Yesterday at 4:10pm I put in three trays of three different flavors of fruit puree to make fruit leather. Today at 7:10am they were finally ready to pull out of the dehydrator.

The reason why they needed to stay in over night is because I keep my dehydrator at one of the lowest settings. You could make anything from beef jerky, dried herbs, dehydrated chips and so on with a dehydrator because it has so many settings and can slowly dry a massive list of items. Since I am interested in keeping my food alive and undamaged I had my dehydrator set at 95ºF (the herbs setting on my machine).

The beauty of making something like fruit leather at home is I made it myself, I used all organic items, there are no additives or preservatives, I used zero salt or fillers, it’s good for you and it can be fun coming up with flavors and designs. It’s an easy clean up too, the teflon sheets I purchased took just 3 minutes or so to clean all three.

(Blue/Purple is Blueberry Lavender, Pink is Just Strawberry and the Orange-Brown is Cinnamon Pear)

Here’s a few other ideas that may surprise you on how a dehydrator can be used:

• Bread Making
• Pasta
• Raw fried tasty & looking food
• Crackers & Chips
• Cookies
• Pie crust
• Apple sauce
• Drying Photographs
• Homemade granola
• Composting Aid
• Humidifier
• Preserving food
• Candy bars
• Air Freshener
• Hot Sauce
• Dressings/Marinades
• Beat up produce
• Washing and Drying Trays
• Kitchen Dryer

Out of the three flavors I made I am the most satisfied with the Cinnamon Pear fruit leather. The texture is perfect, it really makes me yank in a satisfying way and the taste is superb. It reminds me of the fall, the battle with ourselves, the weather and the smells & tastes of this time of the year.

With eating raw there are textures or sensations from eating that I miss, and using a dehydrator & other raw kitchen tools usually help produce that feeling. Some people enjoy comfort foods, crispy food and so on. I usually miss things that remind me of my childhood, sweets and texture.

The Blueberry Lavender one was a bit much for me. I am not really a huge fan of lavender in the first place or any flowery flavors to be honest. But I thought it was something worth testing out.

The Just Strawberry fruit peels are awesome, nice and simple, not too sweet and they were even still a little juicy which was awesome at least to me. I like that it managed to keep true to one of its most common characteristics & somehow getting on my face.

I did these three flavors because I wanted each tray to taste completely different. If I am going to make fruit leather and I know how long it is going to take to make them, especially when I have a 4 tray dehydrator and not a 12 then I want to cover as many different flavors as I can.

Some other flavor ideas I have for fruit leathers are; blackberry lime, pineapple ginger, golden apple, mango and lemon, vanilla banana, dates with plums, peach, orange-pineapple-mango and many more!

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