Some of the asparagus in the Midwest is "feral" having escaped form planted crops years ago. I know my mother in law used to harvest asparagus from her local cemetery borders that got there somehow from farms having planted it in the 19th century.
My mom and dad went through the Great Depression in an old farmhouse in Idaho, and they had asparagus growing there. The house had originally been a stopover for the stagecoach in the early days (from what we were told), so it is hard to guess how long the asparagus had been there when my folks lived there. Years later, in the 70’s, we lived on the same property, and the asparagus came up each year, and spread. We once tried to dig some up, but the roots must have gone al the way to China, they were so deep. Unfortunately, we never found it each spring until it had grown tall enough to see it, so we barely harvested any to eat by that point.
I have a quart of fresh peaches and a quart of fresh pineapple puréed and waiting in the refrigerator, and making some yogurt for the roll-ups tomorrow. If they turn out good, this should be an easy and healthy way for me to preserve some fruit and yogurt, and taste good, too. I borrowed a kindle book on dehydrating foods, so that will be my reading project for tonight. (I LOVE my Kindle Unlimited subscription ! )
I know this gos back a year or two or three …..I’m sure my dehydrator book says mash kiwi fruit …I will try looking it up latter …. @John Brunner
Has anyone tried sliced orange dried ? I used to dry orange slices then dip one end in chocolate for gift giving I haven’t done it for ages cause I have to buy the oranges and it works out fairly unless you have them growing Our trees are bare at the moment cause it’s winter here
@Kate Ellery That's interesting about blending kiwi. I'd like to see what your book says. I just bought some and am struggling with leaving the peel or or off...some folks dehydrate them with the peel on. I thought the peel was inedible. Regarding oranges: The other day I specifically looked for them in my book's fruit chart and they are not listed, nor are lemons or limes. I thought their water content might be too high for this. I've known folks to candy the peel (there's a term for it that escapes me), but not the fruit.
I dried 1# of pineapple spears I bought at ALDI and got a yield of 2.4oz. I did not dry these to a crisp as I did the veggies (it's still "leathery"), and the weight loss was still 85%. After I do a whole fresh pineapple I'll post the cost comparisons to buying the already dried stuff so that @Tony Page and I know, at least for this item. I did not treat the pineapple before dehydrating it (I didn't really think to), but I just threw 5 sliced bananas in to dehydrate overnight and treated them with some citric acid I have on hand to clean my coffee maker. I'll likely use the citric acid as my routine fruit pre-treatment, because (as I said elsewhere) while bottled lemon juice has a factory-consistent ph level, it also contains sodium bisulphite as its own preservative. I'm not real concerned about it...and even citric acid has its detractors. Reading some of the internet comments about these preservatives makes me feel worse than actually eating them.
Photo of the .. hint in my Dehydrator book regarding Bananas and Kiwi fruit @John Brunner I’ll go look what mine says about drying sliced orange / lemons
Notice it mentions I my book for dried yoghurt …..any fruit But Kiwi Fruit ….has anyone tried mixing those 2 to find out what happens …maybe it’s because kiwi is so watery …
@Kate Ellery Thank you for posting all that. I posted elsewhere that I tried making watermelon rollups by blending it, but it was nothing but water and no pulp. Perhaps kiwi might be the same...but banana??? Regarding kiwi+yogurt...I know that kiwi has an enzyme that breaks down meat. I believe kiwi is either used directly as a tenderizer or it is a component of tenderizers...or perhaps both. There may be some type of bad reaction between kiwi & yogurt because of this. Thanks for the post on citrus fruits. What's funny is that my guide has instructions for watermelon, and that fruit's water content is as least as much as oranges, etc. And at the end of the guide there are tips listing the best time of the year to acquire each food item for dehydrating...citrus fruits (grapefruit, lemons, limes, oranges and tangerines) are listed under December. Now I suspect there was just some oversight. My general impression of the Excalibur guide has always been that there was not a lot of professional proofreading before it went to press.
I tried watermelon @John Brunner to me it was a waste of time ….it was not to our liking it was chewy / tasteless experiment
I made a comment about watermelon somewhere in this thread a couple of years ago. I saw a video where a guy made watermelon rollups or something like that, so I tried it. After I ran the melon through the blender, it was nothing but pink water...there was no pulp. I posted a comment on the vid to that effect, and he replied that you gotta get "the right variety of watermelon." He never mentioned that in the vid, nor did he specify the variety in his reply to me.