The Joys of Dehydrating at Home

Are you lucky enough to have a fruit and vegie garden at home that produces a surplus of goodies that you can't possibly get through?  Maybe you've found boxes of in-season fruit on a huge special at the markets.  Or what if you simply enjoy the delectable taste of dehydrated foods which, with the water content removed, offer a burst of flavour that keeps you coming back for more?

If you already know how to dehydrate food at home, then no doubt you have interesting packs of dried fruits, vegetables and perhaps even beef jerky.  But if you've never done it before, rest assured that it's incredibly easy, and once you start, you'll wonder what else you can do with your EziDri food dehydrator!

Save money with DIY dehydrated foods
Did you know that drying foods at home is cost-effective?  In fact, foods you dehydrate at home cost around one tenth the price of those you'd buy in stores!  For starters, you either grow the food yourself, someone gives you some of their excess or you buy it at heavily discounted prices at the height of the season.  For instance, strawberries, mangoes and peaches are part of summer's bounty that begin at premium prices and then come way down over the weeks until they're practically bargain basement.  Instead of $4.99 a punnet for strawberries, you can often find them at $2.50 a kilo.  Dehydrate strawberries at this time and enjoy them months later when they're as rare as hen's teeth in shops.

Spare the sugar and additives
Many commercially dehydrated foods contain added sugar plus preservatives and other additives.  By dehydrating food at home yourself, you know exactly what goes into it.  And frankly, there's no need to add sugar because the natural sugars in the foods become concentrated and therefore, highly flavoured.

Get creative
So many people think that dehydrating foods at home means dried apples and apricots.  There is SO much you can do!  You can make vegetable powders to enhance the flavours of stocks, salad dressings and bread doughs; you can turn cherries into delicious sultana alternatives; dry your own chillies; make homemade pot pourri; the list goes on and on.

It's not hard work
Frankly, the dehydrator does all the work!  All you have to do is spare an hour or so to prepare the food for dehydrating.  Pit your cherries, slice the apples, chop up the celery, easy peasy stuff.  Load up the trays and turn the dehydrator on for the required time.  When time is up, you'll have a gorgeous supply of treats for your store cupboard and the wonderful satisfaction of having done it yourself.

Be a MasterChef in your own kitchen
Top restaurant chefs use EziDri dehydrators to create wonderful delicacies to serve up to their valued patrons.  Even Adriano Zumbo - pastry chef extraordinaire whose Chocolate Mousse Cake featured on MasterChef Australia - uses the EziDri food dehydrator to create fruit powders for garnish.