This video is about how to make sun-dried tomatoes cheap enough for the whole family. We're a gluten free family so we are always looking for cheap gluten free recipes. Tomatoes are naturally gluten free, but since tomato sauce is cheap to buy, we decided to do something special with our garden harvest. Instead of canning tomatoes, this year we tried dehydrating our sun-dried tomatoes and preserved them in olive oil instead. It was easier than we would have guessed and more delicious than we can describe. Enjoy!
My dad thinks sun-dried tomatoes are a real treat but I don't. He made a big batch with tomatoes from the garden anyway because they are expensive to buy at the store
And they're easy to make. Let me show you how...
Wash the tomatoes in your sink first of course, and place them all in a big container.
Set up a tomato-slicing station with:
a knife and cutting board,
a medium-sized bowl,
several large baking sheets,
and, of course, your big container of tomatoes.
You can use any tomatoes but we like to use Roma. Choose one of your nice, clean tomatos, cut off the stem and slice a tomato in half. Rub out the seeds and the juiciest parts of the tomato into the bowl so you can save all that good stuff for later. Then cut the tomato into even thinner slices and put them all onto a large baking sheet. TRY to load the tray with skin sides down, but DON'T obsess over it. It will all work out.
You can begin the drying process by setting up a simple wind tunnel inside. Just set a regular box fan on any table and put all your tomato trays in front of it. The breeze from the fan starts evaporating the moisture right away. We put a cheap, plastic tablecloth over the fan to help direct the wind toward our tomato trays.
You can use this technique while you're preparing all of your trays. But solar power is absolutely the BEST most natural way. We cover our trays with a big window screen. It will take two or even three days in full sun to completely dry the tomato slices into raisin-like appearance and texture.
We bring our trays in at night and put them in our tabletop wind tunnel so the tomatoes will continue drying through the night.
And remember all the juice and seeds that you collected in your bowl earlier? Just use a screen or a strainer to separate them so you enjoy an amazingly fresh glass of tomato juice and dry the seeds for next year's garden.
We store ours in glass jars filled with olive oil and a little basil. They're great in salads but, of course, you can't beat bagel with cream cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.
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So here's a little tip. You can set up a wind tunnel in the shelter of your own house.
They're chewy like raisins - even a tiny bit sweet - so I even like them!
