Okay, so here's what happened during my first attempt:
With all the apples I've been playing with, I figured it couldn't hurt to pick up one of those fancy cutter/corer/peeler thingamajigs. If you haven't seen one of these babies in action (ahem, Janice) you're missing something! lol
It peels the apple in one long ring:
It even slices the apple - NOT thick enough for me though
Uh oh, it's all in one long piece too.
My babies thought it was neat though:
So I ended breaking up that long curl into pieces. Not the best, believe me! The instruction booklet that came with my dehydrator suggests using a pre-treatment on the apples before drying so they don't oxidize....well, I'd never heard of ascorbic acid mixtures. I knew darn well I wouldn't have any of that on my pantry shelf...and I wasn't heading to the store....so I just poured some apple juice in a bowl and soaked the apples in that. WORKED PERFECTLY! The instructions also said it would take between 4 - 10 hours to dry. I let mine go waaaay too long and they were too crisp.
Okay, so here's a shot of the end product:
For being a first attempt and too crispy, they still ended up being polished off by my crew.
My second attempt fared much better. I sliced the apples by hand - nice and thick.
Soaked them in apple juice:
Dried them for 5 hrs:
They came out nice and soft...and the batch was devoured in 2 days! Like I said...Mama needs more drying trays.
They came out nice and soft...and the batch was devoured in 2 days! Like I said...Mama needs more drying trays.
So what have you been drying?
I've been drying laundry...not nearly as tasty.
ReplyDeleteGuess I'm not getting any of these either? :)
I love my NESCO too! I dried 5 trays of chopped onions this weekend. They turned out great! It was my second time doing onions. The first time was a disaster but that was because I just wasn't thinking! Anyway, the apples look great!
ReplyDeleteI was looking at buying one of those apple corer/peelers. I didn't realize they sliced it too. I agree the curls look kinda neat, but I like to chop my own. Anyway to avoid that part of it??
ReplyDeleteOhhh Penny! What would I do without you?!
ReplyDeleteHey there Chick! Thanks for dropping in...now tell me how you dried the onions. hehe Did you put them in rings? Could you slice the whole onion to dry? Do tell...
Hiya Sue! I'm going to (ahem) read the instructions and see about fixing my apple slicing problem before pulling a MacGyver. The lady at the hardware store said she had one and it was great. Now I'm wondering what she uses the apples for...certainly NOT for all the stuff I've done so far. Oh well.
Hey, I would suggest NOT trying to do sliced onions as they don't dry well at all. Now if you wanted to separate the rings and lay them on the trays I'm sure that would work. This time though I chopped up the onions and spread them on the trays. I let them dry a few hours and then stirred them up a bit to "separate" them a little more. I did that a few times and I ended up with the same dried Chopped onions I have been buying forever. I will NEVER spend money on dried onions again!
ReplyDeleteSciFiChick: Thanks for the tips...I'll give 'er a go.
ReplyDelete