speaking of drying things

Recently, I shared how we've been drying apples.  Lots and lots of apples. They make a terrific snack to grab and go.  

Hubby, apparently now adventurous with food keeps suggesting other things to try and dry.  So I tried pears.  I tried three times and no matter how long I dried them they were a little hard and chewy.  The taste is great, but they aren't as enjoyable as the apples.

Then I tried pear apples and they turned out better.  The fruit itself looked like an apple but tasted like a pear.  When dried, they were slightly less hard and chewy and tasted like a pear.  I believe that's what is in the lid in the above picture.  I will dry some more in the next batch, but wouldn't do a whole batch of them.  The kids don't choose them over the apples.  I still dried these on the wire rack in the oven at 175 for 10ish hours. 

Then I tried tomatoes.  They taste just like sun dried tomatoes.  I forgot I don't really care for sun dried tomatoes.  They are just so sweet. Too sweet for me. 

I dried them on the wire rack in the oven at 175 for  hours.  I believe there were like half of those hours I was home and I propped the oven door slightly ajar with a skewer for some air circulation.

 I used tomatoes that had turned red indoors from my end of the garden green pick.  They all live in my basement in trays.  

 Still, apples are the favorite (the full method is here).  Next on the list is zucchini.  Actually, here's what's going on the racks today, or as much as will fit.  Zucchini and apple pears and apples.  These apples were only 50 cents a pound!  I tried honey crisp during a recent batch and they were extra tasty. But we decided they were not extra tasty enough to not eat them fresh.  They are far superior to other apples fresh and that's where we're keeping those.  Being triple the cost, we decided you get the most bang for your buck fresh.

I saw drying zucchini on pinterest.  They are from this blog, Walnut Spinney.   It's a blog I want to go back and look at further.  I think there are going to be other great ideas there.