This summer has produced a bumper crop of fruit for this area and a friend of mine had plenty of extra to share. I was given a large box of nearly ripe apricots a couple of weeks ago, and they have been sitting patiently in my fridge ever since. I finally found some time to process the ones that were still good and I decided to dehydrate this batch. The fruits were very small, but tasty and I simply sliced them in half to remove the pit, dipped them in a honey/ lemon juice/ water mixture and laid them out on the dehydrator to dry. The lemon juice and honey help preserve the color of the fruit as they dry as well as add a little extra sweetness to the finished product.
I filled all four trays of the dehydrator with the halved fruit pressed inside out and let it dry at 130 degrees overnight. The next morning I was able to squeeze all four trays of fruit into one quart jar. Talk about saving space and weight!. I think it was a third of the box that filled the trays, so about 8 pounds of fruit reduced to just a few ounces.
These dried apricots will become snacking food for hiking, camping and road trips. If I wanted to, I could reconstitute them and make jam or add them to dishes too. My plan is to finish off the rest of the box as soon as I can since they probably won't last much longer.
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