Sunday 15 June 2014

Watermelon...

One of the things I have been wanting to try for ages, is dehydrated watermelon. Even in season over here, they are not necessarily cheap but I bought one to try. I wasn't at all sure how thick/thin to cut my slices, as the depth in on-line recipes, seems to range anywhere from 1/8" to 1" - very confusing for a novice.

Anyway, mine are probably around 1/4cm thick so we shall see:
Aren't they a beautiful colour? I am using all 6 trays this time and will rotate them, just to be on the safe side. Drying times vary as well, anywhere from 4 - 18 hours, hopefully for this thickness, the earlier times will be about right - wrong, they took 10 hours.

After filling all the trays I was left with 1 1/2 cereal bowls of melon which we shall eat today. Then I looked at all the rind and thought "what a waste", so went on-line to look at various recipes to use it.

There are both sweet and pickled recipes out there, but I finally settled on this one as she mentions it is delicious with plain yoghurt, which we make at least once a week. You need to move down to find it!

The green part and any remains of the pink flesh were duly cut off and here is is, sitting in half the quantity of sugar to draw out the juices:
Well here it is, all one jar of it:

It isn't a jam as it doesn't set, more like fruit in a very sweet sauce.  A complete waste of time and more importantly electricity. It took 2 hours to cook. I shan't be making that again but I like to experiment just in case.

As to the watermelon, here is half of it dehydrated:

It is still pretty and not too bad a taste. We could scoff that in a couple of handfuls making it too expensive to contemplate making again. One thing about experimenting though, is we find out what things we really think work and those we don't. That is what life is all about I guess. Ah well, onwards and upwards!

9 comments:

  1. It may be too expensive to contemplate again but at least you've had a go and saved others a lot of faffing around x

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    1. Well I suppose it also has to do with personal taste. Pineapple is in today, along with 1 apple and a few home grown strawberries to make use of the trays. I think that is also the thing, that if it is going to be on for x amount of hours, may as well fill it up. Been looking at 'raw' energy semi-dehydrated bars - yum yum!

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    2. Ohhh I love pineapple, I can't wait to see how that turns out.

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  2. Fascinated by your experiments and will be 'watching this space' to see what else you come up with! Have been off-line for a while so have got sadly behind with all blogs but am back now. Lx

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    1. Difficult isn't it. We have been there twice, so we know exactly how you feel. Just remember to take 'me' time, it will keep you sane:)

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  3. Its been interesting watching what you have been up to.

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    1. I'm beginning to get a little more confident. Just hope we have a good enough summer so I can do some tomatoes for winter.

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  4. I'm loving these posts, the melon looks fabulous, what a gorgeous colour, so natural. Its always a shame when things dont work out as we want them to, but the only way to find out is to give it a go. I love pineapple too :-)

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    1. The melon is such a gorgeous colour isn't it.

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