Last summer I made salsa with my bounty of Roma tomatoes. This year, the Romas aren’t doing so well. I went with one Roma and one Heirloom plant this year and it seems like there must be something wrong with the soil where I had the Roma because the Heirloom is giant and has tons of fruit. I have to fight the raccoons for the Heriloom tomatoes, even pulling them before they are fully ripe.
My tomato thief
I do still have more than I can eat alone though, so I decided to try something new. I cut up all of the nice, ripe Romas I had in the fridge and laid them out on dehydrating racks. The book said it would take about 10 hours for them to be completely dry, but I had several stubborn slices that took closer to 18 hours. It’s amazing how a dozen or so tomatoes now fit into a quart size jar.
One Day in the Garden
The process was incredibly easy, just dip the tomato in boiling water for a minute to loosen the skin, peel, slice and place on the rack. It probably took me 30 minutes to do this, then I plugged in the dehydrator and went on about my day. I will most likely do this again in a few days when more of my Heirlooms are ripe. Hopefully the larger slices will fill more jars. I’m looking forward to not exactly sun-dried, but dried none the less, tomatoes in my cooking the rest of the year.
My first dried tomatoes
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Rebekah Lyn's Kitchen 