I have a dehydrator! One of Denise’s friends is clearing things out, I guess, and when she asked if I wanted a dehydrator, I jumped on it. I’ve tried some straight up fruit so far, but I was most excited about making jerky and home-made fruit rollups, as well as drying some of my herbs this summer.

I really like fruit leather as a snack. It’s almost as good as candy, and I had some ideas. First up: strawberry mojito. This is a super easy recipe — IF you have a dehydrator. If you don’t and want to try making these, ask around and see if you can borrow one. It takes about 8 hours to dehydrate these. You will need the liquid trays. This recipe is scaleable — I’m writing it for ONE dehydrator tray, but you’ll run it with four trays (at a minimum). Try other flavors, increase it by 4, or add other food to the other trays.

AGAIN: THIS MAKES ONE TRAY. Scale up as needed, or try your own flavors.

Strawberry Mojito Fruit Leather

• 1 pound of strawberries, washed, with hulls and stems removed
• 1/4 cup lime juice, fresh squeezed
• 1 Tablespoon, packed, mint leaves, chopped finely

Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Pour slowly into dehydrator tray and tilt, if needed to spread it out. Dehydrate at medium (140ºF) for 8-10 hours (it may take longer if it’s humid.)

Peel and eat. Will keep for about 2 weeks in airtight containers, maybe slightly longer. I wrapped mine in plastic wrap so that I’d get the experience of peeling them off the wrap — part of the remembered joys of fruit rollups.

My apologies for the rather dull photos. I didn’t check them this time around and by the time I noticed all my “pretty” photos were blurry, I’d eaten all the fruit leather. They tasted great.