Dehydrating Veggies & Growing in Containers

Here's my 2nd squash dehydration experiment. As you can see, my dehydrator is not huge. This is a Nesco American Harvest dehydrator, which comes with four trays. You can buy more trays and the directions say that it will handle 12 trays at a time, but so far I've made do with the original four.

I was able to fit one 8-ball and one crookneck squash on this tray. I brushed them with coconut oil, and lightly seasoned them with a parsley, salt and garlic powder mix. It will take about 10 hours to dry these.

I have a big garden area out back, but I hadn't finished planting my veggies when I broke my ankle a few months ago. I really didn't feel like mucking about in the dirt with my compression boot, so I decided to plant a couple of stragglers in two half-barrels I have right outside the kitchen door. The one on the left is an Armenian cucumber, the one on the right is a yellow crookneck squash. So far they're doing just fine in their limited growing areas.

Squash Chips

Squash production in my garden is in full swing. In the past week I've been fixing stir-fried squash. Raw squash "spaghetti". Squash fixed pizza-style with marinara, cheese and pepperoni (or "squizza".) Julienned in spring rolls. I do love squash, but I've been struggling to keep up with the supply.

Seemed like the perfect time to try making squash "chips". This morning I filled four dehydrator trays with 1/4" slices of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash. I decided not to use any seasonings at all this first time; I wanted to see what just squash would taste like.

10 hours later, I wound up with the jar you see me holding. (Minus a few that I taste tested.)

Not bad! I should have left the larger slices in for another hour to make them crunchy; some of them are decidedly chewy. They should be great with dip; hummus, perhaps.

Next time I'm going to season them and maybe try one tray with a bit of coconut oil to see what happens.