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.