Little Harvey

I have to thank my grandmother (who passed away last spring) yet again for her bountiful collection of STUFF (her word, not mine). It took me a U-Haul and a full Ford Expedition to haul it all home (in separate trips). And I'm not the only one who got STUFF. With my grandmother's STUFF, I have been able to partially furnish our new home, feed my family some delicious foods because I have a TON of new appliances and then serve my fabulous food on lovely silver and china.

So, who is Little Harvey you ask? Well, Little Harvey is the food dehydrator thing that I got from...guess who...Grandma. It is a monster. A thing from the past. It's about 3' deep, 18" high and 18" wide. There are 8 tray/rack things inside. You load those babies up, plug Little Harvey in and turn the thermostat to the appropriate temperature. Little Harvey's fan turns on and he just hums away (not a completely unpleasant sound, btw) until the items inside are completely shrivelled up, devoid of all moisture.

Remember the crazy 56 pounds of apples we got a couple of weeks ago. I dried a few pounds of granny smiths last week. De.li.cious. The girls and I peeled them, sliced them thinly, and then sprinkled most with cinnamon and few with a cinnamon and nutmeg. We slid the trays into Little Harvey, cranked him up to 135, and 12 hours later we had little apple slices about 1/8th the size they were originally.

The only issue related to these little bits of yummy is the danger of eating too many...remember I said they are 1/8th their original size. So I'm pretty sure the girls and I end up eating about 4 apples at a time. Oh the calories. Oh the fiber. I'm sure you all understand.

What have you been up to lately?

It's been awhile since I've blogged. We've been up to the usual stuff -- we finished up summer break WAY too fast and went back to school! It's been a super busy school year so far. I am still at the old stomping grounds and the girls started kindergarten and first grade at our neighborhood school, which is a switch for them. It's October and I will say that we are still adjusting to some things...mostly, mom is still adjusting to some things.

I had a super visit with my BFF Heather last month when she came to visit for a few days. We had tons of fun catching up --  and drank two bottles of wine on a Thursday night. I had to work the next day. It was a little unpleasant.

My current project is applesauce. The girls and I picked some fabulous fujis (FF) with our friends Tara, Colin, and Jesse last weekend. We picked 56 pounds to be precise. That is a lot of apples in case you were wondering. I just got finished processing 8 pint jars of seriously delicious apple sauce...I still have about 40 pounds of apples left. I'm thinking candied apples, dried apple rings and apple pie filling are in our future.

About the applesauce: I was pleased to discover that I could cook the FF's (with peels on) until they were very soft and then puree them in my food processor. You can't even tell I left the peels on and I was able to keep what is mostly likely the most nutritious part of the apple. The FF's are so sweet and the final product is super smooth, thick, and basically amazing.