Minty

This week I was clearing and reclaiming some of our backyard to use for gardening.  Before I hoed the area up, I cut all the mint that was growing there.  There is still plenty out there and I'm sure all the stuff I cut will come back.

 So here is my bowl full of mint (with just a hint of grass mixed in) as I brought it in from the garden.

 I picked off and washed all the leaves and spun them out.  I got 2 full salad spinner bowls full of just mint leaves.

 I got this food dehydrator for $10 on sale a couple years ago at Aldi.  It is a one temperature no-fan simple machine, nothing like the fancy ones I've seen on different blogs.  I'd never used this before so I was kind of excited to get it out of the box.  There are 5 trays and they were all loaded similarly to this.  You don't want to overlap things but I also wanted to do all my leaves in one go.

It only took a few hours and this is what they looked like when dry.

All the dried leaves fit into one quart jar.  I made my first cup of tea with the leaves and it was quite tasty.  I am going to keep drying the mint leaves as they grow and drink the tea over the winter.  Next I want to try drying some chives!