Customer Reviews

Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Since I already have Mary Bell's "Complete Dehydrator Cookbook", which showed so much more than I'd ever known before, the title of this book really got my attention. And the recipes!!! YUMMY!!!! I packed several items when I had to make a trip to my specialist (3 hours each way) and I saved money, ate delicious, nutritious foods and didn't have to do the "fast food" stops like before. Will be doing more before I take a flight to see my family soon so I don't have to deal with the expense and questionable nutritional value of airline food.

Also, I have a very small apartment and drying makes more sense than canning. For instance, 10 pounds of blueberries dried fill 2 quart jars and 15 pounds of Bing cherries fill 2 and one half quarts, plus there is so little risk of spoilage. It's so much fun and the dried foods can be used in so many fantastic ways. Try the Strawberry Meringue cookies!!!

This book is a fun, educational read and the pictures just makes one's mouth water.

First I checked this out from the library and then I ordered it because there are great ideas and good recipes. My only wish is that the book was a little bigger and/or had a little more volume to it.

Contains sections of fruit, jerky, and crafty dehydrator projects. Photos are good.

I've been drying food all my life. My granny began teaching me at the ripe old age of 4. I finally gave up the oven in favor of an electric dehydrator and saw this title was often purchased by others doing the same. The title set a pretty high bar for itself and I purchased it more out of curiosity than anything else.

I thought I had the best recipes and methods out there and I have shelves of awards to prove it. The book deals with the basics, much as I'd expected. The "attitude" soon follows. The author is lighthearted and funny, informed and above all creative. The best part of this "how to guide" isn't even the recipes or methods, but that it gets you thinking of your own extreme drying ideas. She busts many of the drying myths that even experienced dryers have been taught to believe. Well worth the modest price to beginners and experts alike.

This was a great book for anyone even slightly interested in dehydrating their own food. Fantastic full color pictures and simple recipes. It has me thinking so differently about preserving food. Canning and freezing have their place, but can be less cost effective and in some cases not as nutritional as dehydrating. I highly recommend this book!

This book is a disappointment. I thought I would get new dehydrating techniques and recipes for cooking with dehydrated foods. But this book is lacking in real content. The book's layout and tons of photos may have an 'attitude' but not the rest of the book. The recipes are few and are for beginners yet do not give much detail. And, if you are vegetarian be warned that a large portion of the book is about meat jerky. In fact the entire second half of the book is useless to me because it is jerky, backpacking recipes, herb, flower drying, crafts and pet treats. I'm going to see if I can return this book.

I do a lot with dehydrating,and what I like about this book is it encourages people to step outside the box with dehydrating. I like that she encourages people to use the fruit that is less than great as it will still make a great dried product. This was freeing for me since a lot of the apples in our yard are bruised or less than perfect. It has also encouraged me to try preserving more of the food I might not use and create a powder version to add into soups and stews. It is a fun way to think about using and processing what we have.

I have bought and read many books on dehydrating over the years. The problem with most of them is that they are very dry and fail to create in me an enthusiasm for the process of drying foods. Mary T. Bell's book shows her extensive experience drying foods of all kinds, This is not a recipe book, though it has quite a few jerky recipes, some of which I have already tried. What this book has, is a very creative and fresh approach to a very old way of preserving. It has totally sparked my excitement with dehydrating and I can't wait for summer and all the vegies and fruits I can experiment with. I even bought one for a Christmas present and have recommended it to several other dehydrating friends

I am new to dehydrating other than jerky and was very pleased with this book. It gives good ideas and options for using your dehydrator. Also the recipes look good and fairly easy without using a lot of oddball ingredients. I recommend it for anyone.

This book tells you how to dry food, what it should look like when dried and has really good recipes using the things you dry. It is a book that will be well used. It's hard to find a book that has good everyday recipes that use dried foods.

I've been resistant to dehydrating. There, I said it. (For a high-raw foodist, that's saying a lot!) But this book has gotten me over the hump. More than a primer, she makes it easy, yet intriguing, to start using that dehydrator... I did her first three "assignments" over a long weekend, and before I knew it, both hubby and I've started experimenting. Thanks, Mary!