Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Foodie Friday

For those of you who read my blog a few weeks ago about my first attempt at dehydrating, here's a little update. I've ALWAYS wanted to dehydrate watermelon...I mean, for years I've talked about this. Watermelon is easily my favorite fruit, and pretty much embodies for me the wonder of summer. :) So, I broke out the dehydrator once again and this time tried dehydrating a few different fruits, including...WATERMELON! I sliced up nearly a pound of strawberries, about 6 bananas, and the rest of our watermelon leftovers into 1/8-1/4" pieces, resulting in 2 trays of bananas, 1 tray of strawberries, and 2 trays of watermelon. For some fruits that tend to brown, you can pretreat with lemon juice (I'd consider it) or sulfite (no thanks), but I decided to just see what happened with the bananas.

I never really know for how long to let these dry, because the suggested range of time varies so greatly. I did, however, put the watermelon on the bottom, closest to the fan. For the first few hours of drying, our kitchen smelled like a yummy fruit cocktail! After ~12 hours, all the fruit still felt a bit gummy, and I think I ended up letting them go for about 18 hours total. None of the fruit ever got "crunchy," which is what I was expecting, but maybe I got impatient with the drying process.

The bananas, well...tasted like bananas! They didn't taste quite like the banana chips you may have had from the store because (1) they weren't fried and therefore weren't crispy, though they may have gotten more crispy if I'd have left them in longer, and (2) they weren't coated with honey or sugar before drying them, which would add sweetness. It might actually be just as easy (or easier!) to make banana chips in the oven, so I may try that next time.

The strawberries tasted a lot like the dehydrated strawberries you might have had in cereal, and the watermelon....well, it was interesting. It certainly paled in comparison to fresh watermelon, but it wasn't bad, either. It didn't taste quite like the delicious candy that I'd read about a couple of places online, but I am considering trying it again with more of a leather approach: blend up the watermelon, drain off the liquid (I'll probably drink it...yes, I love watermelon THAT much!), maybe add some applesauce (apparently leathers need pectin, and applesauce helps with that), and then pour the puree into the trays to dehydrate. If you get the hankering to dehydrate watermelon chunks, I'd definitely recommend larger strips than the little square pieces I used...not thicker, just longer.

Overall, I found that a LOT of fresh fruit makes a LITTLE dehydrated fruit. This is the end product of nearly a pound of strawberries, about 6 bananas, and a "good bit" of watermelon, and yes, those are small sandwich ziplock bags:

So, if you're looking for a way to preserve your garden's harvest or summer's great deals on fruit and vegetables, this may be a good way, especially if you are planning on using the fruits/veggies later in the year for cooking purposes. However, you'd have to perfect the drying process to make sure you've removed all the moisture, or else your dehydrated food will spoil. I also read somewhere that you should put the finished product in the freezer for a day or so to make sure all the bacteria are killed, so, whether that works or not, I tried it. It certainly made things a bit more crunchy, which gives me more reason to think that my batch of fruit was not completely dehydrated (since none of it was crunchy when it wasn't frozen).

My "take home" from this experience is that fruit leathers are the way to go. The prep work is a good bit less time consuming, since there's little/no slicing involved, and the fruit leather actually tasted better to me. Happy drying!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Top Ten Tuesday

If I'm going to be one of those obnoxious Apple owners, I figured it was time for another blog about something Mac! ;) hehe So, below are the top ten Mac-related products and websites I've come across over the past few months. Hopefully, if you're already on the Apple train, you'll find some of these helpful, and maybe you can share some of your favorite products and websites with me!

1. Apple's website offers some great tutorials if you're new to Mac, and these are some more great "pro" tips on Apple's website.

2. I'm all about some instant messaging, and Adium is a wonderful free IM application that lets me connect to AIM, Yahoo, Facebook, and more!
3. Two words: keyboard shortcuts!
4. Caffeine is a great little program that prevents your Mac from going to sleep or starting a screensaver...perfect for when you're making a presentation or watching a movie.
5. This is a helpful blog for "Macnewbies" and here's yet another website with tips for novice Mac users.

6. Since I use my computer on a regular basis to make presentations at the university and at church, I've found this VGA adapter to be essential in allowing me to connect to various projectors!
7. Okay, so I don't own this super cool sleeve yet, but it's a birthday gift that's on its way :)
8. While I'm probably going to stick with iPhoto for most of my picture needs because it is so well integrated into the OS, I HAVE to put in a plug for Picasa, since it is now available for the Mac. I think it is a better picture editor than iPhoto, and even if you're not a Mac owner, you should definitely check out the Windows version...it's awesome.

9. I wanted a bluetooth mouse for my Mac that looked nice but also had some curvature and wasn't itty bitty. So far, I like my Logitech V470, though it is at times a bit jumpy.
10. I use my Mac all the time and everywhere...needless to say, I've found this well-fitting and extremely thin keyboard protector to be quite helpful! I rarely even notice it now, though it did take a couple of hours to get used to.

Okay, now it's your turn! What websites and products have you found helpful in using your Mac?

Foodie Friday

We borrowed a food dehydrator from my parents and finally were able to try it out last weekend. I bought a bunch of strawberries and blueberries and decided to make fruit leather. It was really quite easy as far as the hands-on work goes, but I don't think I realized just how long it takes for fruit to fully dehydrate.

First I used the food processor, though you could easily use a blender or chopper, to make a smoothie of the berries--1 1/2 lbs of strawberries and 1 1/2 pints of blueberries, give or take some. I didn't add any sugar, honey, etc. because I wanted to see how we liked it "au natural." Some recipes suggested using a seive to remove some of the seeds from the berries, but because the berry mixture was quite thick, I couldn't imagine that working well. Plus, I like texture and fiber in my food.

I lightly sprayed two trays designed for making fruit leather with cooking spray, and poured half of the berry mixture into each.

Then I plugged in the dehydrater, and let it do its thing....basically a fan moves heated air around in a circular motion. The recipe book said it would take anywhere from 8-12 hours, and since I didn't actually start the process of dehydrating until about 1 p.m., our leather still wasn't fully dry when we were ready to go to bed 10 hours later. However, the texture of the leather had definitely changed, and it felt gummy-ish.

So, we put the dehydrator on a timer for another two hours, and hoped for the best! In the morning, it felt *mostly* dry, and at that point I was just ready to wrap it all up. So, I rolled up the leather in individual servings using plastic wrap and, to be on the safe side, stored it in the refrigerator.

Overall, I was pleased with the result, and my husband has been enjoying the fruit leathers in his lunches, too. I think I'd like to incorporate some applesauce or something next time as a bit of a filler; some recipes even say to use applesauce as the main ingredient in fruit leather. Also, I'm glad I didn't use any additional sweetener. The fruit-only leather tasted sweet enough to me, and is certainly much healthier without the extra sugar.

If you're interested in trying out drying, you don't necessarily have to own (or borrow!) a dehydrator. There are a couple of other methods for drying food, including using your oven. In the future, I'm looking forward to making more fruit leather, and I also want to try to make some jerky and dehydrate watermelon!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday