Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts

by Mary T. Bell

Move beyond dried apricots and jerky into an amazing world of healthy and delicious dried foods!
 
This ultimate food drying resource has something for vegetarians, natural and raw food enthusiasts, hunters, fishermen, gourmet cooks, gardeners, and hikers. Children will love the yummy fruit roll-ups. Everyone will be thrilled at how easy it is to preserve fruits, vegetables, and herbs without chemicals or preservatives. Animal lovers will enjoy making treats for dogs, cats, and birds.
 
With more than thirty years of food drying experience, author Mary T. Bell offers straightforward and practical instructions for drying everything from apples to zucchini,
without ignoring traditional favorites such as jerky, mushrooms, and bananas. Readers will also find innovative and delicious recipes for cooking and baking with dried foods. Food Drying with an Attitude  gives readers the recipes, instructions, and inspiration they need to get the most out of their home food dehydrators.

Genres: Cooking, Cookbooks, Reference, Nonfiction, Health, Food, How To

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 8, 2008

Reviews

[Patricia]

I skimmed this for ideas, because after all, pretty much the drying world consists of the following recipe: slice, season, dry, store. There were some good ideas and I never would have thought of drying pickles, but you can bet your sweet bippy I will now, thanks to this book. One strength: there were a lot of recipes incorporating the dried food which comes in handy for anyone who ever wonders what the heck they are going to do with a bunch of dried zucchini.

[Maria Cloos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d love to give this book 5 stars because there are a lot of great ideas. Unfortunately, they’re not always written out in an intelligible manner. Her recipes are inconsistent, and guesswork is often required to figure out which foods in the ingredient list are supposed to be dried and which fresh. Even more confusingly, she doesn’t know how to word ingredients. For example, she’ll call for 1 tablespoon of carrots, shredded. Huh? I think she must mean 1 tablespoon of shredded carrots, only because we don’t measure carrots in tablespoons. Very strange. She’s also redundant in talking about the environment and eating locally. No one is reading this book who hasn’t already considered these factors. It would make sense to discuss it at the beginning of the book, but the constant nagging throughout the rest of it is tiresome, especially when she could have used page-space to better explain recipes and/or who/what she is talking about that she expects you to just know. I really wish she had thought to explain just how dry is dry enough for fruit. Timeframes for how long food is good for would be nice too. For example, dried tomatoes in oil, unless commercially canned, can eventually develop botulism. There’s not even a mention of this possibility! All of this could have been resolved with a decent food editor.

[Kandi A. Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never Knew This About Dehydrating

I have a dehydrator but it still sits in the box and never used. I think about it from time to time. I saw this book offered at Amazon and thought I would buy it. I absolutely never knew that so many different foods can be dehydrated. This book is loaded with information, ideas, and recipes. I'm not sure I am up for the jerky but I am up to fruit and this book gives lots of advice as to preparation and dehydrating time including how the product should look. Great book for all thing dehydrated and I do mean all things from flowers to home made dog treats!

[Linda Kaban · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been fascinated by food drying for years. Came THIS close to buying a dehydrator once. But I always back away when I think about the risks. If I was going to start dehydrating foods, I'd choose this book as my bible.

[Lady Anna VZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ideas for drying things that I would never have thought of drying. Good book for a beginner like me!!

[Annette McIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good how to book on how and why to dehydrate things and the a good selection of recipes for what to do with your produce.

[Molly Engle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has interesting options for drying foods. Can dry eggplant, even.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skimmed for ideas - hoping for fundamental staples but it seems more unique and creative.

May purchase print edition once I have more experience dehydrating the essentials.

[Marija · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! I've been drying food for about a year now, and this book opened up a whole new way of thinking about drying for me. She covers fruits, vegetables, and meat, and uses simple ingredients for preserving color. She's got interesting combinations to try (e.g. soak apple slices in cranberry juice before drying - simple, but I hadn't thought of anything like that before), with recipes for using your dried food. She even discusses making vegetable powders for added nutrition in soups, stews, and egg dishes. I bought the electronic version but I think I'll spring for a paper copy because it'll be easier to flip through recipes with paper.

[Ethicurean Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethicurean review of this title and several others on preserving: "I can, you can, we all can!: Essential books for preserving seasonal bounty"

[dan burgess · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely an ideas book. I found it short on specifics. For someone who's never dried anything before, you need a bit more hand-holding.
But the ideas are great! I'm going to try some of them.

[Lbmiller21 · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of fun stuff to try in this book.

[Shannon Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great recipes, food drying tips, and even crafty ideas.

[Cheryl Adkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

This book gives you a lot of ideas, tips, and recipes for dehydrating foods. I loved the little history lessons about dehydrating along the way as well.

[Kat]

Not a Bad How To Book BUT

Not a Bad How To Book BUT it Definitely needs a drying chart I got that in the instructions from my dehydration but not in this book. Definitely a minus for me.