I’ve written about drying pumpkin here and here.
Initially, I chopped it in the Thermomix and dried the chopped pieces in the Excalibur dehydrator :
That worked OK, except that I had to keep turning the pile to ensure even drying.
I thought I’d try something easier. I chopped the pumpkin into chunks, sliced them with a mandolin slicer on the finest setting, and spread the slices on the drying tray :
They took a lot less time to dry. Result….crispy pumpkin chips :
If I want these in granular form (for my bread baking), they’ll be easy to chop in the Thermomix. Otherwise they’ll go into soups and casseroles as is.
Foodnstuff 
March 7, 2015 at 6:07 am |
Excellent idea Bev! I will be doing this with some of my pumpkins when they finish ripening 🙂
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March 7, 2015 at 5:50 pm |
I’ve never thought of drying pumpkin. Makes sense though. However given I have only one pumpkin growing this year I think it will be eaten fresh.
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March 8, 2015 at 12:43 pm |
Even if you don’t have a huge yield of any one thing, drying is useful to take advantage of any food that becomes really cheap in the shops.
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March 9, 2015 at 10:25 pm |
Lovely work. Have you done a post on your Excalibur before? If so, please direct me to it. I have recollections of you doing one, but not sure on specifics. Do you feel it was still a good investment? Any problems with it?
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March 10, 2015 at 10:32 am |
Hi Chris,
The first post on the Excalibur is here:
https://foodnstuff.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/new-food-dehydrator/
If you type excalibur into the search box and hit enter, you”l find all the other posts in which I’ve mentioned it.
I think it was a really good investment….I got the 5-tray one, but I see they’ve now got a 3-tray version which is cheaper again. I not only use it for drying food, but I use it to prove my bread and make yoghurt. I don’t use it for drying herbs as the leaves tend to blow around as they dry and get lighter (bunches would be OK though). I also haven’t done fruit leather as I haven’t bought the special trays required, although it would be possible to rig up something that would do it.
It uses very little electricity, the fan runs all the time, but the thermostat turns the heating on and off and even that doesn’t use much, depending on the temperature you’ve set. Having solar panels means they virtually run it for most of the day.
It’s not small (42 x 47 x 20 cm high) so needs a bit of bench space but could easily go in a back room or something, even in a garage. The fan isn’t exactly noisy but it’s not quiet either. I’ve had visitors come in and say, “what’s that noise”, but after a while it just becomes part of the background. You don’t have to raise your voice over it.
I notice from the date on that post that I’ve now had it for 4 years, with no problems. There’s nothing much that can go wrong.
(Just thinking about the 3-tray version, I doubt whether I could fit my bread tin in it….it wouldn’t be high enough…something to think about if you’re going to use it for keeping things at a constant temperature, like yoghurt).
Anyway, I’d recommend it.
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March 14, 2015 at 2:17 pm |
Thanks for that feeback. Especially the specific details. I wouldn’t want to be making leathers but potentially drying herbs at some point. Glad you still get much use out of your Excalibre. 🙂
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