The Apple Dryer

We had an abundance of apples last year, prompting John to build a solar food dryer so we could have another way of preserving the bounty.

So, according to The Law of Natural Perversity -- what, you never learned this one in school? The L of NP says: If you drop an open-face peanut butter sandwich, it will land face down.

As a corollary to this law, we have this: If a handy man builds a cider press and a solar food dryer one year and purchases a handy-dandy apple peeler/slicer/corer, there will be no apples on his trees that same year.

There weren't. Not on our trees. But there were local apples for sale at a good price and John has been busy drying apples.

The handy-dandy gadget is really pretty nifty -- it makes quick work of turning an apple into nice, thin, dryer-ready slices.

And the solar dryer (which can be aided by a light bulb at night or on cloudy days) produces lovely leathery dried apples -- full of concentrated sweetness and perfect for snacking or fried pies or maybe Clytie's Apple Stack Cake.

What I find amazing is that five pounds of apples, once cut and dried, can fit into two of these quart size bags. One needs to remember that as one keeps dipping into that bag for one more sweet slice.