Our initial batch of dehydrating was feverish – there were lemons, oranges, pears, apples, lemon and lime zest and then we paused. We had to eat some of our bounty after all.
I wasn’t wholly convinced of the merit of our oranges and lemons. They looked awesome and smelled wonderful – I just couldn’t imagine eating a whole lot of them. When I finally got brave enough (laugh) to try them on Friday night, I discovered that we will go through them fast.
It was time to fire up the dehydrator again – this time we chose to replenish our dwindling dried apples (choosing Spartans) and dehydrating pineapple slices.
The pineapples slices are not candied – they are merely slices of pineapple thrown into the unit at 135 degrees and their moisture content is slowly removed.
3-pounds of dried apple slices fit into a single mason jar – as do 2 pineapples. It’s easy to overeat when consuming dried fruit but the flavour is so intense that you don’t need quantity.
We also changed our approach this time – using a mandolin (food slicer) to cut our slices of both. I had used a knife previously (something I am very comfortable with) but have learned my lesson – the mandolin will save hours of drying time and checking time. Each slice is uniform in thickness and the entire batch of a single fruit finishes at the same time and is most efficient. Our slices were about 1/8 of an inch (3-4 mm).
Both taste phenomenal – I can’t wait to use the pineapple in muffins or (*GASP*) on pizza.
Those look great–I’m really loving the pineapple. Dehydrator is most certainly on the (very large) list. Good work!
Julia,
the pinapple barely survived the weekend. We had to seal it and hide it from ourselves.
It is miles beyond the candied version I grew up with. It starts bitter and dry, becomes hydrated in your mouth and explodes in flavour… A few more tastes going up in the morning 🙂
Thanks, as always for coming bye!
J
I have a mandolin at home and at the cottage. It is addictive and wonderful. I use it to thinly slice onions and potatoes for my onion and potato pizza. I love making cucumber ribbons! I also use it for sweet potatoes, when I make a sweet potato casserole.
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