I hit up the farmers market today - I LOVE the farmers market. Especially here in San Diego, it seems like there is always something super yummy in season - all year. Today's find was apricots.
And to make it a zillion times better they were free! I was wondering around in the last 10 minutes before closing and I was totally prepared to pay for them, but they were a little on the squishy side from being in the sun all day, so they just gave them to me.
I'm sure you're thinking "a little on the squishy side... ick," but it's ok that they were a bit soft because I was buying them to make fruit leather! I didn't need them to be perfect solid fruits because I was planning to cook them down to squishy goodness anyways.
I also bought fresh cucumbers, kale, green onions, strawberries and pesto-jack cheese. All was locally grown/made. I love it! I bought my very own kale plant, too, so I can grow it at home. As much as I get excited about what the farmers market has to offer, I find growing my own veggies to be so much more fulfilling and exciting and yummy and convenient.
Anyways, I'm getting off topic. Fruit leather. The stuff is awesomely yummy, a great snack and healthy for you - as long as you don't buy the sugar laden crap from the store. So I spent 30 minutes of my time today to make a big batch for the next couple weeks. Now I'm impatiently waiting for it to dry out in my oven so I can begin eating it. To help with the wait, I'm going to tell you how amazingly easy it is to have some fruit leather of your own.
Side bar: this works for just about any kind of fruit, not only apricots. Though, I would remove the skin on tough skinned fruits (i.e. apples) and for fruits with hard little seeds (strawberries, raspberries) I recommend pushing them through a mesh sieve after pureeing.
Side bar #2: If you have a dehydrator you could use that instead of the oven, and then you don't have to stay home while the oven is on. I'm not that cool, so I just use my oven.
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Ingredients
4 cups of apricots
1 quick squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Sweetener: sugar, agave syrup, honey (optional)
Making the magic
Preheat your over to 150°F - or the lowest setting your oven has.
Wash, pit and quarter the apricots.
Add apricots and lemon juice to a pan and cook on medium low until the apricots begin to get juicy and squishy, 15-20 minutes or so.
Turn off the heat and let everything cool down a little.
Dump everything into a food processor and puree until liquefied.
Taste it, if you like it as it is move on. If it's too tart, add your sweetener of choice. If you use a granulated sugar, put over the heat again for a little to fully dissolve the sugar.
Use a cookie sheet with an edge, and line it with parchment paper or one of those nifty silicon things. Do not use wax paper or foil as alternatives.
Spread out your puree in the cookie sheet, about 1/4 thick.
Put it in the oven and wait. And wait. And wait some more. It will take most of the day.
But when it's done, it's so worth the wait.
