Apple drying season

 Earlier this afternoon I picked a load of windfall apples off the garden.  I hadn't planned to deal with them until tomorrow but suddenly had the urge to get out my apple machine and dehydrator. So I spent a lovely  hour prepping the apples for the dehydrator.

It makes short work of peeling, coring and slicing the apples but sometimes it misses a bit so I need to do a bit of trimming before they are ready to dry

To stop them going brown I pop them into a bowl of water to which I add a good slug of vinegar while I finish  preparing them all.

I give them a quick rinse and separate them into half rings before I load up the trays of my dehydrator and leave it to do its magic.  It will take about ten hours before they are ready and then I will pop them into a large jar. They are lovely as snacks but also really useful to keep for winter crumbles. I'll rehydrate them with a carton of apple or orange juice rather than water and it gives them a lovely rich sweetness.

Last Autumn I sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar before drying and oh my goodness they were lovely.  This first batch are simply being dried naked but the next batch might well get a sprinkle of either cinnamon or ginger powder. 

Tony reckons they look like large grubs 

Tomorrow we plan to go out foraging for plums, elderberries, blackberries and rosehips if the weather is ok.  We also spotted what might be a walnut tree so we will go and take a look to see if it is.   The apples on our own tree are usually starting to ripen at the end of September so we will have some lovely apples towards the end of the month. It would be lovely to be able to harvest hazelnuts but unfortunately the squirrels get to them before we do.