Dehydrated veggie soup mix

2020-07-22

This dehydrated veggie mix from Mother Earth Products is one of several I have tested out. While dehydrated veggies may retain much of their nutritional value, the flavor surely suffers. I found that all commercial brands are relatively expensive, from $15-30+ per pound. Time to get my dehydrator back out of storage this year.

The low weight of dehydrated foods is useful for long camping trips, but on the other hand rehydration takes a lot longer than the 20-30 minutes mentioned on most packages. In my experience, it takes at least 2-3 hours to make them reasonably soft, but some require overnight soaking. Dehydrated tomatoes don't seem to fully soften at all.

The big sales pitch for dehydrated foods is 'prepping' or disaster preparedness.
True, the stuff is edible, but I'd hate to have to live on that alone for more than a few meals.

INGREDIENTS

This is what you need for 2 servings:

2 cups dehydrated soup mix vegetables
Mother Earth Products
up to 2 quarts water
S&P, spices of your choice

optional:

fried bacon

Pic1: it looks like this

Directions

Pic2: store-bought dehydrated vegetables
Pic3:
Pic4:

Crisp 1 lb. bacon. Drain excess fat. Cut in bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
Optional:
- Rehydrate dry vegetables by cold-soaking overnight in the refrigerator.
Bring 2-3 qts. water to a boil.
Stir in the dehydrated vegetables and half of the fried bacon.
Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Check how soft the vegetables are. Some are reasonably edible after 30 minutes.
If not completely soft, remove from heat and rest, or keep warm for 1-2 hrs.
Some items, e.g. dehydrated diced potatoes may take overnight soaking for complete rehydration.

Pic5-7: served

Serve and hopefully you'll enjoy it.
Serving suggestions:
- Adding fresh vegetables to this may make it more interesting.
- Dehydrated veggies can also be added in small quantities to regular soups or stews.

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more and avemariasongs.org

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more
and avemariasongs.org