I love my dehydrator.....

I use it almost every week. It has become a very important tool in my kitchen. In my quest to have a more well-rounded food storage…more than just wheat and grains, beans, honey, oil and water, I began to think about the things I would really miss if I had to live on just the basics. Yes I would miss my veggies. Especially fresh veggies. I love fresh vegetables and they are good for you. I attempted storing canned vegetables, store bought and home canned but they can be expensive and take up a lot of room. I have experimented with drying a lot different vegetables but today I’m drying Peas. You either love them or you hate them. I admit I love peas but I HATE canned peas. I love frozen peas but in an emergency if there were no electricity, there would be no frozen peas. Next best thing – dehydrated peas. These can be added quickly to any soup, stew or casserole without a lot of dehydrating time. The best part about dehydrating peas is that you can dry FROZEN PEAS. No need to blanch them as they are already blanched. You don’t have to thaw them or pick and shell them. Just open the bag, spread them on the dehydrator, rotating the trays every 30 minutes or so, and 3-4 hours later you are done. (Note: Unless you have the mesh tray liners for your dehydrator, you'll need to line your trays with nylon netting - less than $1 a yard at fabric stores - to keep the tiny dried peas from falling through the trays.) The dried peas take up very little storage space. So easy and if you watch for the frozen vegetable sales they can be very inexpensive too. Try some and see how many uses you can find for them. Let me know what you think!