TASK DEFINITION: Given the background description of some cooking related query, summarize the question into a title
PROBLEM: Every Indian recipe I see seems to insist on rinsing basmati rice before cooking it. Why, I have no idea, because I never rinse it, yet I can discern no difference between my rice and rice cooked by other people that have, presumably, spent the extra 15 minutes rinsing. If the stickiness is the difference, as suggested in this thread, then I would suggest that not rinsing the rice would make eating rice-based thali a lot less traumatic because the grains would clump together more easily.

SOLUTION: Why rinse basmati rice?

PROBLEM: I recently got a L'Equip food dehydrator and have had some good success playing around with it. But I'm interested to know if I can dehydrate different food stuffs at the same time. For instance, could I throw jerky on one tray, onions on another, and strawberries on a third (assuming they all wanted the same time / temp) or would my strawberries end up tasting a bit like oniony beef? What kind of things would cause this contamination?

SOLUTION: Can I dehydrate multiple different types of food at the same time?

PROBLEM: I have a tomato sauce recipe that calls for 1 can (28oz) of diced tomatoes (including the liquid). How can I replace the can with fresh tomatoes? I'm not sure if there is a particular type of tomato I should use or how many of them to use. Also, what can I do to replace the liquid?

SOLUTION:
How can I replace canned tomatoes with fresh?