Dehydrating Carrots

I love carrots!  And they are a great food to dehydrate for storage. They re-hydrate nicely too. Not to mention that I can store several pounds of them in a single quart jar.  So here ya go... This is how I dry mine.

Peel your carrots. (don't forget to put the peels in your compost pile)
Cut up the carrots in even pieces.  I cut mine into round circles. You want to cut them all approximately the same size so they will dry evenly.
Blanche your carrots for  3-5 minutes and rinse in cold water to stop the "cooking". 
Place your carrots on your dehydrator trays in single layers. It's ok if they touch each other but you want to make sure they are not laying on top of each other.
Set your thermostat at 125- 130 degrees and dry for 10-12 hours, or until they are hard and have no moisture in them. 
Store them in and air tight jar.  I like to vacuum seal my jars for longer shelf life.
To rehydrate, pour enough hot water to cover the carrots well and let them set until they are back to "normal".  This usually takes about 20-30 minutes (sometimes a bit longer)


When you are dehydrating most vegetables you can follow these same directions.  Some of the blanching times will vary though.  That is why it is good to have a decent book on dehydrating.  Most dryers come with an instruction booklet that will walk you through all the steps. I don't have any one particular book to recommend but there is a great website called Dehydrate2Store on dehydrating foods here. If you have never checked it out before you ought to give it a look.  I highly recommend it.