Thanks to a friend who loves me, I had a bounty of zucchini. Now, this might not be exciting to some of you, but it’s thrilling to me.
Back in June when my friend brought the first batch from her garden, I thought, “Ya know, what if I sliced this, dried this, and put it back for later use?” So as my friend stood in my kitchen, I got my food slicer and got to slicin’! I dried the slices (which turned out to be entirely too thin) on my dehydrator’s highest setting, and I let ’em go. A few hours later, I had a mess of zucchini “chips” that were all stuck to my dehydrator trays (because they were sliced too thin.)
So when she brought me the second batch of zucchini, I had to ponder it for a minute. My friend took all the chips from the first batch, and she enjoyed eating them plain like a snack. With the second batch though, I had something else in mind. I wanted a product that was bone-dry that I could put back and use at a later date if I wanted to make muffins, pizza crust, or a hashbrown knock-off. My thought was that I’d dry them, store them, and then chop them in a food processor when I needed them. That way, I wouldn’t have some of the drawbacks that fresh zucchini can give you — namely all the excess moisture.
My most recent attempt at drying zucchini went a lot better. I sliced it thicker — maybe 1/4″ – 1/3″ thick — and I dried them to the point where they were almost baked. My food dehydrator is just a cheapy from Rural King, so the product wasn’t completely consistent, but I was fairly happy with the end result.
When I take some zucchini out of storage to try and make a pizza crust, I’ll share my results (and the recipe). I’m really hoping it works.