Last week, I went to the home of a nurse that I work with because she had two big cherry trees (Bing and Queen Anne) that were loaded with cherries. I took a five gallon bucket and filled it half way. Afterward, Jon and I pitted them all (yes Renee I got a cherry pitter) and froze them. I knew that I wanted to dehydrate them for granola bars, but at the time I didn't have a dehydrator. I have been stalking Craigslist for a couple of days waiting for one to pop up. Finally one did. This food dehydrator was listed for $15, when I got to the women's house, she explained to me that it was her mother in laws, who had passed away. Much of it was still in plastic. Unfortunately, there were two small chips in two of the trays. I pointed them out to the lady, so she asked if I would take it for $10. I was more then willing because three of the five trays could still be used. After getting it put together, I realized that the chips really didn't make a difference in the functionality of the machine.
Last night I immediately started one of my bags of cherries that were in the freezer. We let them dehydrate for around 10 hours.
These little dried cherries were so good and they don't have any added sugar. I can't wait to dehydrate more of the fruits of the season.
Benefits of dehydration include:
- No chemicals necessary
- No addition of more sugar necessary
- It's an easy preservation method. No canning involved!
- The end product takes up very little space and has a long shelf life (although I don't think they are going to last very long around here!)
- You can buy in season, saving money and being more environmentally conscious.
4 comments:
That is so cool, I love it!
Thanks for stopping by on my blog. I just wanted to pop in and say that if you have room to grow onions you have room to grow carrots because you'll get more carrots per square foot than you'd get onions! You can also grow those little round carrots in containers. Once you try a carrot fresh out of the ground you'll be a convert - they are miles better than store or market bought.
Good luck with your onions, this is my first year trying them and I'm not sure how successful we're going to be.
Hey Court, another good thing to try is bananas... We used to cut them into round chips or sticks. Seriously one of my favorite snacks! My kids love it when we go to Poky and my mom has these in the kitchen.
Hiya :)
I come to visit your blog after you linked me on 2Peas.. thank you so much for the advice. I am going to sit down and take a good long read at this tonight because I just saw like.. recipes and drying cherries and.. just SO much great information. I can't wait to absorb and commit to this new life!
Thankyou!
Mrs Marshall (Mel)
I didn't even think to dry cherries. What a great idea to preserve the seasons best fruit! I will try it and let you know!
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