New (Used) Kitchen Toy: The Nesco American Harvest FD-27

I mentioned earlier that we'd bought a food dehydrator for around $20 from Craigslist--the goal being to insure a supply of lightweight, quickly-cooked foods (especially produce) for backpacking trips. Here's a before-and-after from its maiden voyage.

Above is a picture of the top rack before drying. On this rack were two stalks of celery and two large carrot sticks; on the rack below it, a potato and two sweet potatoes. In other words, a fairly bulky amount of produce.

After dehydrating all night while we slept, the machine yielded a quantity of vegetables that could easily fit in an average-sized coffee cup. Not bad for a night's work! We have yet to try them rehydrated, but I'm imagining it will be much like any other dry soup mix we've ever tried: not exactly the same as fresh, but palatable. And better than beef jerky, as far as we're concerned.

In other words, a success! If we can utilize the summer surplus of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of buying prepackaged dried foods for camping (plus the fact that we can now make our own raisins, and how many people can say that?), I think it will have been a sound investment as well.