A short piece in Natural News caught my eye the other day on drying your own fruit. What a good idea! Although, obviously, it needs a bit of advance preparation. But with fresh fruit season hoving in view, it is worth considering.
If you do have any kind of sulphite sensitivity, dried fruits are just the worst thing for you as the vase majority of commercially dried ones use sulphites as a preservative – which means that that wonderfully intense flavour of a dried apricot is for ever denied to you…… But no more!
You can dry your fruits the sun (back in the day that suggestion would have been met with howls of laughter in you lived in the UK, but with an ever heating planet?….) but, more reliably, you can also dry them in the oven. Dead simple, according to Natural News: just line your oven shelves with parchment paper, place the fruit slices on the paper in rows, not touching each other, turn your oven to the lowest possible setting (60C/140F/Gas 1/8, if that exists) and leave the door slightly open so that the fruit does not either steam or cook. When dried, the fruit slices should be chewy. If they are crunchy, you have overcdone it – but you might have invented a rather nice snack!
For the full article check here – and good luck!
That is a brilliant idea… I think I’m gonna give it a go. Do you think some fruits are better to dry than others? I’ll check out that article for inspiration.
This sounds a wonderful idea…to expand a little further.
Root out the cook books your Great Gran left…and look how to make glace fruits and candied peels. Or the wonderful google…
I know its only 3 months after Christmas…but imagine your beaming face when you present Christmas goodies…where it really is home made….
Janet