March 31, 2009

Dehydrated Strawberries


I was at the grocery store when I noticed a display case of strawberries marked down to 75 cents per pound. I grabbed 4 and on the way home pondered what to do with my bounty. I decided to try dehydrating them.
It worked so well! I wish I would have been able to find my egg slicer, but I think I threw it out on my last kitchen purge, so I cut them up the slow way.
Here are the steps I followed
1. Spray strawberries with white vinegar and rinse.
2. Hull Strawberries (Remove the section with the leaves.)
3. Slice strawberries. I sliced them about 1/8 of an inch thick. I have read to do up to 1/4 inch. They dry a lot faster if they are thin, but they take up more room in your dehydrator.
4. Lay the strawberries out carefully but not touching.
5. Set dehydrator to 135 and let dehydrate for 4-5 hours. You can set it lower, they will just take longer. They are done when they are still slightly pliable, but no longer squishy. Some of the thinner ones were almost crisp.
6. Place all strawberries in a jar and put a lid on shake every few hours so the hydration of all strawberries evens out.
Use as a snack, in granola, cereal, or however you would like. In waffles, pancakes. Oh the possibilities are endless.
I also dehydrated some bananas that were about to move past their prime. Exact same steps, but add a soak in lemon juice or spray with lemon juice. I soaked mine and I can taste the lemon juice so next time I will just lightly spray them
.
Now that I can make strawberry season last all year, I can't wait for it to begin.

3 comments:

Courtney said...

YUMMY!

Courtney said...

What about storing them? How long can you keep them in the jar? Do you have to seal the jar? What about freezing them? We did some apples and pears last year and my hubbie put them in Ziplocs. Is that okay?

Heidi said...

I have a foodsaver with the jar attachment to suck the oxygen out of the jar. Dehydrated foods, as long as they are properly dehydrated, will last almost indefinitely. Their enemies are light, oxygen, heat and moisture. Reducing exposure to any of these things will increase their shelf life. I usually estimate optimum shelf life to be about 1 year, but I know I have eaten things older than that they and they have tasted fine. Probably not quite as nutritious, but the tasted fine! Ziplocs are okay, I prefer glass because it reduces air transfer, and well because I prefer glass.