Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Tomato Experiment: supervised by the sun.











We began thinking we had more tomatoes then we actually had. Everything seen in this picture came from our own vines. Most of them are cherry tomatoes with the first of the larger ones. I dried them six hours the first day and about nine the second. They lost about half their diameter. We added fresh finely chopped basil and a light sprinkling of Italian seasoning. Below is our standing security guard against insect invasion.














With so little created with the first batch, we decided to buy some more to fill a full jar.











We’ve been drying another fourteen non organic tomatoes sliced as suggested – most of our own tomatoes will ripen over the course of the next several weeks.  They have dried about the same amount of time, and hopefully will be finished by Sunday night. With this batch, we chose to season them with dry Basil, Italian Seasoning, Garlic powder, and hint of Curry powder. It’s a real pleasure to find ourselves downwind of them.















After two days, the tomatoes are mere specters of their former selves. They still smell like an Italian kitchen, but there’s no chance of filling a jar with them. On the positive side, this challenge was met with resounding success. The drying process worked wonderfully. They kept their dark red color, brought to the forefront from the pasty green and mustard yellow spices. The final lesson of this challenge— prepare to use a whole lot of them to fill our needs. Even with the extra, we didn’t get near a full jar.



1 comment:

  1. small, but delicious bounty!! i remember when my first 20 pounds of tomatoes yielded a scant 2 jars of sun drieds. but boy were they yummy in december! keep it up.

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