oh dry up

I’ve long wanted a food dehydrator to make the most of fresh produce. But secretly I wondered how well it would work or how practical it would be. Well, I recently got my heart’s desire and it turns out my wondering was in vain.

It’s a brilliant, wonderful, gorgeous appliance. My new favourite thing.

So far I’ve dried cherries and apricots. Now jarred and/or bagged, they’ll keep for yonks though I expect to eat them before the advent of yonks. They can be re-hydrated but I can’t think why I’d want to do that because, while they don’t look so cute, they’re a thousand times sweeter and more delicious in dried form. And this is a much simpler process than canning everything (which requires sugar, bad), or freezing, which causes a loss of texture as well as flavour.

The bonus is I’ve never enjoyed farmers’ markets so much. Normally I’m a little sad because I can only eat so many apricots before the season’s over. Now I stock up, dry up, and move on.

Mushrooms next.

28 Jul This entry was published on July 28, 2012 at 12:46 pm and is filed under essentials, fruit. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.