Pear-Apple Cinnamon Leather

Ingredients:

2 cups pureed ripe Pears

1 cup Applesauce ( I use unsweetened home canned Jonathan applesauce)

1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

Donna's Apricot Leather

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups pureed Apricots
1/2 cup Applesauce ( I use unsweetened home canned Jonathan applesauce)
1/4 cup Honey
1 teaspoon Cinnamon

Directions:
Rinse but do not peel apricots. Cut apricots in half and remove pits. Drop apricots with skins on them, into the blender and puree them. Pour puree into stock pot and heat thoroughly, stirring constantly. This step destroys enzymes that otherwise could blacken the puree. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. Ladle onto lightly oiled (with vegetable oil) dehydrator leather making trays. Dry until the surface is lightly tacky to the touch. Gently remove from dehydrator sheet while still warm, cut with oiled kitchen sheers, and roll up on a strip of saran wrap. Store in a ziplock bag, large lidded jar, or other kind of air tight kitchen container to store.

Do not own a dehydrator?

Oven method: Dry on lined cookie sheets in the oven on warm. Ovens warm around 180 degrees, and that is about 35 degrees hotter than a dehydrator. Check every few hours.


Sun method: Get a 12 inch wide wood plank.  Place board on two saw horses and place the saw horse feet in cans of water so ants do not crawl up the legs. Place in an area that will get sun all day.  Wrap a wire around the wood so it only touches the edges. of the wood, only.   Make a bug shield. Cut a length of mosquito netting four feet longer than the board. The length should be wide enough to sew a seam and make a long tube that will slip over the board when the wire encircling the board. Tie one end of the tube closed. Cover plank with a long strip of saran wrap. Make leather mixture and pour along the saran wrap covered plank.  If drying fruit or veggies, place on saran wrap or wax paper covered plank. Start at one end and slowly slip the netting tube around the end of the plank and over the top of the wire. The wire should keep the netting off the leather, and the netting should keep the bugs off. the food. Pull tube so netting is not touching food and tie off other end. In the afternoon, untie one end and check the food for doneness. When done, either roll up one long piece, saran wrap/wax paper and all, or cut into desired lengths and wrap and store.

Food Preservation: the Dehydration Method

Dehydrating is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. During times of drought and famine, the food would dehydrate on the vine or stem. Hungry people would glean anything they could find that was edible, even dried and withered food. They would use a pot to cook soups and stews, often keeping the pot going for days. They found that the bottom of the pot would have very concentrated flavor. They would scrape this up, dry it, and carry this dry bullion in a leather pouch with dry vegetables. They would carry this with them on the road. This would be the foundation of a nutritious soup while traveling or hunting. All that was needed was the addition of hot water.