Sun dried nectarines

Stu and I picked half a box full of nectarines on the weekend. The tree is still laden - we just picked the ripest ones.

Beautiful, plump, sweet smelling white nectarines.

Monday morning, he asked what I was going to do with the picked fruit. I told him we would eat that lot fresh, I planned to bottle the next box as there weren't quite enough to warrant a bottling day in this lot. He looked from me to the box with raised eyebrows and then took some to work to share with his workmates.

I was beginning to think that maybe he was right - we wouldn't eat all of those nectarines before they started to mould, and there was to be another lot picked in only a few days. But I was right too - there weren't enough to bottle in that box,  what to do?

Then Lachie, who was chomping down a bowl of our homemade muesli for breakfast said "gee I love dried fruit mum, it's the best thing ever". Lightbulb moment! I would dry some nectarines for using in our breakfast muesli! Only one snag, I don't own a dehydrator. I considered popping a post on Facebook asking to borrow one from one of the friends I know who have them (perhaps I should even buy one of my own?). And then I remembered this post on drying tomatoes and realised that I do own a dehydrator - a big one affectionately known as Roary by our family - our car.

With the car parked out of the carport in the sun, even on a relatively mild summers day, it gets hot in there. So I chopped up my nectarines into 8 wedges each, dunked the wedges into a little citric acid in water to prevent them going too brown (lemon juice would have worked too, but my tree has no ripe lemons at the moment and the only lemons available to buy in summer are imported from the USA), arranged the wedges on trays and put them onto the cars dashboard.

Fully dried nectarines - free from the sun :)

I turned them every couple of hours* and by the end of the day they were well on their way, but still quite moist inside.  I've tried drying before and know that if you want things to last, they need to be really dry.  So I left them for another half day in the sunshine, after which they were deliciously leathery and well dried. 

Preparing for bottling

I used about 20 nectarines which filled three baking trays (the pieces spread out so they weren't touching).  This made about 2 cups worth of dried nectarines.  I've put some more in the car now, and will probably do another batch or more before the tree is empty as we go through a good amount of dried fruit in our house.  We'll still give some fruit to family and friends, eat plenty fresh, and today, I've used my "new" Vacola that I bought on Ebay to bottle a batch for out of season fruit snacks and desserts.  The birds will get some, but the beautiful bounty from that tree (that we grew from a tiny seedling in just 7 years) will not go to waste.

Our nectarine tree in the foreground.  It was planted as a 15cm seedling in late 2005.

*the first batch I put with their cut side down on the trays, so turning was essential, as the fruit stuck to the trays as it cooked in the sun.  I've since put in another batch, this time skin side down on the trays.  They don't need to be turned and may dry quicker as more of the flesh is exposed for dehydration.