comment.

-Jodi Weiss Schroeder
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net