Once you have a collection of dehydrated or freeze-dried foods. How do you use them? You do not have to dehydrate the food yourself to use dehydrated foods. The focus of this article is to provide you with a variety of recipes that use dehydrated foods you probably already have in your stores (from wherever you get your already prepared dehydrated foods). I once thought that you used dehydrated foods to create soups, stews, and chilis. Then I discovered you could make bread mixes followed quickly by the idea you can make more than biscuit mix and soups!
You can have dehydrated foods that were dehydrated in their raw state or dehydrated foods from food that was pre-cooked. When the recipe calls for pre-cooked, dehydrated food (like pasta), I have identified it as such. Some of the raw dehydrated food will need to be "rehydrated" prior to cooking (rather than rehydrated while cooking, like in a soup). Those foods are identified as well.
The following are recipes from a variety of cookbooks using (as opposed to making) dehydrated and/or freeze-dried foods. I like to call them "just add water" recipes. In order to comply with copyright, I will present only 1 recipe per individual cookbook.
For every 2 biscuits wanted, combine 1/2 cup mix with 2-3 tbs water. Drop by spoonful on lined or greased baking sheet. Bake at 400F for 10-12 minutes (375F for toaster ovens).
This biscuit recipe can be in any recipe that calls for biscuit mix (like dumplings).
Breakfast
From The New Food Dehydrator Cookbook: 187 Healthy Recipes for Dehydrating Foods and Cooking With Dehydrated Foods by Kristen Barton (you will need to look in used book stores for this one since it's out of print).
Country Hash Brown Scrambled Eggs, serves 3, p. 164
In a container, pour enough boiling water to cover potatoes. Cover and soak for about 15 minutes.
Add 4 tbs reconstituted butter to skillet on medium heat.
Drain the potatoes and add to the skillet. Cook until well browned on one side. Add more reconstituted butter then flip and cook other side until browned. Transfer to a plate, set aside. Wipe out skillet.
Add powdered sour cream to bowl, add water slowly, stir until sour cream has desired consistency, set aside.
In a bowl, combine powdered eggs, bacon bits, and onion powder with 1 1/2 cups of water. Stir until the eggs become fully re-hydrated.
Melt the remaining butter in the skillet, cook the eggs in hot butter until done.
Stir in the potatoes and remove skillet from heat.
Top with sour cream and season to taste with salt and pepper
Crust: Mix together everything except oil. Drizzle oil into crust mix. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Fork or press into greased9x9 pan. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until light brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
Filling: Mix sausage, onions, peppers, and hot water together, let sit 15 minutes. Combine egg, cheese, milk, parsley, basil, garlic, and remaining water in a separate bowl. Combine all ingredients and pour into cooled crust and cook at 325F for 40 minutes or until set.
In a saucepan with 1 cup boiling water add bacon, corn, bell peppers, onion, and thyme. Cover and let sit for about an hour (until corn is almost tender).
In a medium pot, bring 2 1/4 cups of water to a boil. Add corn mixture and any unabsorbed liquid. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, let cook another 15 minutes. Stir in potato flakes, dry milk, cornmeal, broth powder, sugar, celery salt, and black pepper. Simmer another 2-3 minutes until mixture thickens. If too thick, add more water until you reach your desired consistency.
Combine everything except mushroom gravy packet in a bowl, add boiling water to cover all ingredients. Cover and let rehydrate for 15 minutes.
In a large skillet prepare gravy according to packet directions. Add rehydrated ingredients, reduce heat to medium-low, heat until gravy begins to bubble and all ingredients are entirely rehydrated and heated through.
In a prepared 8-inch baking dish, combine filling ingredients. Cover and bake at 375F for 20 minutes (or until fruit starts to soften and juice bubbles).
Meanwhile, prepare topping: In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, milk, yogurt, and butter. Then add flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Use a fork and stir until just moistened.
Uncover baking dish, pour topping batter over fruit, spreading gently to cover evenly. Sprinkle with additional sugar. Bake uncovered for another 30 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the topping comes out clean. Let stand for at least 5 minutes before serving.
Cobblers are best served within 2 hours of baking.
These books came from my bookshelf at home. There are plenty more resources available to help you create recipes using your dehydrated and freeze-dried stores. A lot of the "how to dehydrate" books include recipes that use both fresh and dehydrated foods. There are some "how to dehydrate" books that have recipes that you 'cook' in the dehydrator (perhaps that will be another article? Let me know in the comments if that is of interest to you.)
Remember, the best time to begin using your stores is before SHTF, when you have the opportunity to reconfigure your stores based on your experiences in creating meals you will actually want to eat. An added benefit is that using your stored food helps you to rotate your stock.
You can replace fresh foods in your recipes with dehydrated foods. If you don't have corn, simply replace fresh or canned corn with dehydrated corn. No asparagus? Replace with dehydrated asparagus. Ran out of onions? Replace fresh onions with dehydrated onions. The exchange rate is
1 cup fresh food = 1/4 to 1/3 cup dehydrated food = 1 tbs powdered food
Before using dehydrated food in place of fresh food, you will want to rehydrate it. To rehydrate, cover food with boiling water, put a lid on it, and let it sit for at least 15 minutes OR cover food with room temperature water cover, and place it in the fridge overnight.
If you decide to try any of these recipes (or your from your own resources), please consider posting pictures in the ANP Diner(and the recipe if it's your own or where the recipe is from if you got it from somewhere else).
ANP Fundraiser:
Dangerous, Derogatory, Harmful, Unreliable!
Those are some of the exact words used by Googles censors, aka 'Orwelliancontent police,' in describing many of our controversial stories.Stories later proven to be truthful and light years ahead of the mainstream media. But because we reported those 'inconvenient truths' they're trying to bankrupt ANP.
