Election Day Potluck - Central Coast Raw Food Meetup

21st August Raw Coasties Election Day Potluck rawked!!! Crackin' Macas, My personal favourite dishes were: Shirley's Sprouted Adzuki dip, Grant's dipping sauce, Raw pumpKING and kiwi fruit salad (am going to play more with raw pumpkin), Charles' Red Smoothie and thanks to Tatiana for that beautiful fruit, I only got a chance to have a bit of ...custard apple, it moved fast. Thanks Sandy for creating the space for the kids to play. I felt I could leave Rhiana to play safely and get a chance to chat. :) Thank you Sandy for opening your house.

I made Barbecue Chips, adapted from Abeba Wright, some raw, a little carrot, and vanilla blissies for kids (the big kids ate them.)

The "lowdown" on food dehydrators: for Australian buyers

A dehydrator is not a necessary piece of equipment in the raw food kitchen. However it will provide you with a lot of extra options in terms of meal preparation. It will also help you transition to the raw food lifestyle as you will be able to make a lot of food similar to cooked foods. Most raw food recipe books have recipes that require a dehydrator.

How does it work?

A dehydrator works by exposing food to low temperatures of heat for a long period of time in order to remove the moisture from the food. Without moisture, bacteria, molds and yeasts are unable to grow. Food dehydrating also slows down enzyme action, although it does not stop it entirely. This means that when water is added back to some foods after drying, they return to its original size and weight.

This method of food drying, which preserves the food so that it can be consumed later, has been around for centuries, laying foods on rocks, dried tree bark and wood.

Method of Removing Moisture

A dehydrator usually uses a temperature of 140 degrees F, because higher temperatures will cook the food rather than drying it. "Case hardening" is when the food is cooked on the outside, but still moist on the inside. This is caused by setting a dehydrator to a temperature higher than 140 degrees. Food like this will most certainly mould in a couple of days.

A food dehydrator also uses an air current to dry the food. As the food heats up slowly, moisture evaporates into the air. That humid air must be removed and replaced with dry air. Therefore, the faster the air current, the faster the food will be dehydrated. The best electric food dehydrators have adjustable air current speeds, along with strong fans and plenty of ventilation.

All food dehydrators feature racks that are stacked on top of each other, which space in between for the food to sit on the racks and for warm air to flow between the racks. Air that moves from the top to bottom of such dehydrators will mix the flavors of the foods on the racks. Some cooks do this on purpose. Other dehydrators have fans which make sure the air circulates from side to side, so as not to mix flavors.

Dehydration times for foods will vary depending on the level of moisture in the plant material. Some food can take days to prepare.

Reasons to dehydrate your food

• Economy - foods can be dried when they are in season and cheaper.
• Taste - home dried fruit leathers are delicious.
• Durability - foods last long periods without any special environment cost (e.g. freezing) & travel much better without spoiling & waste.
• Compactness - dried foods usually take up only a fraction of the volume of fresh produce.
• Lightness - dried foods are typically around 1/8 of the weight of the fresh original
• Convenience - carrying dried foods makes you less dependent on shops in remote areas
• Waste limitation - dried foods can be prepared easily from "lower" grades of fruit that might otherwise be wasted.
• Control - you know just what's in the food, important if you want to avoid additives
• Simple satisfaction - you have made it yourself
• Dry flowers for potpourri

I know of someone that dried their placenta to chew on during the first few weeks of breastfeeding.

Uses for a dehydrator in raw food recipes

Dehydrators represent the “oven” in raw food cooking. In raw food creation, we never heat food above 46°c (115°F). You may like to use a sugar thermometer to test the temperature in the dehydrator.

• cakes, quiches and tarts
• biscuits, crackers, chips and bread
• slow heating and melting, e.g. soups, caca
• fruit leathers (roll-ups), veggie leathers and drying foods for preservation, make your own dried herbs and veggies, nuts.
• falafels, loafs, burgers, lasagna and pizza !!
• roasts, stir-fries and appetizers
• pet food
• make your own cereal e.g. see recipe below

Types of dehydrators

There are many on the market. Listed below are the main brands that are available in Australia according to my current research.

Excalibur dehydrator

In the raw food movement, the Excalibur is the most popular. Excalibur dehydrators feature the Parallexx™ Drying System for even drying. Horizontal airflow provides even drying, eliminating tray re-stacking. Drying is fast and heat is not lost as the dehydrator doesn’t need to be taken apart to change the tray sequence. This temperature controlled, fan forced, horizontal drying system is mounted in the rear of the unit. Cool air is drawn in the back, heated and distributed evenly across each tray, pushing moisture out of the front of the machine.

Pictured right: Excalibur 3000 actually has a timer on it that can be programmed from 1 hour to 26 hours. The Excalibur Dehydrator is available in Black or White and in two sizes:

5 Tray (400w motor) - - 22cm H x 43.2cm W x 48.3cm D.

(found this for as low as $350 on E-Bay)
9 Tray (600w motor) - - 33cm H x 43.2cm W x 48.3cm D$450 to $500

Good4u dehydrator

We have a 9 tray dehydrator like this one pictured on the right. When my husband first bought I thought wow I am not going to use all that but honestly when I do dehydrate food I find get a little kitchen momentum happening and most or all those trays get filled. And they will fill up especially for dinner parties and special events. It is probably also better to produce in bulk for economical and environmental reasons. This cost us around $250 on E-bay in 2009.

Ezidry snackmaker

Ezidry snackmaker. I can’t comment on this as I haven’t used this one. What I have read is both positive and negative. Comments I read on a few forums was that you have to rotate the trays regularly. I personally would recommend purchasing one of the above two, you can remove trays without disturbing the other trays.

I have read some good reviews about the L’Equip dehydrator but it only seems to be available in the U.S. It comes as a 6 tray stainless steel unit with timer and temperature gauge.

Maintaining your dehydrator

Give it and the trays a good wipe with some warm water and soap, especially underneath.

Where can you purchase a dehydrator?

Aging hippies garages (just kidding)

Conscious Choice

Excalibur Australia

Ezidry Dehydrators

Fowlers Vacola

Garage sales

Raw Power

Raw Pleasure

Online auction sites: E-Bay, Craigslist, Gumtree

Sprout

Sunbeam

Central Coast: Central Coast LETS

Gosford Freecycle

Organic Plus – Erina

Make your own? If you Google “make your own dehydrator” or “solar dehydrator”.

Arlene’s Special Dehydrator tips

In summer, keep your dehydrator for overnight or while you are out. I have noticed that it does warm up our little kitchen and ours is a bit noisy.

Move trays around and switch the non-stick sheets or baking paper around. On my model the middle and at the back seem to be where food dries the quickest.

Probably not a good idea to dehydrate bananas while you are making a pizza, unless you are making a banana pizza ;).

Have a dehydrating day, make breads and crackers, get the family/housemates or friends to join and un-cook up a storm.

Further reading:

3 tips to enjoy your dehydrator

Excalibur temperature for dehydrating food
Mini Teach-In: Dehydrators by Karen Knowler

Chocolate Nut Milk recipe from FoodMatters

Oh gosh, oh yum:

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp_286463/Chocolate_Nut-Milk_Recipe_%28with_Maca%29

Why juicing is so important?

This is one of the most convincing videos I have seen on juicing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR4Nq8fMUoE&feature=player_embedded

Oh and this one too!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmxeLYTMmcQ&feature=related

Arl's "not plastic" Green Smoothie

Inspired by reading finally reading Victoria Boutenko's "Green for Life", I woke up and promptly made a green smoothie with Rhiana. We made one from the book, "Igor's Favourite" because we had all the ingredients. Rhiana had fun helping me, putting fruit in the blender and I let her use the tamper even though it didn't need it. I grabbed a plastic straw and had a sip, it didn't seem sweet enough or something, I think it may have been the apples we had, they weren't very sweet at all. So I took out the straw and added some juice from a small orange.

So Rhiana and I sat down at her table with green smoothies and as I drank mine I noticed all these fibres. At first I thought it was the white part of the spinach but then I realised it was plastic. Oh no! I blended in the straw. Did I forget to take it out or did Rhiana put it in while I turned my back. I don't know but we promptly got rid of that one.

Rhiana was crying for her green smoothie, yes crying, who says kids don't like greens. So I made a different one and came up with this really yummy combo.

Arl's (Straw-Free) Green Smoothie

1/2 bunch of spinach
1 large orange
1 banana
2 kiwi fruit
2 cups of water