What a Fabulous Idea: The Apple Dust Especially

This is from the blog site: One Tomato, Two tomato. Thanks to the blogger. Apparently you can do this with the skins taken off tomatoes when you are slipping them in order to can them. What a great idea!

Dried Apples and Apple Dust

I am constantly creating new healthy items that are easy to pop into lunches or have for snacks.  Since it’s the middle of winter, my local apple orchard isn’t exactly open.  But my coop had several bags of “seconds” organic apples for only 99¢ a pound.  Time to fire up the dehydrator.

My latest endeavor is apple dust and dried apples.  I got the idea for apple dust from drying leftover tomato skins from canning.  The skins are dried in the oven, then pulverized, and used to sprinkle on pasta, pizza, rice and beans.  Why not do the same for apple peels?  My dust (more like bran) had a lovely pink color from the apple varieties I used and a light apple flavor.  The best part of the dust is the kick of fiber, antioxidants and nutrients found in apple peels.  Don’t let them go to waste!  I like to add apple powder to yogurt, oatmeal, pancakes and muesli. The actual dried apples were pretty good, too.  They barely lasted a week in my house.

What I do With My Tomatoes – Canning and More Canning

2014-table-of-tomatoes  Here is a picture of one day’s harvest of tomatoes, which finally started ripening, (I swear in our neck of the woods it’s a fall crop now). I canned 31 quarts of tomatoes, so far and there will be many more2014-canned-tomatoes-2.

I like to do it this way because I can use them for just about anything, sauces, as an ingredient in a recipe, pepper steak, even soup. I mix all the colors together which I think is very pretty and strengthens the flavors, making it more complex.2014-canned-tomatoes