Dehydrating frozen vegetables you buy at the store.
Get it now while it is still fairly cheap and AVAILABLE.
Buy a bunch of bags, toss ’em in the freezer as you work through them, get you a dehydrator if you don’t already have one, and go at it.
It’s amazing how much they shrink down and that saves a ton of space in the long run. Since frozen vegetables in the bags are already cut up and already blanched, all you have to do is spread ’em out on the trays, turn the thing on and walk away.
I like to run mine all night when The Wifely Unit is gone taking care of her Dad.
When they are done, pour them into canning jars and vacuum seal them.
Good to go for a LONG time.
Here’s a quick video.
Dehydrate cabbage ,good in soup and beans. Onions dry good also.
Good stuff
How do you determine they are done? I live in a fairly high humidity area, and running for 24h is sometimes not enough. Even though they feel and sound bone dry, I occasionally get some gook growing in the jars and vacuum bags I set aside.
That’s a tough question to answer.
If you have an electric vacuum pump you can attach to a jar then put them under a vacuum for an hour or two and that will “Boil” any remaining moisture out.
Couldn’t Steve run his dehydrator for say, 36 hours instead of 24? Wouldn’t that accomplish the same, or make the veges hard rock, carboniferous?
if there is high humidity where he is at, the minute he turns off the dehydrator the stuff is going to start sucking moisture out of the air.
I avoid doing it in the summer when humidity is high. Winter is so dry around here we sit below 10% most days.
I live in S. MO. High humidity is normal around here. I vacuum seal the product in jars, or vacuum bags. Sometimes I just store it in zippy bags. Everything gets a desiccant pack added to it. A 1 or 2 gram packet. That seems to work well for me. Haven’t lost anything since I started doing that.
Up in WI that extra step wasn’t needed. But down here? Yeesh!
I just did 4# of frozen hash browns and a pound of frozen mixed veggies earlier in the week. Right now I have 11 trays of assorted surplus canned goods dehydrating. My Senior apartment is very small and storage sucks. Canned 19 pints of pork loin on Thursday because my freezer is so small.
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. Humidity is a bear here during the summer. 87 degrees, 91% at the moment, so dehydrators are winter use only.
I had switched over to freeze drying, but it is so darned slow with my homebrew rig — about 48 hours per pound, and I can’t get more than a couple batches in the freezer at a time. But maybe I could freeze dry the more or less dehydrated stuff. Hmmm. Have to try that out and see how the stuff tastes.
Guess I should have thought about a desiccant pack. Though that would mean I’d have to remember not to eat the blasted thing.
Would a desiccant packet thrown in help as well?
I’m sure it would.
How are the frozen vegetables stored after dehydration?
Must they be stored in freezer or refrigerator?