It’s great to have a food dryer during peak produce season… and better still to have one as the season draws to a close. I had canned many gallons of tomato sauce, salsa, and diced and halved tomatoes, and found myself with several dozen small tomatoes that weren’t destined for a cook pot. Then a friend on Twitter made a comment about drying tomatoes.

If you haven’t dried tomatoes yet, please try it as soon as you can. I dried two dozen tomatoes, watched some friends devour them, and dried another two dozen for myself (I have a very small food dryer).

When you eat a dried tomato, it starts out tough and chewy. However, as it softens, the flavor intensifies, and it explodes into a burst of concentrated tomato sweetness. They’re curiously sensational.

Prepare Tomatoes for your Food Dryer

Captions under the photographs explain the steps I took to prepare my tomatoes for the food dryer. Please give this a try and let me know what you think.

Wash the tomatoes, slice them in half at the equator, and remove the seeds. I removed seeds by gently pressing my pinky finger into each seed pocket thereby squeezing out the seeds and gel into a bowl. Then I filled my food dryer trays with seedless tomato halves, cut-side-up. Finally, I brushed the tomatoes liberally with olive oil.

Note that this was the first time I’d dried tomatoes, and leaving them on a wire rack proved to be a mistake. If such a rack is your only option, cover it with aluminum foil and use the point of a knife to punch a dozen or so slits in the foil.

 

Sprinkle the oily tomatoes lightly with salt, pepper, onion powder, and cayenne pepper.

 

Slice or chop fresh basil, and add some to each tomato. I had several varieties of basil in my garden, so I used one variety on some tomatoes, and another variety on others.

 

Set the tomatoes in your food dryer and let them go for 12 to 24 hours. Alternatively, put them in your oven and bake them very slowly—from 180F degrees to 200. They’re done when they’re shriveled and dry (though they’ll be oily, so it’ll be hard to test one without eating it.

 

The finished tomatoes look like any dried fruit, albeit with seasonings dried in. They’ll keep for several weeks at room-temperature, but eat them before the olive oil on them turns rancid. I’ve heard that some people freeze them, but that seems pointless since you’ve already dried them, and that should preserve them long enough.

Here are some web sites with ideas for how you might use the dehydrated tomatoes you make in your home food dryer. Wherever you see the words “sun dried” in the recipes, substitute an equal portion of your own dried tomatoes:

• Dairy Max Recipe of the Week: Three Cheese Veggie and Beef Calzone – 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, drained 6 slices (6 ounces) deli roast beef 3 slices Provolone cheese 1/2 cup (2 ounces) reduced-fat shredded Mozzarella cheese 1 (4-ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained …

• mio recipe of the week: slow burn sliders! – ½ c. ready to eat sun dried tomatoes, diced ½ c. unsalted or lightly salted cashews, coarsely chopped ½ c. diced red onion (if onion is strong reduce to 1/3 c.) 1 stalk celery, diced ½ c. garden club mayonnaise (where available) …

• Sundried Tomato Pasta Salad « Let’s Get Cookin’! – At my grocery store, I’ve only found the sun dried tomatoes in a plastic container in the produce section. But you may find them in a jar, packed in oil. If you buy the jarred kind, be sure to drain them well before proceeding. …

• 2009 May Free Online Recipes Free Recipes – This is one of the best Asian Shrimp dishes I have made in awhile. Szechuan shrimp may indeed even be better than my Szechuan chicken recipe ! A few Chinese shrimp recipes I have tried have been rather disappointing but this was really a hit. Best of all, it calls for precooked shrimp so there is little to no work needed.

Technorati Tags: dehydrate tomatoes, dried tomatoes, dry fruit, dry vegetables, tomatoes

This guest post explains how to use your oven to dehydrate vegetables. If you’re planning a kitchen garden this season, plant vegetables you can dry and store to use during the off season.

Dehydrate Vegetables for Long Life

By Judy Williams

Dehydrate vegetables in a food dryer so you can store them to use during the winter. If you don’t have a dedicated food dryer, use your oven.

Drying or dehydrating vegetables is one of the oldest known methods of food preservation. The really great thing about it is that you can do it at home with equipment you have on hand.

You should pick your produce at its peak and work as quickly as you can to preserve its colour and taste.

Prepare your vegetables as if you were going to serve them. Wash them well, trim, cut, chop, slice, whatever. Thickness will play an important role in how long your veggies take to dehydrate, so bear that in mind when preparing.

Next you must blanch the vegetables. This will preserve the colour and flavour of the vegetable. Most vegetables have an enzyme that, left active, is what makes them spoil so quickly. Blanching the vegetables stops the enzyme action.

Follow available guidelines for blanching (available at www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com). Once blanched, chilled and drained, you are ready to dry or dehydrate your vegetables for long term storage.

The Rules

Of course, there are heaps of rules…but let’s start here.

There are three methods used to dry or dehydrate vegetables. Sun dried, commercial dehydrator or oven.

Sun drying is the least reliable method for areas with variable temperatures. Unless you live in a climate that is a consistent 90F with low humidity for a guaranteed 3 days in a row, you risk your produce.

Once the drying starts, it cannot stop until finished. So DO NOT let your vegetables cool again until they’re done. Having said that, lots of places do have that sort of weather…but more places don’t, so sun drying is a bit of a gamble for most.

You can purchase food dehydraters in a range of sizes, but unless you are going to be doing an awful lot of this, it’s probably better to wait or buy one with a group of friends to pass around. They aren’t very expensive, but they are usually used for quite short periods of time.

So, we’re left with the oven. It’s almost certain that you have one, so nothing new to buy. It is time consuming and a little fiddly, but it’s such a great result!

Oven drying

A home oven will only dry small quantities at a time (up to six pounds of produce, depending on the number of racks you have) so don’t be preparing bushells of veggies at a time!

Set the oven at the lowest temperature and preheat to 140F (60C). If you are uncertain of the temperature, put a separate oven thermometer on a rack you can see. Check your temperature every half hour or so.

Lay out your vegetables on stainless steel screen mesh or wooden frames covered in cheescloth. Do NOT use cookie sheets as the air must circulate around the food. Having the food sit next to metal sheets may also transfer a metalic taste. Using other types of metal materials may react with the food so please don’t.

Load up the veggies. Doing trays of items similar in size will keep the drying even. For instance, doing pumpkin, carrot and potato might be a good mix. Try not to mix strong flavoured items as the flavour may transfer from one vegetable to another.

Keep the oven door open about 3 inches or so during drying. It is vital that the temperature is maintained at 140F (60C) and that the moist air can escape. Move the trays around frequently to ensure even drying. No oven has even heat throughout.

Keep a close eye on your drying vegetables. Don’t let them scorch and keep them moving.

Depending on the vegetable you are drying it will take between 4 and 12 hours to dry. Once they’re done, the vegetable pieces will be hard and should shatter if hit with an instrument.

Store in a water tight container. To use, just add them to soups and sauces as they are, or reconstitute (cover them in a container with water 2:1 ratio) for approximately 2 hours before using.

Judy Williams (http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com) splits her time between being an executive and an earth mother goddess.

No Dig Vegetable Gardens represents a clean, green way to grow your own food. The site covers all aspects of growing, cooking and preserving your harvest.

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Technorati Tags: dehydrate vegetables, dry vegetables, oven drying