Bargain E-Book: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dehydrating Foods by Jeanette Hurt

Save money and preserve your harvest with more than 80 delicious recipes!

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dehydrating Foods is a comprehensive introduction to the process of food dehydrating. Today, people are using home dehydrators for drying and preserving all types of foods, and at a fraction of the cost were they to buy commercially-dried foods. The authors take you through the dehydrating process, step by step, and show you how create a huge variety of dried foods, while maximizing your yield and savings.

Here's what you'll find inside:

80 simple and delicious recipes for fruits, vegetables, herbs and blends, meats and jerkies, dairy, crackers, grains and granola, fruit leathers, vegetable and fruit powders, dried soups and snacks, as well as desserts and healthier pet treats that your pet will absolutely love

Practical guidance on buying the right dehydrator, setting up your dehydrating kitchen, purchasing essential tools and supplies, food safety and storage, and how to troubleshoot common issues

Clear instructions for techniques to help make your dehydrated foods come out perfectly every time including slicing, peeling, prep work, pretreating, and rehydrating, plus tips for room drying and sun drying your foods

Fun ideas for making special gifts with your dehydrated foods, plus tips for making gifts with dried flowers, creating potpourri, and more

File Size: 2554 KB
Print Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Alpha (April 2, 2013)
Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00BR4SASM

Purchase from:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Ground Beef and Potatoes Skillet from NeighborFood

A few weeks ago, I made this delicious and easy meal with ground beef from my Butcherbox shipment. The recipe can be found on the NeighborFood blog.


1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 lb. ground beef
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 cups diced yukon gold diced potatoes
3 carrots, diced
3 ears corn, cut off the cob
1 cup beef broth
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

Truly, the most time consuming part of the recipe is chopping up the vegetables. After that, it comes together easily.

The ground beef from Butcherbox comes in a vacuum sealed packaging. The beef and steaks were our favorite parts of our first shipment. 

Reading the comments on the NeighborFood blog, it seemed some people had challenges getting the vegetables to soften in the allotted time. I cut my potatoes fairly thin, but I also decided to cover the meal for 5 minutes to help soften the potatoes and carrots. This was the only alteration to the recipe. 

This came together so easily and my family loved it. I'll definitely be making it again. 

Recipes for Busy Moms

I don't know about you, but there are days I am simply tired of hearing, "I don't know" when I ask my family what they want for supper. I have popular food items --pasta, chicken and rice, hot dogs and beans--on hand at all times, but I like to try out new recipes that work for my busy schedule. Here are links to lists of bunches of recipes for busy moms:

MyRecipes.com offers more than 50 chicken dinners, kid-approved breakfast recipes, Mexican casseroles, slow cooker recipes and more. Click here.

Food.com has 50 All-Time Favorite Dinners, 10 On-the-Go Breakfasts, and 50 Best Soup Recipes. Click here.

The Busy Mom's Recipe Box is a site run by two busy moms blogging about food. The great thing is they offer an index of their recipes per category so you can browse for things that catch your eye. The Hawaiian Grilled Chicken sounds good to me. Click here.

Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms offers readers recipes, reviews and giveaways. They participate in a weekly blog hop called "Melt In Your Mouth Monday Recipe Blog Hop." Sounds yummy to me. Click here.

Do you have any favorite sites you like to visit for quick and easy recipes? Please share links in the comments so I can check them out.