Tuesday, March 9, 2010

My homemade (un) sun-dried tomatoes

I've been experimenting with (among other things) using my gas oven as a dehydrator. I've dried herbs, garlic and now: tomatoes. Dan is a big fan of sun-dried tomatoes, so I figured, why spend the extra moolah buying those fancy, non-eco-friendly, imported sun-dried tomatoes when I can make my own at home?! Granted, they're not exactly sun dried (although it looks like the sunshine is returning again to New York, yippee!!), but they're virtually the same. To make them, I simply core and vertically slice plum tomatoes (they're less juicy, more meaty - better than the beefsteak tomatoes for drying), lay them out on a baking sheet, and put them in the oven overnight, until they're all wrinkled up and leathery. You don't even need to turn the oven on - just trust in the steady low heat of the oven pilot to do the job right.

Here are my oven-dried tomatoes, packed into a jar with some extra virgin olive oil to cover.
Packaged this way, they should keep for months in the fridge. And if I weren't so tired of kitchen appliances, I would use the nifty canning kit that Paul got me for Christmas (thanks, bro!) and make 'em last forever. However, considering I live with a jiu-jitsu trained eating-machine, I needn't worry about these sweet snacks going sour :)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

pilot light, eh???

hmmm i'm going to have to try this.

<3,
kat