dehydrated but not desiccated

We bought a dehydrator this spring in anticipation of all the culinary botanical harvesting my boys were planning to do. I am not a fan of gadgets in general, and I am especially not a fan of large kitchen gadgets that take up counter space. So, I was not happy when the dehydrator showed up and parked itself on the corner of my new kitchen island. This story not only works out, however, but even was a silver lining–as STILL silver lining. The dehydrator is indeed being used and proving quite irreplaceable for the boys. And due to the low hum of its fan, it found a permanent home on a basement workbench. And, best of all, it is proving to be a very fun STILL laboratory. I’ve only had a few opportunities to play with it due to its high demand, but so far all the flowers and leaves I have placed in there are drying out in a way that is different, dare I say better, than my other method of leaving them under the kitchen counter or in the corner of an unused room for two weeks. These tiger lilies are the same lilies I posted two weeks ago. I placed them in the dehydrator, on low, for about 2 days. I love the results–still colorful yet moody, with movement and texture and detail. YUM! I have put myself back in the queue, but right now the boys are dehydrating our garden peppers. Hurry up boys! I have lots of experiments to try!

dehydrated tiger lily flowers (Lilium lancifolium)