Prashant and Suzanne have been kind enough to lend us their dehydrator so that we could dry the huge amount of Tulsi leaves we got from Ritesh's mom for tea. We didn't think it was possible at first since the dehydrator is so bulky and cumbersome, so I'd already strung up bunches of leaves around the kitchen, but thankfully the brothers figured it out and the dehydrator has been a huge help. Thanks, Prashant and Suzanne! On the right is the tulsi we dried in the dehydrator (only takes a couple of hours), on the left, the tulsi that air dried in the kitchen in a small eternity, about 4-5 days.
The dehydrator makes enough noise to wake the dead but other than that it is one great piece of kitchen equipment. Since we've had the opportunity, we've been exploring some other recipes, too, such as these raw lemon-coconut cookies...
... and these super-dark chocolate-walnut-pecan cookies. Dehydrating them at below 130 degrees (versus baking them) is supposed to keep the natural enzymes alive. And of course these cookies are all sugar-free and agave-sweetened.
I hope Suzanne and Prashant got the little goodie bags we left for them! Here's a little peanut-butter-cookie sandwich, in honor of Suzanne who REALLY likes peanut butter :) 
and here is the most recent experiment: spicy zucchini and sweet potato chips...
and some super-spicy chili pistachios that are still not quite done - these take forever, about 48h straight at least to get them nice and crunchy. Unfortunately, we have to turn the machine off at night so we (and the neighbors) can sleep, so we've been at this for a few days now... 
4 comments:
I'm glad you've been able to make good use of it- everything looks yummy! For the noise problem, Prashant and I bought a special shelf that fits in the front hall closet so we could put the dehydrator in there and close the door. We run an extension from there into the bathroom. It's great because we can't hear it and we can let it run all night. :o)
that sounds like a great setup! All our closets are either in the bedroom, adjacent to it, or adjacent to the neighbor's bedroom, so we can really only do day time shifts... but it's been great, thanks so much for letting us use it! I hope you got the cookies/tea that Ritesh left at the Pops for you on Sunday!
We did get the treats that Ritesh left for us, thank you! Unfortunately, the coconut lemon cookies went bad. :( Prashant and I weren't able to visit Dad until yesterday, so they were there waiting for us all week. I wish I could have tried them. The chocolate ones are awesome though. Thanks, again.
sorry to hear about the lemon cookies... will have to make another batch ;)
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