Fruit Leathers

Today I finally tried out my food dehydrator that has been sitting on my kitchen counter for about two months now! I even sat down and read the book that came with it so I'm very excited to try some more things in the upcoming future, but today I tried something really easy--fruit leathers (or "fruit roll-ups" as the brand name goes.) I didn't take pictures along the way, but I did take them of the finished product.

I did one plain strawberry--for my picky girl, and then I did two more with strawberries, banana and vanilla yogurt added to it. I have to say after tasting the strawberry/banana, I think that the plain strawberry will be better! There was too strong of a banana taste. It was fine, but I don't know how my kids will like it. I think they'll love the plain one, though.

My "recipe" for the plain one was 5 strawberries and a tiny bit of water (didn't measure it) and a tiny squeeze of agave in the Vita Mix and pureed. Pour it on a paraflex sheet for a food dehydrator and spread it (thinner in the middle so the outside edges don't get brittle.) Put it in the dehydrator for 6-8 hours on 135 degrees. (Although it's still considered raw because even though the air temp gets hotter than 118 degrees, the food doesn't.) It took 6 hours for the plain one because there was less liquid. My "recipe" for the other was one banana (maybe do only 1/2 if you want the banana flavor--would probably be better), 6-7 strawberries, 3 to 4 spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt, and a tiny squeeze of agave. Puree in the Vita Mix and pour. This made two leathers.

After it was done. These took about 8 hours because they had more liquid in them.

Then I rolled them up in plastic wrap (probably really bad, but we plan on eating them tomorrow) to keep them fresh. I need to figure out a better way of storing--maybe parchment paper??

One thing that I do think is essential, though, is to have a good dehydrator. I got an Excalibur which is top of the line, but I was told it was worth it. I think that's probably true. Now I've never made these with any other dehydrator, but I was told by others that they had trouble getting their's to dry evenly--some parts were chewy while others were hard and brittle--and that they had trouble with them breaking while trying to get off the sheets. I didn't have any of this, and it was our first time (plus, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing!!) So with total ease, we pulled this off, and they are a great snack for the kids and something different than just pulling out the strawberries or bananas again.