How Expensive is Air, Really?

Apples for $2/lb.  Dried apples for $4.29/lb.  Once you step into a grocery store, air becomes rather expensive. 

Here's how to not pay for air.  Get some apples - the size does not matter. So, see if there are some smaller, odd-shaped apples in the clearance section.  We are lucky enough to have an apple tree in our backyard.  When we thin the tree to enable the tree to focus its energy on the remaining apples, we weren't sure what to do with those premature apples we plucked.  Drying them is the perfect solution.



Take about a dozen apples.  I used to waste 1/2 a day coring, peeling and slicing them by hand.  Then I discovered something that had been around for centuries—an apple peeler.  Before I went to work one day, I ordered one on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Apple-Potato-Peeler/dp/B0000DE2SS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343015245&sr=8-1&keywords=apple+peeler).  On my way home from work, I swung by an Orange County Womens Republican Federated (www.ocfrw.org/) annual garage sale in my grandmother's backyard.  I take two steps in and my mother walks up with an apple peeler for $2 and says, "I don't know what this is, but it looks like something you would use."  Patience is a bitch.

Back to the matter at hand.  Core, peel and slice the apples. 

Put them in a bowl of cold water with about 1/4 of a cup of lemon juice.  Let the apples sit in the bowl for at least 20 minutes.  If they're in there for less than 20 minutes, they will brown and have a higher potential of rotting.  If you leave them in there longer than 30 minutes, they will be soggy and take forever to dry.

After 20-30 minutes, take the apples out of the bowl of lemon-water.  Slice each apple so that each ring is sliced.  Place one layer of apple rings per tier of your dehydrator.  Let them dry for about 8 hours—this is what makes dried apples very expensive, the application of air.