Making the most of summer mangoes

A local high end store that I occasionally frequent has been having great deals on tropical fruits. It is summer after all so these are in season, though they aren't usually grown at this end of the country.

These have been trucked down from Queensland, but I comfort myself with the thought that at least they are not imported.

I bought two trays of mangoes, so 24 altogether, and 6 rather giant pineapples.

There is no way the four of us can eat this much fresh fruit before it over ripens so I kicked the dehydrator into use and have stocked the freezer well too.

Mangoes freeze well and are great added in frozen form to smoothies, sorbets and ice-creams.

To freeze the mangoes, I peeled them with a veggie peeler, cut the cheeks off, laid them on a silicone baking mat, scored the last bits of flesh off from the sides, lumped that on the tray too and put the whole thing in the deep freeze.

Then I bagged them up once frozen.

The pineapple I skinned, cored and chopped into sections, then packed that into food safe plastic boxes and into the freezer. Frozen pineapple is a tasty treat on a hot day, I chop it {frozen) into smaller chunks and the kids eat it just like that. Or that can go in a smoothie also.

The dehydrating I wasn't so sure of, I haven't really perfected dehydrating fruit yet, I mostly use the machine for drying soaked nuts or making soaked granola.

AND, Ive just bought a new one! Woohoo!! A new dehydrator that is.

I'm still waiting for it to arrive though so had to use my old one.

My old one (a gift last Christmas but it has not lasted well) has no temperature control and it runs at about 63c, which is hotter than recommended for most, if not all, things.

The problem with using too hot a temperature is you can destroy nutrition in the food and in the case of fruit, you can crisp the outside before the inside is dry, so by the time the inside is dry, the outside is way over done.

And one tray is broken because a small child STOOD on it.

And another tray is rather cracked.

And the lid is nearly broken in half, due to cracks radiating almost to the center.

AND, perhaps worst of all, it is made with no' 6 plastic.

I think it is the high heat that has made it crack. Apart from that one tray of course.

So, my advice if you're in the market for a dehydrator, is DO NOT buy a cheap one, you will probably regret it.

Well, I got round the thought of laying wet fruit on nasty plastic by lining the trays with baking paper. The lesser of two evils in my mind.

No need to dip the fruits as they doesn't discolour like apples do.

Here is the mango...it was just a case of slicing it into even-ish sized strips and checking it every now and then.

You want to take it out when it's flexible but not sticky.

I won't dictate a time, because I leave the dehydrator lid partly off to try and off-set the too-high temperature. I found some bits were ready before others, so I took those out and cooled them on a tray. When it was all done and cool, I stored it in a recycled honey jar and I am currently keeping it in the fridge.

And this is the pineapple.

It is rather different than dried pineapple from the store, it is much thinner, but then that could be the way I sliced it.

It looks crispy, although it isn't, it is flexible, but dry and not sticky on the outside.

Very sweet and tasty, rather moreish in fact.

Now I need to find a way of storing it that doesn't require the fridge.

I'm concerned that it may go mouldy eventually, if left out, hence keeping it refrigerated.

Gotta look into that, because my deep freeze is packed and my new dehydrator is on it's way.

Squee!