Some of you may know by now that The Beard is planning to hike the Appalachian Trail next year. That’s right. Six months in the woods and very few showers. Despite the inevitable wilderness funk, he is going to have to eat.

I spent the weekend doing research on all sorts of ways to dehydrate meals, turn soups into powders and basically create a Jetson like food system where he just adds water.

One of the ingenious things I stumbled across was applesauce fruit leather. Why have I never thought of this? I have made fruit leather before. This typically involves fruit of choice, washing, chopping and pureeing. However, unless you’re getting your fruit in bulk, this can be a fairly expensive process.

Part of the challenge of the AT (Appalachian Trail) prep is to create healthy meals and snacks loaded with nutrients, easy to pack, easy to prepare and not spend a fortune. We’re on a budget people!

A few summers ago The Beard surprised me with a dehydrator for my birthday. Not just any dehydrator mind you, the holy grail of dehydrators; The Exalibur. This baby has nine trays, non stick mats for liquids and frankly it worked for King Arthur so you can’t go wrong. This is where Karma comes into play. The Beard gifts me with this wonderful device and two years later it will be his key to eating well on the AT.

So back to applesauce. I bought a large jar for less than three dollars at the local grocery store. I do plan on hitting up Sams Club in the future to get a jumbo vat, but for experiment sake this worked fine. Using half the jar I was able to fill three trays. Yes, I could have spread the sauce all the way to the edge, but I was lazy and it ended up in general square shape anyways.

Set the temp to 125 degrees for 10 hours. Now if you’ve never dehydrated before, 10 hours may seem like a lifetime to start scarfing down this delicious snack. However, I like to get the dehydrator going in the evening. It will work overnight, and it keeps me from wanting to peak at it constantly to see how it’s doing! As an added bonus the gentle whir of the dehydrator works as a sound machine lulling you into peaceful fruit leather dreams.

The finished product looks like this. Semi-transparent, flexible and not sticky. If it’s mushy in spots it needs to dehydrate longer. If it’s crunchy and crumbly you’ve gone too far. I would suggest throwing it in a blender at that point and add the powder to smoothies. (waste not)

Take the final product and cut into strips to make your own fruit roll ups or simply cut into pieces and store in an air tight container.

Over all I’m incredibly pleased with this process. Quick, easy, inexpensive and best of all, it’s freaking delicious! Give it a try, as Excalibur officially Knights Thee, Sir Applesauce.