[star792]

so today i scored an excaliber from craigslist. right now i have strawberries, bananas, and strawberry banana fruit leather going. what do you like to make in yours??

 

[dogmom327]

Sweet! At the end of the season, I try all my leftover herbs from my garden. I also did tomatoes last year but I still need to rehydrate them to make sundried tomatoes.

 

[mistymama]

Hands down it's beef jerky. Mmmmm!

I also love just about any dried fruit, apples & peaches are my fave. I've never tried fruit leathers, I keep meaning to. Do you have a good recipe?

 

[ja mama]

jerky, apples, bananas, peaches, pears, kiwi, and cantaloupe and plums are my boys' favorites. For me, berries work best in fruit leathers (too much work though for the amount I get), frozen, or ground up into a powder after dried. I use a handheld coffee grinder, well-cleaned.

Sweet potatoes baked, and smashed are surprisingly delicious.

Congrats on an amazing score! I love mine!!!

 

[star792]

the fruit leather recipe came in the book, one cup strawberries with one banana pureed. the boys liked it. i want to try crackers next and i am curious about drying onion and garlic and turning them into a powder. i will try that soon.

 

[bonbon mama]

We dry herbs and leaves from the garden for teas and seasoning. We also dry a lot of garden produce: apples are incredible, peaches are delicious, we dried all of our tomatoes, extra zucchini and eggplant...

 

[nurturebaby]

Ooooh! I also got a great deal on an excalibur off of craigslist - but it was 2 years ago! I still haven't figured out how to make yummy stuff

How do you dry the fruit? Do you just slice and dry? Do you dip in lemon or anything? I would love to figure out a way to get fruit and veggies to dry and be a bit crisp rather than leathery and chewy - is this even possible?

Congrats on the score! And thanks for starting this thread, too

 

[star792]

i just sliced the bananas and strawberries and dried them. the strawberries were crisp but the bananas were not, but we are still eating them.they are dark because i didn't pretreat them.
the applesauce fruit leather is the best one we've tried. the boys really like it. i tried yogurt and dried it and it is pretty good. the flax seed crackers turned out pretty good but my oldest said there is a funny taste to them so I am going to try a different recipe.
Apple chips are next up.

 

[straighthaircurly]

Mango fruit leather. Last year I bought a case of the small wrinkly mangoes (I can't remember their name) that have a very short season. We pigged out on them and then I made fruit leather from the rest. Oh, so good! Which reminds me I need to go to the coop this week and buy a case as they are in season right now.

:

 

[Carlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nurturebaby Ooooh! I also got a great deal on an excalibur off of craigslist - but it was 2 years ago! I still haven't figured out how to make yummy stuff How do you dry the fruit? Do you just slice and dry? Do you dip in lemon or anything? I would love to figure out a way to get fruit and veggies to dry and be a bit crisp rather than leathery and chewy - is this even possible? Congrats on the score! And thanks for starting this thread, too

I think that if you would slice the fruit thinly, then leave it longer than usual, they should get nice and crispy. One of my batches last year got that way, I must have left them on a little longer than I "should" have. I prefer the softer, chewier ones, but crispy works too!

I love dried apples and peaches. I slice them thinly and they dry quite quickly. We often sprinkle cinnamon on the apple slices and then dry them. Yum! And the house smells heavenly while they are drying. We do loads of those. Dried strawberries are amazing, and so are sweet cherries (but they are more work, since you have to pit them).

I dried tomatoes, too, but haven't used them a lot. The rest of my family hasn't warmed up to them too much so far, but I'll keep working on them. I found a neat recipe from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver for dried tomato pesto. It was very tasty. It can be found at http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html

I don't treat the fruit with anything, just wash, dry, slice if necessary, and lay it on the trays. I am so glad that I can "store" my mom-in-law's dehydrator at our place

 

[JTA Mom]

I'm still looking for my own dehydrator. Meanwhile I saw this awesome youtube channel on dehydrating. Lots of ideas there.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Dehydrate2store

Ami