Commercially Canned Potatoes Do Serve a Purpose

Sliced Canned Potatoes 

Before I was able to find a great deal on fresh potatoes, and before food prices skyrocketed, I started buying sliced canned potatoes, and a few other veggies whenever I could find a fantastic deal. They had to be 50¢ per can or less for me to purchase them. 

I just kept storing and stockpiling them, thinking that eventually, I would dehydrate them. Well, recently, that day finally came. There were two catalysts, which finally made me break down and dehydrate them. 

First, I actually have buckets and bags full of dehydrated veggies. I had been rearranging and reorganizing my larder.  To my disgust, I could not find my dehydrated potatoes when I was ready to put a few casseroles together. 

Too Many Cans! 

Next, I realized that my storage bin for canned potatoes was overflowing, but I also had piles of dehydrated foods all over the floor, due to lack of space.  Well duhh. Get with it, Sister! 

 

 

Temporary Storage

Actually, I use my spare bedroom for canned and commercially prepared foods.  This was intended to be a temporary space until I get them dehydrated, but I’ve been a bit lax.  In the two above pictures you can see my stackable modules with pull-out tubs.  I had originally used these for craft supply storage, but as my priorities changed, the crafts were eased out and dehydrated foods eased in. 

The deeper tubs are used to hold bags of dehydrated foods that are waiting for me to convert into vacuum-packed one-dish meals.  Sometimes I end up with an abundance of one food and not enough of another to make a complete meal.  This system works perfectly for me to keep them handy until I’m ready to make my meal packets. 

My completed, bagged and labeled foods go to the storage shed and are stored in plastic buckets.  We don’t have roaches or many insect pests in Wyoming, so keeping them stored isn’t a big problem.  If you live in a warmer climate, you will need to accommodate for higher humidity and insect pests. 

I keep a running inventory of completed meals on an excel spreadsheet.  

Leaving food like this lying around is especially bad for several reasons.

• In the event of an evacuation emergency, there is no way I can get all that canned food out of the house.  It needs to be dehydrated to make it lightweight and compact for transport.
• I can’t put together one-dish dehydrated meals with ingredients that are not dehydrated. It just doesn’t work. Well, actually you can, but the whole point of this blog is to use dehydrated foods.
• As I continue to prep for emergencies and hard times, I need some place to put my extra food.  Cans take up way too much space.

Linda’s Note: I always advocate running a full dehydrator. Never run your machine half full, it’s a waste of electricity. If you need to top off two or three racks, filling them with commercially canned products are just the ticket.  However, my machine is almost always full, so I’ve allowed canned items I find on sale stack up and accumulate. 

Drain & Spin

So, I realized the day had come for me to tackle all those cans of food. The first thing to do after opening cans is drain the liquid off. I use my salad spinner for this purpose. 

• I did not see any reason to blanch these potatoes, because they were already cooked.

Linda’s Note: Sadly, canned foods lose most of their nutrients during processing.  Extended periods of high heat can cause the lost of as much as 60% to 80% of the nutrients. Ideally, we should use the freshest foods we can find, but the realities of life is that it isn’t always possible. Some parts of the country (like Wyoming) have a very short growing season and most people must rely on commercially canned foods to make it through the winter. See my post on If For No Other Reason for more information on nutrition loss during food preservation. 

Ready to Dehydrate

• Spread them out on your dehydrating racks. Be sure there is a little space between each piece of food.
• Actually, these were a little thicker than I normally like to slice potatoes. They just took a little longer to dry. 

 

Done

Dry them at 115º for about a day or a day and a half. They’ll be ready to put up by then.

 

 

One can of canned sliced potatoes equals about ½ cup of dehydrated potatoes.