‘I Thought It Would Be Gone By Now’

A Tale Of The Dehydrator

Last week I finished up the seasonal slicing and dicing (or so I thought), put the dehydrator back in its box and taped it up.

A lot of items were sucked dry of their moisture in this house this year.

Apples, apricots, plums and elderberries got worked over and thrown into jars and bags.

If you’ve ever processed elderberries, you just know how much effort goes into doing it and you know how glad you are when the task is done.

Besides not getting around to canning my own pickles, I was content with our efforts surrounding harvest for this 2020 season. My family was happy to finally have their kitchen back and to not have to deal with the noise of the dehydrator.

But then this…

“Any of my people interested in yellow plums?”

I saw my girlfriend’s Facebook literally the minute after I finished taping up the box.

Jeff loves dried plums and we had already gone through the small amount I did about a month ago. How could I not answer her call? I was being helpful, right?

“One bag will be perfect if she has enough to share with all her friends”, I said to myself.

Jeff was doing a job up the hill so he was able to swing by her house and pick up the plums on my behalf. When he got home, it was an entire green shopping tote filled to the brim! I had some work to do.

Out came the dehydrator and cutting board.

We got one full batch done and onto the trays, I made a few loaves of plum bread topped with brown sugar later into the evening the other night, I put one batch in the oven yesterday (which I will never do again with those), gave a few to my neighbour and still have a ridiculous amount left.

Determined to get them all dealt with before the fruit flies do it for me, I’ll do another full batch in the NESCO today and probably have more loaf to give away or freeze for later.

So, if anyone wants some coffee cake-style plum loaf, you know where to find it.

-Becky