So I had this 10 lb. sack of potatoes from my last grocery order. Should I eat them or preserve them to add to my food storage. I guess you know you are one of those crazy preppers when the decision is to preserve for later use.
Peeled 10 lbs. of potatoes. Sliced them on my mandolin slicer. Blanched the slices for 3 minutes. Arranged the potatoes on my dehydrator trays, set the temperature for 135 degrees. Wound up with about a gallon of dried potato slices.
My favorite way to use these potatoes is for scalloped potatoes. Ahead of time I make up packets of sauce mix:
Basic Scalloped Potato Sauce Mix
1/3 C. + 2 Tbsp. powdered milk
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. dried onion
1/8 tsp. pepper
Each recipe goes into a small zip bag and lots of them are stored in a gallon freezer bag next to the bags of potato slices.
To make scalloped potatoes, dump 3 cups of dried potato slices into a crock pot. Add one packet of sauce mix, 3 cups hot water and 3 Tbsp. butter. Stir it a bit, set the crock pot on High and let it cook all afternoon, stirring once in a while to make sure all of the potato slices are covered with the sauce to rehydrate evenly. I might add a little bit more onion or some parsley flakes or maybe a little garlic or anything else that sounds good to me at the time.
About a half hour before serving I sometimes add a pint of my canned ham cubes or bacon bits. I've also tossed in a cup of shredded cheddar cheese and let it melt, stirring it in.
The original recipe called for baking the scalloped potato dish in the oven. I found that sometimes the potato slices wouldn't rehydrate fully. So after experimenting using the crock pot, I decided I like that method of cooking scalloped potatoes much better than the oven method. The potatoes are tender and you would never know that they were dehydrated and not fresh.
And now that I've made myself hungry writing this, I'm going to go get a batch of scalloped potatoes going for supper.
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I dehydrated a ton of potatoes last summer but did not blanch them. I just dumped them in water with citric acid. They stayed white. Sliced them really thin on my mandolin, too. Thanks for this recipe and the tip about the powdered mix.
ReplyDeleteTewshooz...You are welcome. I like the way the scalloped potatoes turn out using the mix. I tried dehydrating potato slices after just a soak in water with citric acid, but most of them turned black. That's why I blanch them. Don't know why your method works for you and not for me, but I guess we each do what works for us. :)
ReplyDeleteWe just added 25 cases of canned goods to our storage. I would love to get a dehydrator next year. I would do potatoes, onions, and etc.
ReplyDeleteRob...Wow! Good for you on the 25 cases of canned goods! I'll bet you are getting inventive finding places to store it all. :)
ReplyDeleteI really like my dehydrators. It was a good investment. Hope you all are staying warm.