Tomatoes Galore! These made Soup.

You know the tune. And, if you’re putting up fresh summer vegetables to enjoy over the winter, you may be singing a similar tune. I really did end up preserving close to one hundred pounds of tomatoes, or at least that’s what I bought with the intention of preserving them. We ate quite a few raw, and a few hit the compost before I could get through preserving all of them. But, today marks the last day of putting up tomatoes. My food dehydrator is on the last hours of drying the last batch I think I’ll do. Granted, you never know, I may be lured into buying more to dry, but freezing more is starting to be out of the question. My freezer is nearly full, and I still have about 5 lbs of carrots and a few lingering ears of corn to put by.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not really into canning a lot of vegetables. I do make jams and preserves, but something about canned vegies just doesn’t appeal to me. I may need to come around on this, but this year its all about the freezer and the dehydrator. I’ve dried probably around 20 lbs of tomatoes, and the 80 or so remaining pounds went into chopped frozen tomatoes, two different soups and basic tomato sauce. I have about 10 meals for two in soups and about 5 meals for two in tomato sauce. I have somewhere around 20 bags of chopped tomatoes that will go into 20 more stews and soups through the winter.

I was pretty amazed at how little food these actually produced. I think I had visions of much more as I lugged in each tub of the fragrant red, orange, yellow, green-striped and blackish orbs, But, really, this is a load of food that will keep us well.

Dried Tomatoes -- a Sweet Treat!

If you’ve never dried tomatoes, its a fantastic way to preserve them. They become sugary sweet and are wonderful on a cheese and cracker appetizer, mashed into a tapenade, spun into tomato paste or just popped in your mouth as a sweet treat. When you taste them, you’ll understand why I may just buy another 20 lbs of tomatoes at the local farmer’s market to dry. Wondering how to do it? It’s pretty easy:

Slice and seed tomatoes. Cherries, plums and small tomatoes work great cut in half. Larger tomatoes should be sliced into 1/4″ thickness. Dry as is in food dehydrator for about 11-18 hours or in 250F oven for about 2-3 hours.

OR

Toss with a splash of olive oil, a pinch of salt, a pinch of thyme and a pinch of sugar. Then dehydrate according to the same method above.

And when they’re done, consider making the sandwiches from this earlier post. They’re divine!