When you dry food, you're saving everything: energy, nutrients, money, and, best of all, taste. This step-by-step guide to drying all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and nuts is also the most comprehensive reference available for methods of drying and home dehydrating equipment. The only book needed to master this age-old culinary tradition, How to Dry Foods includes: Step-by-step instructions on how to dry a wide variety of foods Updated information about equipment and drying techniques More than 100 delicious recipes, from main courses to desserts and more Helpful charts and tables for at-a-glance reference Food safety tips Clever crafts that are made from dried foods

This essential companion for putting your food dehydrator to work features instructions and techniques for drying all the most popular fruits and vegetables, along with meat and herbs. You’ll learn to dry fruits and vegetables at their peak, giving you an easy and economical way to stock your pantry with apple rings, mango slices, banana chips, dried soup beans, tomatoes, and much more for year-round enjoyment. In addition, drying guidelines for specialty items like meat jerky, fruit leather, dried herb and spice mixtures, backpacking meals, and even baby food round out this friendly handbook.

The dehydrator is an incredibly useful tool for long-term food storage and making the most of your garden harvest.

Enjoy that fresh harvest taste all year. Whether you’re using a dehydrator, oven, or the sun’s rays, you can easily dry your own vegetables, fruits, herbs, and meat. Teresa Marrone’s simple step-by-step instructions cover all the basics you need to know about drying, storing, and rehydrating your favorite foods. With over 140 dried-food recipes — ranging from veggie chips to casseroles and beef jerky to baby purées — you’ll be amazed at the variety of healthy and delicious options that dried foods offer.

Learn to preserve your food at home with this ultimate guidebook! The Home Preserving Bible thoroughly details every type of preserving-for both small and large batches-with clear, step-by-step instructions. An explanation of all the necessary equipment and safety precautions is covered as well. But this must have reference isn't for the novice only; it's filled with both traditional and the latest home food preservation methods. More than 350 delicious recipes are included-both timeless recipes people expect and difficult-to-find recipes.

Drying is an important unit operation used in the industry for processing and preservation of food products. Food industry always looks for cost effective and energy efficient drying techniques to commercially succeed in their ventures and to fulfill demand of high quality dried food products. Although a large volume of technical literature is available on drying of foods, it is still quite challenging for scientists and engineers to improve upon the existing drying systems and quality of the products. The book consists of 14 chapters detailing freeze drying, atmospheric freeze drying, swell drying, multi-flash drying, electro-hydrodynamic drying, pulse combustion drying, foam mat drying, ultrasound- assisted drying and fluidized bed drying. It also includes chapters which are commodity-specific such as mushroom drying, drying and roasting of cocoa and coffee beans. The degradation mechanism and kinetics of vitamin C degradation in fruits and vegetables, kinetics modeling of drying process for the recovery of bioactive compounds and energy calculation procedures for dryers is also covered which would be helpful to improve dryer operation and efficiency.

Far from being a fad, food dehydrating is one of the most ancient, effective, and nutritious ways of preserving food. Now, at last, there is a book that teaches absolutely everything there is to know about using an electric food dehydrator to dry foods at home -- and gives more than 100 foolproof recipes for scrumptious snacks and meals made from dried foods. With this extraordinary book, you can learn how to cross junk food and expensive store-bought snacks off your family's shopping list -- and add to your cupboard homemade, preservative-free fruit leathers, candied apricots, beef (and fish) jerkies, "sun" dried tomotoes, corn chips, banana chips, and so much more! Mary Bell gives specific techniques and instructions for preparing every kind of fruit (from apples to watermelon) and vegetable (from asparagus to zucchini). She also provides important shopping tips for buying an electric food dehydrator. The recipes for cooked meals (including mushroom soup, sloppy joes, pesto, and moist banana bread) will make this book a kitchen classic. And recipes for lightweight, filling trail snacks mean that the book will travel, too. Additional chapters explain to how make herb seasonings, granolas, celery powder, cosmetics, dried fruit sugars, potpourri -- and even pet treats! Food drying is an excellent way for gardeners to preserve their produce. It is a great way to make healthful snacks for the kids. It's perfect for the new wave of thrifty consumers who can't bear to spend dollars at health food stores for treats they cold make for pennies themselves. And food drying doesn't use chemicals or preservatives—so it's great for you and for the planet, too!