Hi Food Preserver,

Did you have the feeling something was missing when you opened up your dehydrator for the first time and unpacked it?

Mine came with a manual, and I read it cover to cover. I know all the safety precautions to keep my dehydrator working and in good order, but I felt like something was missing.

Where were the basic techniques on dehydrating fruit?

Do I blanch vegetables or can I dehydrate them raw?

And how do I know how much dehydrated food to put into my recipes that call for fresh ingredients?

My name is Jennifer Osuch. I’m the author of the Preparedness Planner Series and I’m also one of the lead teachers at Seed To Pantry School–where my husband and I teach preserving, cooking and gardening skills.

I’ve been dehydrating for over ten years, but I can still remember trying to use the food I dehydrated and not knowing how much of my dehydrated cabbage to put in my grandmother’s strudel recipe, or how much of my dehydrated garlic when into my mom’s recipe for spaghetti sauce. It was frustrating!

Then for many years I struggled to find a space to dry my dehydrator trays after washing them, until one day it dawned on me to just put them back into the dehydrator to dry. It seems like common sense now, but everything was new to me at the time and I was a little overwhelmed and excited to get going.

But really, why wasn’t this information in the manual? And that is the question I kept asking myself time and time again when I’d discover an easier way to do something.

So I decided to put all these tips and tricks into a book - you can think of it as the missing manual. I wrote Dehydrating: Charts and Basic Methods for moms who are busy and need a quick reference guide to dehydrating.