dehydrated fruit salad

The newest toy in my kitchen is the dehydrator.

I've only had it for a couple of months now, but I'm having fun experimenting with raw treats.

This post isn't really a recipe, just me sharing with you the dehydration of fruit.

I splashed out to get this because I wanted to be able to take healthy snacks and meals with us when we go hiking and camping.

Also, with the whole 'raw foods' movement - dehydration still keeps foods raw, but with that cooked feel.

If you are planning on getting a dehydrator, let me just say - it's not a quick process.

Dehydrating anything can take up to a day or two, depending on the water content of the item.

So if you are planning meals ahead - it's brilliant.

Most weekends I run the dehydrator mainly because we're barely home.

We live in an open barn and even though the machine isn't too loud, it still is a constant fan noise.

The best thing is, you can just leave the dehydrator on all day and night and not worry about the foods burning.

After coming home from the markets, I slice up a heap of fruit (about 2 cm thick) and arrange them in a single layer on the drying racks and dehydrate on the fruit setting.

This fruit salad consists of pineapple, kiwi fruit, papaw and plums.

Each fruit takes a unique drying time.

I've noticed that the kiwi fruit and plums dried in a similar time, 14 hours. 

While the papaw and pineapple took about 18 hours.

Let me know if you have a dehydrator and what you use it for.

xo