Fruit leather

I LOVE my Excalibur dehydrator. I use it frequently for yogurt making and have also used it to dry pears, peaches, and even bucket lids we were washing & drying for our wheat storage.  I've even heard of people using it to dry boots (but...yuck...I'm kind of a germ freak...)

Today my Super-Husband found a smokin' deal on strawberries.  I've never seen them cheaper than .99/lb so we picked up 20 pounds.  I froze two cookie sheets full (later to be used for smoothies), saved 3 pounds for eating for breakfast, and made fruit leather with the rest.

I have a really easy recipe for the fruit leather.  The thing is, you can stretch out your fruit with apple or pear sauce so you don't have to have only one fruit in the leather.  Neat, right?  But, don't worry--you can also just use one fruit and I'm sure that would be very tasty, too.  It's a forgiving recipe because if it's too watery, it just takes longer to dehydrate.  No biggie. 

FRUIT LEATHER

4 cups applesauce
2 cups strawberries (or other fruit)
3/4 cups water

Put all ingredients in blender and blend thoroughly.  Pour into dehydrator trays so it's about 1/8" to 1/4" thick.  You need to have the mats they sell for your dehydrator that are meant for liquid items, or you can line your trays with plastic wrap or parchment paper.  Set at 115 degrees and dry for 8-10 hours.  Drying it at a temperature below 116 degrees will preserve the enzymes which are super healthy.

You can add sugar to sweeten these up, but why?  If you must, consider an alternative sweetener like agave, stevia, raw sugar, or fruit juice.  Refined sugars are bad, bad, bad.  (I use white sugar sometimes, but only when we're making a treat.  I'd like to wean us from that.)

Mine are in the dehydrator right now.  I made some with plastic, some with parchment paper.  I also made some with just straight strawberries.  I'll let you know how they turn out in the morning!

Also see www.simplylivingsmart.com or www.greensmoothiegirl.com for more inspirational food ideas!

NEXT DAY UPDATE:  I just looked at my fruit leather and discovered some things that need improving.  First, if you are using an alternative to the mats that come with your dehydrator, use plastic wrap but avoid parchment paper.  Perhaps wax paper would work, but trust me, parchment paper does not.

Second, I would go for at least 1/4" thickness.  I was leaning towards 1/8" but mine got paper thin.  It still tastes great but it is VERY thin.  It's pretty much strawberry paper.

Third, the applesauce trick worked great!  It took on the strawberry taste and stretched the strawberries much further.

Overall, it was a success!