Rosehip meal or powder

Equipment
oven and oven trays
wooden hammer or similar
coffe grinder
mesh sieve

Instructions
Top and tail rosehips with a small knife.
Scrub your hands.
Clean rosehips in cold water.
Dry gently with tea towel and/or let air dry.
Spread in single layers on oven trays.
Sort by size if you can be bothered.
Dry at around 40ºC (100ºF) with the door ajar.
Hips will be dry in 10-24 hours, depending on size.
Check on them from time to time because rosehips have individual needs.
Let trays change place a couple of times to ensure even conditions.
They are ready when they are hard, wrinkled and a deep, beautiful red.
Discard blackened and dark ones – or pulverize and use for peeling.

Wrap dried rosehips in a tea towel.
Crush with a wooden hammer or suitable heavy object.
If you have a super strong grinder this probably isn’t necessary, but your average coffee grinder can’t grind whole rosehips.
One option is to cut them in half before drying, but I don’t recommend because it takes forever + whole rosehips will store better than halved ones.
Pulverize crushed hips in a coffee grinder or grain mill.
Sift in a mesh sieve to get rid of seed bits.

Storage
Store dried, whole rosehips in a cool, dark place.
If dried and stored correctly rosehips will last indefinitely (almost).
Only grind as much meal as you’ll need the next couple of weeks.
Store in tightly closed glass jar.
Keep rosehip meal away from light, heat and oxygen.

How to enjoy
Add to tea (not too hot) or soup for a nutritional boost.
Mix rosehip meal with homemade yoghurt and serve with cloudberry jam.
Make a carotene smoothie with butter, egg yolks, yoghurt, sharon and rosehips.
Use in no knead bread, 1 table spoon per bread. Meal must be soaked or very finely ground.

And why?
Mainly because it’s so much less work than making purée! But also because dried rosehips are unbelievably beautiful. When you see them, you’ll know it is the right thing to do. And because it’s food bordering on medicine. And it’s anti-inflammatory. And because native Americans used rosehips meal in pemmican. And it’s free. And organic. And because the taste of homemade rosehip meal is vastly superior to any of the stuff you can buy.

Nutrients
Beta carotene
Vitamin C