Dehydrating a Box of Peaches

Signs of autumn are everywhere and the time for summertime fruits is coming to a close.  I picked up a box of some of the last peaches of the year at the farmers market this weekend for $26.  They were perfectly ripe and wonderfully sweet and I ate as many as I could fresh out of the box.  I have lots of jars of canned fruits in storage this year, so in an attempt to save space I decided to store this box by dehydrating them.  My dehydrator is limited by the number of trays that I have, so this endeavor took several days to work through the whole box.

One by one the peaches were washed, peeled, pitted and sliced.  I like my dried fruit a little chewy so I try to make the slices a little thick when I prepare them for dehydrating.  I laid them out on the trays as closely packed as possible and then stacked the trays up to dry.

The thicker slices take a little longer to dry, but most of them were done after about 24 hours.  Anything that wasn't totally dry by that time was promptly eaten.  When it was all said and done I had myself five quart jars filled with the sweetest, most delicious dried peaches I have ever tasted.  They will be great pick me ups on long hikes and I bet they would make some excellent peach cobbler when they are reconstituted.