Quote:
Originally Posted by loeb
I had no idea that blueberries could be turn in fruit leather!  fruit leather is great, I discovered it last year and made some with kale and bananas.. But I had a problem with strawberry one, it kinda fermented before it dried:/ I like to roll that sheets and cut it then into a small pieces, like a candies. They keep well in glass jars with good metal lid on. |
I found anything with sugar makes fine leather. Blueberries are about the best, but dreadfully expensive. The leather must be absolutely dry if keeping long term at room temperature. It can be made more soft if stored in the freezer or for a shorter period if simply stored in the refrigerator. If some produce wont leather then it can be powdered. Excellent for travel and/or camping.
Vegetables as powder are absolutely wonderful. I will make several batches of vegetables this year.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?JBAOD 22 July 2012.Preserving Garden Vegetables by Dehydrating.
All produce currently available in the garden was chosen. Carrots,basil,purslane,green beans,green peppers,parsnips,turnip,tomato,cabbage,egg plant,beets,cucumber,Walla Walla onion,Black Russian potatoes,and okra.Processing was almost identical for all produce, which is, cut into small pieces and blend in a tall cyclinder to a fine mash,then place in the mixing pot. A five gallon pail about twenty litre capacity,was used for the mixing pot. The quantity of material processed was about nine litres. The sample of the chopping, depicts the process for the cucumber. Preliminary preparation done outside on the picnic table, since processing can be messy. No water was added,all the produce was reduced in its own juices. This is possible with the hand blender, but impossible in a container blender.About a litre of material was placed on teflon pans, smoothed evenly, and placed in the Excalibur dehydrator set at 135F\57C initially for ten hours. Time was increased as necessary to get the material dry enough to move to the open mesh for complete dying. Always move to open mesh as soon as the materiel can be handled conveniently. The dried mixture is vacuum packed for storage and is reconstituted by adding boiling water.This particular batch has a most pleasant flavour.Apparently this method of preserving is the most nutrition retentive of all the current conventional methods. The process is relatively simple and straightforward.