I think it’s about time we in the test kitchen came clean: We're obsessed with freeze-dried fruit. You will find it in our awesome Strawberry Cereal Treats (pictured above) in the October issue of Food Network Magazine, and you’ll see it in some upcoming issues too. Freeze-dried berries, peaches, pineapple and other fruit are popping up in more and more stores across the country. The packages can seem a little pricey considering they contain only about an ounce of fruit, but when you consider how much the fruit must have weighed before it was freeze-dried, the price really isn’t so bad. And believe me when I say that each little fruit packs a ton of flavor — it’s intense.

Freeze-dried fruit is great for obvious things, like sprinkling onto cereal or oatmeal, but we have been experimenting with other fun ideas. So far, I’ve ground it up to make my own flavored cream cheese (delicious), stirred it into cocktails (so good) and even sprinkled it onto fresh fruit (freeze-dried mango crushed up on top of fresh pineapple is wonderfully tropical and tart). Pick up a bag, explore the possibilities and let us know if you come up with anything exciting in the comments below.