Shelf Reliance Freeze Dried Fruit Product Review

Things to know about Shelf Reliance Fruits:

• Fruits rehydrate  well  cold  water (5-7 minutes)  or  room  temp  water (10 minutes)
• When re-hydrating delicate fruit there is no need to do not submerge, instead mist with water from a clean spray bottle and let sit.
• Denser fruit like blueberries take longer.       

My favorite fruits:

• Mangoes—love them.  I love them dry I love them rehydrated.  I just love them.
• Freeze Dried Granny Smith Apples—Wow!  These are really good, so good that I eat them straight out of the can.  Why rehydrate when they are so good dry?  If you want to rehydrate you can.
• Freeze Dried Bananas—Yum!  I love how there is not the weird banana aftertaste with these.  We like to eat them dry as a snack, on top of our cereal, or in banana bread. 

My Non-Favorites Fruits

• Blueberries—But this might just be because I’m unlucky.  I have had about 6 bad cans of blueberries.  They won’t rehydrate and they taste terrible.  With that said I have had a couple of great pouches of blueberries.  They are expensive so I would recommend buying one pouch and seeing if you like them or no.
• Pears—These get soft fast.  They are kind of delicate and when rehydrated are kind of like mushy apple sauce.  They do make a great baby food.

Fruit Description—A little bit about each fruit.

Apple Chips  

• Thin  like  potato  chips,  thinly  slices  no  peel,  great  for  tarts.  
• Apple chips have a sweet apple taste and are best used for baking, but they do make a nice snack.   

Apple  Slices  

• Dehydrated  slices  with  peel  (which means more  fiber), the slices are thicker than the apple chips.  When re-hydrated they are brown.  
• Best used for snacking but can be used for baking.  
• Apple slices are made from Granny Smith Apples and are a little bit tart.   
•  My favorite recipe:  Carmel  Apple Cookies    

Apples, Fuji—Freeze Dried

•  Eat as a snack, use to make crisp, crumble, or pie. 
• Add them dry to cookies. 

Apples, Granny Freeze Dried

•  Tart and sweet, these apples make an excellent snack. 
• They are large slices of apples. 
•   One of my most favorites.

Apple Sauce

• Size small granules, like sand.  This is not a powder like the tomato powder.  Is it is chunkier.  This is a dehydrated product. 
• Taste like unsweetened applesauce.  I don’t like to eat it dry.  I think it is weird dry (but Sariah tells me she likes it dry).

Freeze Dried Apricots 

•  Small  pieces,  tangy  and  sweet,  with a strong apricot taste.
•  My favorite recipe:  Coconut Apricot No Bake Cookies

 

Freeze Dried Banana Slices

•  Light,  airy, with a clean banana taste. 
• I always think that bananas have a weird aftertaste these banana slices do not. 
• They are great in smoothies, perfect for babies and baby food.
• My favorite recipe:  Banana Split Cookies

Freeze Dried Blackberries  

• Gigantic!  These blackberries, much like fresh, have a lot of seeds.    
• My favorite recipe:  Blackberry Cinnamon Rolls with Pineapple Butter-cream frosting

Freeze Dried  Blueberries

 

• Sweet, tangy.   
• My favorite recipe:  Blueberries and Cream Cookies

Sweet Cherries

•   Eat dry as a snack, add to cakes (think black forest cake), pancakes,  add to cream cheese,  Jell-O, fruit salad, pie.
• My favorite recipe—Cherry Chocolate Cookies—For some reason the photos in the post aren’t working.  Sorry I’m working on it but I don’t know what the problem is.

Grapes,Red Seedless

• The grape pieces are the size of grapes.  Often several are stuck together and are slightly broken exposing the inside of the grape. The grapes are hollow.
• Taste—the grapes are sweet and fruity.  I think they taste like grapes but I have has a couple of people tell me they remind them of other fruit, like blueberries or cranberries. 
•  My favorite recipe:   I like to make the Shelf Reliance Chicken Salad Recipe and add a handful of grapes to it.  I add the grapes when the chicken, onions and celery are re-hydrating.  I take it to parties and guest love the grapes.

Freeze Dried  Mangoes  

• My personal favorite!  Medium sized pieces,  tangy, sweet   
• My favorite recipe:  Mango Shaved Ice

Freeze Dried  Peach  Slices

 

• White  peaches,  tart  and  sweet. 
• The peaches are in big pieces maybe a quarter or an eighth of a peach. 
• My favorite recipe:  Blueberry Peach Cobbler from Shelf Reliance

Freeze Dried  Pears

• Tend to clump quickly, but make  great  baby  food!   
• Delicious

Freeze Dried Pineapple  Chunks

 

• Light,  airy,  tangy,  no  sugar,  salt,  citric  acid,  or  preservatives  
• My favorite recipe:  these are so good I seldom cook with them.  I do really like to use the powder at the bottom of the can to make to make Pineapple Butter Cream Frosting,

Freeze Dried  Raspberries

 

• Amazing  color  and  flavor , a burst of raspberry flavor, very tart.

Freeze Dried  Strawberries

• Sliced strawberries that are flavorful and slightly tart. 
• My favorite Recipe: Elise’s Birthday Cake:  Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Frosting.   (This post somehow is lost.  I'm working on bringing it back.)  

Whole Strawberries

·        Eat as a snack or use as a garnish.  Would be nice in a pie.  These are large whole strawberries.

·        My favorite recipe:  Chocolate Dipped Strawberries