Monday, May 18, 2009

Dehydrating Potatoes

With all the events going on lately, I have heard that each family should try to stockpile several weeks or months worth of food. Several times our electric has went out and I was glad we had some things made up.

There are also busy days, when I so wish that I could just fix a box of Hamburger Helper or something quick, but when living with food allergies, this just isn't possible.

Although, I do can lots of garden produce each year, I am going to try my new pressure canner on some yummy, healthy soup recipes. I have been searching online and other resources to find ways of storing up healthy, from scratch mixes, too.

One thing that our family eats alot of is potatoes. As of yesterday, our local Aldi carries a 10 lb. bag of potatoes for $2.49. Now, I know we should eat organic, but at this point, we are doing ok with these.

It's easy to dehydrate potatoes. First, peel them, wash them and cut into slices like you would for making fried potatoes. Next blanch them in boiling water for 8 minutes. Pour off the water and run ice cold water on them and let them sit in this for 15 minutes. Put slices on a clean dishtowel to dry. I then put mine on cookie racks or screen. Put in turned down on low oven or other heat source. *I read somewhere where they used solar heat to do this. Mine dried out in just under 3 hours.

Here are further instructions and some mixes using dehydrated potatoes that are comparable to those Betty Crocker potatoes in the box.


I have personally dehydrated the potato slices. Currently I am trying to make dehydrated mashed potato flakes using the same method, but crumbling the potatoes and drying on a screen.

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