Well, it’s that time of the year. The tomatoes are really starting to ripen so I’ve got the dehydrator going. For information on our dehydrator see this post. As I mentioned there, I sure wish I would have bought the larger tray version instead of just five trays. It’s fine for right now, but it won’t be long and there will be tomatoes waiting in line to dry.
This was my first bunch of the season to dry – Sweet Baby Girls and Sungolds. Sungolds are one of my favorite eating tomatoes but looks like we will have a surplus this year so they also will be dried.
I cut even the small tomatoes in half. It just makes for quicker drying time.
I’d show you a picture of them dried, but they aren’t quite done. After drying them, they are vacuum sealed and then tossed in the freezer. However, they can just be put in a ziploc bag and stored in the pantry. We dry so many that they just keep fresher this way. We still have one bag in the freezer from last season.
If you love tomatoes you would love them dried. We use them all winter long in salads, soup, burgers, frittatas and just eating out of the bag.
Meanwhile, I’ve been harvesting our blueberries every day. So far, I’ve harvested over 7 lbs of these blue beauties. If you come to our kitchen during blueberry season you’ll see this on our counter.
Every morning after harvesting, I spread them out on a towel on the kitchen counter. Some mornings I might pick some that are not quite ripe. By the next day they are all ripe and ready for the morning smoothie or the freezer.
What a wonderful time of the year when all of the goodies are coming into the kitchen. Ain’t nothing like homegrown.
Oh, yummy :)) Those are lots of tomatoes! How many tomato plants have you got in your garden?
Great idea to dry them, dried tomatoes are so good! We always buy them dried in jars, but they are soaked in olive oil. I had no idea you could just pack them up and freeze them. Do the different sorts taste differently even when they’re dried?
I’d love to see a photo of the finished dried tomatoes 🙂
Kristina, We have 46 plants which includes 36 varieties. Here is my hubby’s post on the tomatoes we grow: http://www.ourhappyacres.com/2010/06/i-cant-say-no-to-tomatoes/
Our fresh dried ones taste so much different from dried ones packed in olive oil. I’m not sure how different each of the varieties we dry (just the small ones) since usually they are all dried together. Since it is the beginning of the season I was able to dry a package each of Sungolds and Sweet Baby Girl the other day and labeled them. The Sungolds were a tad sweeter dried, but they are a sweeter tomato fresh. I’ll post a pic of the finished ones. Juliet is not a really a good tasting tomato fresh but it has a great intense flavor dried. You only need to dry them and put them in a ziploc bag, but eventually they will lose their flavor. But if you dry them and seal them, they’ll last at least a year. I put them in the freezer because we don’t have pantry space but I may be changing that since the freezer is already getting pretty crowded.
Cool beans! Love it! Do you ever put up any of your tomatoes in olive oil? I buy it in the store that way, but would love to make some from our harvest, any ideas?
Nope, I never put them in oil. I guess you could when you reconstitute them but not sure how I’d use them. Don’t know how to preserve them in the oil. We just reconstitute them in a little hot water and then throw them in salads, soup, pasta, stirfrys, or whatever. They also are great as a snack straight out of the bag.
Wow, 46 tomato plants!! That’s like, a whole plantation 😀 I have all of one little tomato plant but then we’ve only got out balcony to grow things 🙂 I’m thinking about upgrading to 2 or 3 next summer though, since they don’t take up that much space.
I’ve never tastes dried tomatoes that were not preserved in oil, but they sound really good!
thanks Lynda! I’m going to give it a try… after I buy a dryer!
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