Dried Pears

A very kind friend let me come and pick a bushel small pears. It took a while for them to get ripe, which was nice. Generally, at least here in Indiana, we pick pears when they are turning sweet but not yet fully ripe and let them ripen off the tree.

I decided this time I would dehydrated them. Here they are soaking in cold water:



In the first photo you can see how I cut them in half and used the melon baller to take out the cores, pulled off the stems and cut out the little blossom end.

A closer view of cutting out the core:



Then I placed them, cut side down, on the drying racks and dehydrated them at 145 degrees F:



When they were thoroughly dry, here is how they looked:



They are leathery and chewy and I like them a lot!

This post is linked up to Simple Lives Thursday!