Hultquist - The Spicy Dehydrator Cookbook: 95 Incredible Recipes to Turn Up the Heat on Jerky, Hot Sauce, Fruit Leather and More

95 Incredible Recipes to Turn Up the Heaton Jerky, Hot Sauce, Fruit Leather and More

Michael Hultquist, Founder of Chili Pepper Madness

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This book is dedicated to all the creative cooks in the world who found a passion for food and feel the need to keep on learning and exploring. We are kindred souls.

It is dedicated to all the bold and spicy food lovers who visit our blog at Chili Pepper Madness www.chilipeppermadness.com . We couldnt do what we do without your support. Truly, all of your comments and support mean so much to me.

And finally, to my wife, partner and best friend, Patty.

You are amazing beyond compare. You inspire me, always.

My passion for dehydrating was born from my passion for chili peppers. I never had much of a palate growing up, but as I grew older, I quickly realized I was a total chilihead. I found that I loved spicy foods, the spicier the better, and this took me straight into the wild world of hot sauces and chili peppers. I would snatch up hot sauces by the armload, and I started buying peppers by the bagful from wherever I could find them.

I took to cooking not long after I married, and I found myself incorporating peppers and other spicy elements into just about everything I made. After a while, I decided to share this particular passion by starting a food blog called Chili Pepper Madness. On the blog, I explore cooking with chili peppers of all types, as well as growing and preserving these wonderful peppers.

We started a garden on the side of our first home, and now we have a good-sized pepper patch around back of our current home. The garden grew until we were growing a dozen or more pepper varieties each year. We grew so many that I found myself preserving them any way I could. I froze them whole, cooked them down, froze sauces and purees, pickled and jarred them and turned them into jellies and jams. Then I purchased my first dehydrator.

Dehydrating is an ideal method for food preservation, a practice that goes back to ancient history.

My first dehydrator was a small model, a Nesco, perfect for home use, which I still use. I began by cleaning and slicing peppers into rings, dehydrating them overnight and using them dried in a variety of ways. I still do. I greatly enjoy using the whole dried pods by rehydrating them into hot sauces, crushing them and placing them into a dedicated grinder for dashing over foods, and grinding them down into powders so I can make my own spice blends. And now I not only use chili peppers, but also other fruits, vegetables and herbs. It is just something I truly love to do.

It didnt take long for my creative brain to reach out and ask the question, What else can I do with this wonderful machine? I had just begun to brew my own beer with my wife, and I always hated tossing out the spent grains after soaking them. It felt like such a waste, so rather than toss them out, I dehydrated them and used them for baking. Problem solved!

Next I turned to making jerky with different cuts of meat, experimenting with marinades and homemade rubs. I became a bit obsessed. I tossed all sorts of items into the dehydrator just to see what would happen.

I upgraded to a larger dehydrator, the Excalibur, and ever since Ive been dehydrating with an eye toward useful creativity as well as practical preservation. Some of my favorite things to do with my dehydrator include:

Making my own powders and seasoning blends.

Making jerky.

Making fruit and sauce leathers.

Dehydrating cooked meals, like risottos and curries.