Oooh, I'm so excited! My Excalibur D arrived today! What should I make for my initial run? Onion bread? Granola bars? Fruit leather? Cookies? Sweets? .......such important decisions......
Yay! I remember how excited I was when I received mine!
How many trays does your D have?
I'm partial to onion bread myself, but whatever you do, DON'T dehydrate it along with sweet treats as you'll have an unpleasant surprise! As a general rule, I try to dehydrate savory and sweet stuff separately, just to be safe.
Thank for the words of wisdom, Carmella. I'd love to try the onion bread. Perhaps some pizza crusts, too. Hmmmm....what else? I'd like to make some veggie chips, but my food processor slicing disc makes 4mm slices. Too thick, I think.
I went all out, figuring that I may never purchase another or have an opportunity to "upgrade", so I bought a 9-tray with the temperature control and timer. A huge improvement over my 10ish-year old round one purchased after watching middle-of-the-night info-mercials night after night while nursing babes.
I'm so excited to get started. I hope this helps me stay raw and helps my family eat more raw. (I guess we are considered "high raw.")
Oh you're gonna love your 9 tray Excalibur! This should definitely help including more raw in your diet; it certainly was for us.
Some savory staples I make all the time: onion bread, veggie herb pizza crusts, raw cheeze itz, just like ritz crackers, soft veggie wraps, rawvolution's burgers, jalapeno burgers, crab cakes, kale chips (no need for slicer! ) ... Sorry, I didn't have the time/energy to link them but all the recipes can be found on this site.
And for more ideas, have a peak at this thread: What's In The D?
I dehydrate some of my pulps too - like parsley and celery from juice - to use for spices - herbs. So got my hubby off the commercial celery salt. Also I turn the almond mylk pulp to flour. Right now I am just saving bags of them in the freezer for a D-day when the triple digit heat has gone. So lots of times I just have a couple of trays of stuff to dehydrate and I can fill up the other ones with these pulps.
Gittel! The funniest thing is that my favorite use for the D is... dehydrating nuts!!
I like to soak my nuts for 8-24 hours, then dehydrate them until they're nice and crisp. THEN I store them to use in recipes. They become soooooo much sweeter and easier to digest for me. HUGE difference. I taught a class yesterday, and the women there did a taste testing comparing the exact same nuts before and after dehydrating... one of the women thought it was nice. Another one... I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. She REALLY liked the dehydrated ones.
Especially pecans and walnuts, whoo whee! What a difference!
With your 9-tray, it'll be easy to do a whole batch of your nuts and seeds in just one day.
Also -- Ani Phyo's Black Sesame Sunflower Seed Bread.... it's great. Do you have her book? I love to have that with Alissa Cohen's carrot pecan burgers, curry sauce, avocado, tomato, and romaine lettuce. It's really divine. Even my husband flips over it. Says it's better than those McChickens I know he "sneaks" sometimes!
__________________ My main website with LOTS of recipes, tips and raw info: UNcooking101.com
Several FREE raw e-books AND weekly recipes! They're all here!.
Hi, Eva! Thanks for the suggestions. I have pecans and almonds soaking right now, per your suggestion. No, I do not yet have Ani's book. One day.......
Oh, and I also have buckwheat sprouting, waiting for the D. Not sure yet what I'll do with it. I guess I just like the idea of dehydrating stuff!
Luckitri, do you dehydrate the parsley and celery separately by removing the pulp of each vegetable after juicing it? That's the only thing I can think of, short of picking it out of the combined pulp of all juiced veggies. Is it a lot of work?
D Question--How do you dehydrate fruit? I have sliced strawberries in the D right now. (So much fun to prepare! And the house smells luscious!!) I'm so glad that I just checked on them. I had originally placed them on the mesh screens. After about 4 hours, they were starting to stick, so I transferred them to the teflex sheets. Should I start with the teflex sheets and then transfer the fruit to the mesh screens at some point? If so, at what point? If so, is this true of all fruit?
I've been staying away from dehydrating nuts as I was afraid it would take too long in the D. (I've seen recipes calling for up to 3 days of dehydration! ) Do you ever season them? If so, what are your fave blends?
Gittel,
I have never tried dehydrating fruit, But I have done tomatoes before and had a similar issue. As you pointed out, placing the fruit (or whatever wet produce you're dehydrating) on the teflex sheet first I think is the key. I flipped mine over and onto the mesh when the top was dry to the touch.
As a general rule, anything that is 'dry' enough not to stick, I put directly on the mesh (which, come to think of it, isn't much except for granola bars. lol) The rest I start off on the teflex sheets. I stopped paying too close attention to the specified dehydrated times in recipes as I find that this can vary so much depending on factors like the outside temperature and humidity level. I usually start my goodies at a higher temp (about 115-120), then check on them after a couple of hours. If they're dry to the touch and peel off without breaking, I flip them onto the mesh and turn the temp down to 110.
Hi, Eva! Thanks for the suggestions. I have pecans and almonds soaking right now, per your suggestion. No, I do not yet have Ani's book. One day.......
Oh, and I also have buckwheat sprouting, waiting for the D. Not sure yet what I'll do with it. I guess I just like the idea of dehydrating stuff!
Thanks!
Gittel
Hey Gittel -- Do you have Alissa Cohen's book? If you want to email me directly, I can send over the recipes... I just don't know if it's OK to post someone else's recipe on a public board without permission.
You could make calzones with the buckwheat!! That is SO not a first-time thing for the D, though. It's a little tricky! I like to use buckwheat mixed with flax to make bread crackers. YUM!
__________________ My main website with LOTS of recipes, tips and raw info: UNcooking101.com
Several FREE raw e-books AND weekly recipes! They're all here!.
I've been staying away from dehydrating nuts as I was afraid it would take too long in the D. (I've seen recipes calling for up to 3 days of dehydration! ) Do you ever season them? If so, what are your fave blends?
Hogwash! Those must be the 105 degrees at all times people. I crank it up to 135 for the first hour, then drop it to 115 after that. It never takes longer than 24 hours.
I love playing with the spices, but I've never taken the time to write down my combos. I'm trying to do that more so I can share my recipes with others... Since you're on my mailing list, you'll see some as soon as I've got one pinned down!
__________________ My main website with LOTS of recipes, tips and raw info: UNcooking101.com
Several FREE raw e-books AND weekly recipes! They're all here!.
Yes, Eva, I have Alissa's book. I've read great reviews of the calzones. Do you recall--does the buckwheat need to be dehydrated first? I soaked and sprouted buckwheat and now have it in the D. But it smells sour to me. Did I do something wrong? I also have soaked pecans and almonds in the D at the same time. Will they also smell/taste sour?
Gittel
P.S. Thank you for your kind offer to e-mail recipes to me, Eva. Hugs.
Gittel, yes I juice those items first (parsley or celery) and take that pulp aside for dehydrating.
Re: posting Alissa Cohens' recipes on-line - I wouldn't do it - not even on a blog. She is very strict about that, even on her forum everybody is trained to say "Buy the book!"
Hi Carmella
I am new to raw and this site but have been browsing around and I can see it has a wealth of info. Since you have written about the Excalibur dehydrator, I thought that I would ask you. I am the happy new owner of a 9 tray dehydrator and I'm not sure if I have the door on right. There doesn't seem to be a different way to do it, but there is a gap on the sides and it doesn't seem to sit exactly tight and flush. Is it supposed to be this way? I can feel the air coming off the side.
Thanks, Rita
Ps It is on it's maiden voyage of Kale chips as I write.
As an aside I see that you are in beautiful BC. I have traveled around there and it is indeed paradise.
As a general rule, I try to dehydrate savory and sweet stuff separately, just to be safe.
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