Dehydrating Potatoes

  I'm dehydrating potatoes this year.

I have a 4 tray Excalibur dehydrator.  I filled those trays up in no time, and will have more to dehydrate during the next few days.

I could not get any tips from anyone that had dehydrated grated potatoes, so I went to the Internet ( along with my dehydrator book ).

I boiled the potatoes with skins on, and tested them with a bamboo skewer.  I made sure I removed them as soon as they were cooked all the way through.

I put my potatoes in an ice bath to cool them faster, then transferred them into a glass bowl.  They went into my refrigerator over night.

Early the next morning, before sunrise, I peeled and grated some of the potatoes, and set my dehydrator between 120° and 125° (I read that anything warmer will cause the potatoes to harden on the outside, leaving the centers soft).

I was up before the sunrise, and took some new photos of the moon.  I'll be adding one to my Flickr page:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pioneerwomanatheart/ (be sure to check it later).  When I went out to milk the goats, I saw an opportunity to take photos.

The weather today is hot, hot, hot. Humid, humid, humid. No rain yet either, but hopefully soon.


I'm still looking for a good hot pepper jelly recipe.  The first jelly I made was an apricot-jalapeno (good, but not hot), then I made pepper jelly with green peppers and jalapeno - not hot enough.  I'm going to try adding some cayenne or other hot pepper.  I even left the seeds in the second jelly, and it still was not hot enough.  I guess I'll keep trying and hopefully be successful at it. 

We brought home a full bag of cauliflower and 5 more dozen ears of corn.  Guess you know what I'll be doing soon - freezing vegetables.  I hope to make a few pizza's with the cauliflower.

Now, I must go re-water the goats and chickens and see what needs to be done here at home.

I hope to retreat to bed early, but first watch a bit of Little House.