Thursday, October 11, 2012

Apples—the story of my week

A few weeks ago, my Mom brought me a big box of apples.  I put them in my laundry room and tried not to notice them when I did a load of laundry.  But I thought about them!  I didn’t want them to go to waste but I didn’t know what to do with them.  My very nice neighbor suggested that I dry them!  Great idea!  I bought a dehydrator and a corer, peeler, slicer thingie and got to work!

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This is what the box looked like after 4 batches in the dehydrator.  I had enough for one more batch.

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The apples needed a good scrub and a de-leafing and de-stemming.  Are those even words?

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Then they took a spin on this fantastic machine!  What a time-saver.  Can you imagine peeling, coring and slicing each apple?  It would have taken me weeks!

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Awesome little machine!

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Brynn was a little helper—she very willingly ate all the ends of the apples.  Nora helped too!

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Here’s the pile of skins and cores. 

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The key to good dehydrated apples is soaking them for at least 5 minutes in a mixture of lemon juice and water.  It keeps them from browning.

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This is the first layer of apple slices on the dehydrator.  I didn’t let them touch because that would have added to the drying time.

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To make them extra yummy, I dusted the tops with cinnamon.

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Yes, I know it’s kind of silly to post a picture of the actual dehydrator—but here it is!

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After 4-5 hours, here’s the finished product.  The best part of this experience was having a house that smelled exactly like fall all week—appley, cinnamony goodness!

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Corban won’t eat them, but the girls are in love!  Nora has a mouthful!

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I feel very domestic!  I may just do it again next year. 

2 comments:

Jan said...

Looks yummy! I'm glad it all worked! You =are=domestic!!
xoxo

Micah said...

How cool is this! I love seeing the whole process. I've never dehydrated anything, so I learned a lot here. Like soaking them, cinnamon, etc. Where did you learn all of these gems of wonder?!

You can package them in a Food Saver and put them in your food storage! But they look yummy enough to just eat them now...