I was helping with the cake cafe after school the other day and when it was time to clean up they were getting rid of anything that might go off over half term.
I managed to bag us 10 bottles of milk and a bag of apples before I asked what was happening to all the pears in the baskets outside the key stage one classrooms. No way would they keep for a week over half term in that warm school, some had started to turn already.
I managed to get a big full bag of them. I felt rather tight taking them but hate to see anything go to waste and our pear trees haven't produced this year.
As soon as we got home I set to work slicing them up and putting them on trays for the dehydrator.
I only had enough to fill about 6 trays, so to save having empty ones I added a few trays of apples and tinned pineapples. The dried tinned pineapple is a particular favourite of mine, better than sweets!
The pears taste amazing, I can't see them lasting very long! I have lots of windfall apples I'm going to dehydrate yet so the dehydrator is going to be running for a while!
I also have a talk for a garden club coming up on preserving, what would you want to hear about in a talk like that?
Do you have any funny preserving stories or anecdotes?
When a little girl my canned green beans won Champion at the county 4H Fair then a blue ribbon at the Indiana State Fair. No one knew there was a long string in them I had covered up with the label on the jar. Didn't effect the taste and got a congratulatory letter from a Senator. It had been a crazy morning (that July almost 60 years ago)older sister had burned the bottom of her crescent rolls and was crying and no time to make more so I was busy scraping the char off the bottom. She won second. Neighbor girl didn't have anything to exhibit so Mom gave her a jar of my sister's applesauce. She won blue and my sister won 2nd. All from the same pot. Just proves we learn, we grow, we overcome and make memories. Peg in Florida
ReplyDeleteHaha! Love it! What great memories to share with your siblings. I'm sure your neighbour remembers it as well! What did the string taste like 😉
DeleteI love dried pears! And I do the same at school- it all just gets composted otherwise (or binned if it's milk) and nobody else wants them...
ReplyDeleteGlad to know I'm not the only one! I just hate waste! And love pears...
DeleteYou should talk to your garden club about exactly what you demonstrated above. That preserving doesn't have to always result from something you have grown or produced at home, but that it can be simply preventing something from going to waste. Like fermenting the extra bag of carrots you got 'buy one free' at the market. Or making and freezing pesto from the basil that was leftover from making your special pizza. Or drying those leftover herbs instead of letting them go moldy in the refrigerator. Somehow that seems a less daunting start to preserving for some.
ReplyDeleteI agree and to be honest a lot of what I preserve isn't always grown at home. When I make a Chutney I've never got enough onions to make it. It's great to preserve things I got cheap. Thanks!
DeleteWhy not talk about dehydrating garden produce? My parents previous home had a wonderful plum tree that produced free-stone fruit late in Summer. They would dehydrate sliced plums and send them to me to munch on. A definite fave of mine!
ReplyDeleteMichelle in Wellington, NZ
The kids are obsessed with dehydrated food, i think they'll always be munching on dried apples! Such a favourite of theirs. Maybe one day I'll be sending them in the mail like that! Lovely story!
DeleteBack in the 1940s and 50s my maternal grandmother used to take dried apple slices on their yacht, then add water to reconstitute the apples for breakfast. Children of a friend liked the apples but not "the toenails in them"!
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