Food Storage (for Camping Events) #3 - Dehydrated Cinnimon Sugar Apples, dehydrated rice, and veggie stock

I decided not to post right away about my 1st attempt using the dehydrator a few days ago, which involved several bags of cranberries I found on sale at Woodmans, because I wasn't satisfied with the end result. I know one thing I learned, cranberries are horribly hard to dehydrate properly even if you mince them in the processor or blanch them on the stove. They turn it very hard and crunchy. I think they'll work fine in the pemmincan when I get around to making that. Right now they're in several small jars in my cabinet for short-term storage and experimentation. Maybe I'll look up some instructions on how to do cranraisins see if there's a middle ground to the drying process.

Today I started the veggie broth in the crockpot, prepping some rice to try dehydrated cooked rice to see how that works, and finally putting some cinnamon sugar apples into the dehydrater. I used my apple peeler/corer which worked pretty well, though struggled with these apples a bit I think because they were overripe. Maybe the galas don't work as well I don't know. It could be I just have a cheap peeler, and in that case I need to get something better when I can. I'll try some less ripe apples next time and see. I'll know by late tomorrow whether it worked or not.

Now back to the dehydrated cooked rice. I know it sounds a little odd, but I was watching some videos by some backpackers it seemed a cheap and easy way to create instant rice which I could just throw into dishes on the campfire to make them more filling, or rehydrate for a nice base for meals. Going to make some and then rehydrate a little to see how it tastes.

Tomorrow's exciting because as soon as the apples are done I'm going to clean out the dehydrator and prep it to make the powdered chicken stock. The stock from the two full crock pots worth of chicken has been chilling in the fridge for a couple days. I have already skimmed the fat off it once (got off nearly an inch of fat across the surface) and am sitting it in the fridge the 2nd time just to see if I get any more. It already has a very gelled consistency to it, but I'll cook it down a bit more just to be certain before placing it on the fruit roll inserts for the dehydrator.