Hi everyone!! It’s been awhile – and for that I’m sorry! I’ve been so busy this summer enjoying every last second with my kids that I’ve made a conscience effort to step back from my blog. It’s been a breath of fresh air actually – just taking a break. I’ve really needed the time to think and just listen to the Lord speak into my life.
My summer has been great! I hope yours has been too! We’ve enjoyed tons of time with our family and friends, doing fun crafts – like making homemade chalk (I’ll discuss this in a later post – it was AWESOME!), spending much-needed time with cousins, lots of runs through the neighborhood and of course, tons of swimming! My adorable neighbor across the street blessed with me with a hand-me-down food dehydrator and I’m trying it out today! Which is what this post is really about actually – so Katrina, stop rambling all about ‘what you did this summer’….seriously!
We were at the grocery store this morning and there was an awesome deal on ripe bananas – as well as a of bags of discount apples. All a sudden I remembered that my neighbor said I could have her old dehydrator and viola! We purchased about 3lbs of bananas and a couple pounds of apples and as soon as we got home we started prepping the bananas for the dehydrator. I had the bright idea that I should spray the apples with lemon juice using a small water bottle instead of hand-dipping each one – just seemed a lot faster, and on a day like today, when I still have to find a place for a ton of cereal that I bought with some HOT coupons for super cheap this morning, I don’t have time to waste! Plus, my daughter has a friend coming over soon and my oldest has a baseball game in a few hours! I’m happy to report that it took less than 3o minutes to slice, arrange, and spray about 3lbs of bananas. My dehydrator only has 4 trays, and I filled them all up, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to process the apples. I’m super excited for how quick and easy this process was! I set the temperature to 135 degrees and I guess they should be done in about 10 hours.
This is a great way to use up those over-ripe bananas that your kids think are too mushy to eat! We tend to have a lot of those each week – seems like I never know what fruit my kids will want to eat and the poor bananas get ripe so fast! The ripe ones will taste a lot sweeter too! I plan to try blueberries soon and of course the apples! So excited! I love new ideas like this and also love finding frugal and fun ways to stretch every dollar – especially with our food budget!
How To Make Dehydrated Bananas
You will need:
- 3-5lbs of ripe bananas (depends on who big your dehydrator is)
- Food dehydrator
- Small spray bottle
- Juice from one lemon or 2 Tbs of bottled lemon juice
- Peel and slice the bananas the same thickness so they dry evenly – 1/4″ is perfect
- Place bananas in single layer on dehydrator trays
- Spray bananas with lemon juice
- Turn on the dehydrator and set to 135 degrees
- Check bananas in 5 hours and consider flipping over (again depends on the design of your dehydrator)
- Cook for a total of 10 hours until bananas are no longer mushy to the touch.
- Store in an air-tight bag or container.
Easy, fun, frugal, and so yummy! Enjoy!
