¡hay demasiadas manzanas!
First -- thanks to you all for your supportive comments yesterday -- they mean a lot to me.
And: Do any of you have experience with solar dehydrators? Or even better: making solar dehydrators? I've got a lot of tomatoes and apples (especially apples) coming in right now, and I would love to dry them. I've got an electric food dehydrator, but it takes about 24 hours to dry 10 apples (that's how many will fit in the racks I've got.) From an electrical standpoint, that's about 1 KwH.
For this year, I'll probably keep the electric dehydrator going pretty steadily and acknowledge the electrical toll (hopefully we're heading into a month of lower usage now that it's cooled off some!) But for next year I would really dig being able to dehydrate a lot of apples and tomatoes (and peaches and pears from a neighbor) with no electrical use.
If any of you have experience with the solar dehydration or making of same, I'd love to hear about your successes and challenges!
And a neat trick I learned about from a bison-rancher this morning: dry your tomatoes and grind them in a blender to make tomato powder. Use like tomato paste in soups, chilis, and other places where you want to add some thickness and flavor! I'm looking forward to trying this, because I don't use as many dried tomatoes as I dry.
And: Do any of you have experience with solar dehydrators? Or even better: making solar dehydrators? I've got a lot of tomatoes and apples (especially apples) coming in right now, and I would love to dry them. I've got an electric food dehydrator, but it takes about 24 hours to dry 10 apples (that's how many will fit in the racks I've got.) From an electrical standpoint, that's about 1 KwH.
For this year, I'll probably keep the electric dehydrator going pretty steadily and acknowledge the electrical toll (hopefully we're heading into a month of lower usage now that it's cooled off some!) But for next year I would really dig being able to dehydrate a lot of apples and tomatoes (and peaches and pears from a neighbor) with no electrical use.
If any of you have experience with the solar dehydration or making of same, I'd love to hear about your successes and challenges!
And a neat trick I learned about from a bison-rancher this morning: dry your tomatoes and grind them in a blender to make tomato powder. Use like tomato paste in soups, chilis, and other places where you want to add some thickness and flavor! I'm looking forward to trying this, because I don't use as many dried tomatoes as I dry.