If I were given the task of finding the very worst place at our house to place our dehydrator, it would be our back patio in winter. First, even California winters get on the chilly side. Second, in Sacramento we get a very wet foggy drippy winter, even when it's not raining. Third, there is some strange force working on the overhang of our patio that causes that cold wet weather to drop gigantic plops of water in a regular pattern onto the patio. Imagine fog meeting polka dots meeting El Nino, and you've got the picture.
But on this drippy cold wet patio is where our food dehydrator has ended up, for now. Yes, the appliance that is supposed to turn wet food into dehydrated food by applying heat and dry air is fighting the good fight out there in Droplet Land, probably using gobs of electricity in the process of trying to save a few bucks.
Although I've had the dehydrator in our kitchen, the drawbacks are that it takes up a fair amount of counter space. I need all the counter space I can get, because chopping vegetables is my middle name. The other factor of having it in the house is the noise. It's not really that loud, and it's not even an annoying noise, it's just that drying food takes a long time, hours and hours for certain items, and the constant drone of a dehydrator starts to wear on my nerves. I've tried keeping it on top of our clothes dryer in the garage, which really is the perfect place for it, but it gets a bit linty, and right now our clothes dryer is sort of a way station for things looking for a better home. Maybe one day I'll find that perfect home for this appliance, but for now the wonders of a dehydrator must do battle with the drippy wet forces of a California winter. May the heat win!
Whether you are looking for a small unit or something really large scale, all the people who know about dehydrators will tell you the best one on the market is the
Excalibur. Fortunately for us, they are made here in Sacramento, and the factory showroom has all the models displayed. Even more impressive for us drippy, wet and cold valley dwellers, the Excalibur headquarters sells factory seconds. I got ours with a dent in it that I can hardly see, for quite the discount. Three cheers for dents! Really, who could even notice a dent through all that drippy fog?
In the past when we were the recipients, in a very round about way, of the last castoffs of Trader Joe's food donations, I would get bins of very ripe bananas. Very. Ripe. Bananas. The super icky ones would go straight into the compost bin, and super ripe ones would go into the freezer for smoothies. But the just perfectly ripe ones would get sliced up and dehydrated. They were so yummy, like candy. It's been a while since the donations ended, and now I have to buy bananas like ordinary people, so I haven't made them lately. But if ever I have a pile of bananas nearing the end of their days, and the freezer is already packed with smoothie ingredients, I'll get some bananas prepped and dried.
Right now it's all about oranges and crackers. The oranges from our tree taste amazing dried, and I'm going to have to use the candy analogy again, because it fits. These are the Jolly Ranchers of my dehydrator products, pure sunshine. Our dog loves them, rind and all. We stand together in the kitchen as I say "just one more" over and over again, eating dried orange slices together. As for the crackers, I'm still experimenting. We think they're terrific, but our tastebuds are probably warped from not eating potato chips in a long time. I've made flax and carrot wraps, chia and veggie chips, kale, tomato and flax crackers and right now I have a simple flax and poppy seed concoction dehydrating out on the wet drippy patio. Given enough time, the dry will show the wet who's the boss, and we can enjoy the crunch of homemade crackers as we open up our electricity bill.
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| Sliced up and ready to be transformed... |
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...into dog treats!
Our pup lost a fight with a pit bull, and I'm a sucker for that pitiful stare. |
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| Carrots and flax meal finding a new purpose in life. |
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| Crackers! I made crackers! |
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Kale and carrots and flax, with tomatoes.
Nothing cuter than a dehydrated cherry tomato. |
