My little ones and I love dried fruit. We don't love the expensive price, extra sugar, and preservatives, found in most commercial varieties. Making your own dehydrated snacks is easy and very nutritious. I still need to save up for my dream dehydrator, the Excalibur. In the meantime, my in-law's are very graciously letting me borrow their Excalibur dehydrator, on occasion. It was so easy to use and made such tasty snacks!
1. Gather ripened fruits or vegetables.
My husband picked up about 7 pounds of bananas for .39 cents a pound. Sometimes, we can find over-ripe bananas, locally, for only .19 cents a pound! We also used one bag of apples.
2.Slice Fruits or Vegetables.
3. Place Slices on Dehydrator Tray.
4. Dry fruit
I dried my fruit at 105 degrees, which took longer than normal, but it helped to ensure that all of the enzymes were intact. Enzymes are the life force within foods, which aid us in digestion. Dehydrators cost about 3-5 cents an hour, so running them for a few hours longer didn't cost much.
The fruit turned out to be nice and chewy.
5. Enjoy your Goodies!
Unfortunately, most of these snacks were gone after just one day! I plan on making a bunch of dried fruit for my little ones, for upcoming trips. It is a great way to eat healthier and frugally, while traveling!
For more frugal tips, visit Life As Mom.
3 Comments:
I love to dehydrate, I bought my Excalibur 5 tray(I wanted the 10, but they were too expensive) off eBay for $75. It was such a blessing, it was basically new and had the book with it too. I tried to do the raw diet, but I just could not afford to do it 100%:( I love Alissa Cohen book and DVD, she has wonderful recipes. I love eating the flax seed crackers with guacamole!!!
I have always wanted to try a dehydrator, but the price tag is out of my league. I love the way you can make healthy snacks though.
I would like to invite you to the Fantastic Frugal Fridays blog party . It is a great place to link up your frugal posts of all kinds, and connect with new frugal friends.
Back in Nov. I borrowed my parents dehydrator so that I too could dry out some fruit for our THanksgiving Trip. My Dad likes to dry out fruit as a health snack. I don't like the store prices either. SO much cheaper to do it myself. :o)
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