This year I've had a really good crop of tomatoes. I've been able to can, freeze and make salsa but I thought I would try to make some dried tomatoes in the oven. Back in California where the humidity being so low and it seemed like it was sunny all the time and it was easy to do sun dried tomatoes outside. But here in Oklahoma with all the humidity, I didn't see how that it would be possible to do it outside so I got on the Internet and look around to see what it would take to do it an alternative way, seeing how I don't have a dehydrator.
Found various information and from that I just kind of put it all together and this is how I did my sun dried tomatoes.
I took the small romas that I had and cut them in half and seeded them out.
Then I placed them on a wire rack on top of my cookie sheet. A lot of them said that you could just use a cookie sheet that was not aluminum or you could put parchment paper down. But there is one that had done it on a rack and I thought that would be better air circulation to go around the tomatoes. So that's what I did placed a rack on top of a cookie sheet.
The oven can be a temperature of 180 to 200°. I put mine at 180 and then I season with 2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. thyme, 1 tsp. oregano and 1 tsp. basil, mixed it together and sprinkled it on top.
Then I just put them in the oven after about three hours I opened the door to let out any moisture, shut the door and kept drying. After about 8 to 10 hours depends on how thick they were, they were ready.
You want them leathery but dry, don't want to be to dry where there are hard and crunchy.
Now I'm going to store mine in the freezer
because if you put them an oil they don't keep as long but I figure if there's a time when I want them in oil I could just go ahead and put them in the oil, then put them in the refrigerator. That way they'll be ready for me in a day or two.
There it is
Sun Dried Tomatoes in the oven
Linking up with
http://deborahjeansdandelionhouse.blogspot.com/2013/08/farmgirl-friday-blog-hop-122-and-one.html
Linking up with
http://deborahjeansdandelionhouse.blogspot.com/2013/08/farmgirl-friday-blog-hop-122-and-one.html
The tomatoes look yummy... great idea, if you buy sun dried tomatoes they cost a fortune.
ReplyDeleteEllen