Tomatoes

What are we supposed to do with tomatoes? Lots of tomatoes. Even though it was an off year, due mainly to mediocre soil preparation on my part, I have harvested a lot of tomatoes. It certainly could have been a lot worse. (Did I really mean worse?) But I did plant 19 different varieties of tomatoes and, even though each individual plant was by itself a little disappointing, I have picked a lot of tomatoes. I ask again Dear Reader: What am I supposed to do?

Answer: dry them. After tiring of tomato sandwiches and BLTs that is. I discovered drying tomatoes last year. Soaked in warm water for an hour or so before using them in cooking, the concentrated flavors of the reconstituted little gems is unparalleled. Really. Truly. Honestly. And it is such a simple process!

Step one. Pick tomatoes. Check. (A sample of one of my harvests is above).

Step two. Cut tomatoes. There is no set thickness, or size, or anything. Granted, cutting a large tomato in half might require a week to dry. And we don't want that now. Do we? We don't. They don't even have to be uniform. They will all get dry in time. We have a simple dryer and I spread the fruit on the trays, place the tray on the dryer, and plug it in. 130 degrees for however long it takes. All day. Overnight. It depends.

When they are thoroughly dry, I place them all in a resealable bag and pop them in the freezer for a couple days. This takes care of any lingering nasties.

Finally, I place them in an airtight storage jar. Ready to use at will or whim. They look lovely too. Especially when there is a mix of red, yellow and green. One of my favorite uses for these is in roasted asparagus, but that will have to wait for another day and another post.

Bon appétit!