Birthday Money...

One's never too old to receive a birthday check in the mail from one's parents, right?  Well, not only was I appreciative but I knew exactly what I wanted to spend that birthday money on... Yep, remember me mentioning my newfound interest after that one session at the Master Gardener's conference? 

Voila my 8-shelf Nesco dehydrator. It's a monster! I have already tried it out. See, I had some mini peppers whose shelf life was waning and I didn't want to freeze them. They were not going to become chicken garbage...

So I removed the stems, cleaned out their insides, slicing the yellow and orange mini peppers into somewhat similar sized slices. Then, after a short soak in lemon juice (to help maintain their vibrant color), they were placed on a couple of drying shelves. I followed the instructions to place a strainer in each tray and a leather (plate shaped plastic) on the bottom tier to catch any juices. The lid was placed on top, temperature set at 140 degrees and after a flip of the switch, I went to bed. 

In the morning when I awoke I couldn't wait to go check on the peppers. I turned off the dehydrator and took off the top. And this is what I saw. My first 'purposeful' dehydration of food.

As instructed, I separated the trays, letting them sit and cool a bit before checking their dryness. If any of the pieces seemed too pliable, they could just be left on the tray and the dehydrator flipped back on but that wasn't necessary.

So, I grabbed a small canning jar and placed them inside. Aren't they beautiful?

You can dry just about anything. I can't wait. If you have any tips for me, do send them my way. Stay tuned as I go through the learning curve and become adventuresome. Nothing will be safe from being dehydrated here in the End of the Rainbow Valley except for my dear goats that is...