Dehydration vs Canning - how far can ya go with Dehydration?

[upnylou]

someone mentioned that its far easier to dehydrate swiss chard than to can it. and that struck a chord with me as i've been a canning fool lately. i wont go into all the details about the work involved in canning .. as most of us already know. (not to mention the cost of purchasing all those canning jars and lids.)

are there many of us who are doing more dehydration than canning?

is there a 'Forum' specifically for dehydration, or is 'this it'?

about the only thing that doesnt lend itself to dehydration - that i can think of - is tomatoes.

lets hear about your successes .. and failures .. with dehydration. i've gotten hold of several designs for 'solar dehydrators' and just keep putting off building the things. maybe this will finally motivate me

 

[Brianschef]

I have been dehydrating foods of every kind for over 15 years, my mil has been dehydrating foods for over 35 years.

The only thing I have found I struggle with is radishes....if you ever come across a recipe where I can dry them please let me know! lol

 

[Michael in FtW]

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has an excellent section on preserving foods by dehydration. Under the section on the left of the page titled How Do I? - just click on Dry and it will take you to the food dehydration section. There is a lot of information here.

The sections "Fruits and Vegetables" (University of GA) and "Vegetables" (CO State U) are both worth reading.

 

[Gnomesmom]

Re: Sundried Tomatoes

I've had a food dehydrator for several years now and have had good success... Untill I tried to dry tomatoes... I had dried some cherry tomatoes and they were just delicious! Almost like candy!
However today, I went to rotate the trays on the Romas and garden tomatoes and was horrified to see (what looked like) a very thick skin of mold on top. Needless to say I was heartbroken, and had to throw out 2 1/2 trays....
I had washed and cored and salted them lightly... My only guess is that some of them were too big and I needed to slice the larger ones... Two of the other trays appear to be drying just fine...
If anyone has any suggestions... I'd be more than greatfull... It is very rare of me to make such a wasteful mistake so I'm really beating myself up over this one.
Thanks ahead of time for any assistance.