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I use my dehydrator to make my powders. It’s an Excalibur dehydrator. I had one of the cheapie ones but that was way more effort and wasted food than I could deal with. The Excalibur is pricer but it has a temperature control and you can even get one with a timer. We didn’t spring for the one with the timer as local humidity is a big factor in speed of dehydration.

So, to make tomato powder I:

Pick tomatoes, wash them. Slice them 1/4-1/2” thick and layer them in a single layer on the dehydrator tray. Dehydrate till somewhere between ‘leathery’ and ‘crispy’. Remove them from the dehydrator tray and put them in a big ziploc bag in the freezer (helps with that extra crispiness). Once they’ve gotten froze-cold I put them into my blender and hit ‘liquify’ until they are mostly powder. I don’t do any deseeding or skinning beforehand. Most of the seeds will survive the ‘liquify’ process intact. Use a seive to get them out and any big chunks that survive the blender on the first round. I repeat this blender process with the chunky mixture from the seive a time or two and feed the rest to my chickens.

I’ve found this takes less of MY time total, less energy (electricity bill/canning propane tank), less money (fewer glass canning jars) and takes up MUCH less shelf space.

Caveat: Need some of those moisture absorber packets to put in the jars when you’re done. And be sure to seal those jars TIGHTLY as these powders really attract the moisture. Really.

This isn’t my WHOLE canning strategy though. I’ll be doing whole tomatoes this weekend. Along with some other traditional canning stuff.

Do a ‘dogpile.com’ or ‘ixquick.com’ search for ‘tomato powder’ or ‘zucchini powder’ or ‘carrot powder’.

Love love love my dehydrator! I’ve dried so many batches of ‘sale’ bananas, pineapples, mushrooms and the like it’s probably paid for itself already.

This fall/winter when the humidity is lower we’ll probably try making some beef jerky in there too. Maybe using some ‘lauras lean beef’ we find in the managers special bin from time to time...

i’ve got plans for dehydrated cabbage (for soups and stir fries) shreds, dehydrated English peas, and maybe broccoli.

Wish I’d gotten the Excalibur 5 years ago. I wouldn’t have wasted 4.5 years trying to ‘make do’ with a cheaper one.

http://www.ourfoodstorage.com/2009/08/12/year-round-zucchini-and-zucchini-bread-recipe/

That chick is on the ball. She’s got twice my energy. Then again she’s probably half my age so that works out *chuckle*.

I use the tomato powder to make soup, sauce, paste. Anything you’d use tomato paste or puree for. I’m going to try a tomato pie with it this weekend to give the slices a little more ‘oomph’. Hubby suggested sprinkling a little of it on the slices when I’m putting it together so I’m going to try that.

I’ve read that cucumber powder along with dill, onion powder, garlic powder and a little chili makes a wonderful dressing mix so I’m going to try some of those too. If it’s really baaaad i’ll feed it to the chickens!