Oven-Dried Tomatoes

So I figured I'd missed the Montreal "sun-drying" opportunity. Fortunately I've been dehydrating like mad and feel very comfortable with my oven door slightly ajar.

When I bought expensive tomatoes from my farmer John to make sauce he told me not to make. He said they're too expensive for sauce. No, no, trust me, I said. In the end it was the best sauce ever. I figured the same tomatoes would make incredible dehydrated (oven-dried) tomatoes. The normal sundried tomatoes you find in stores often have sulfites added for colour or preservation, so if you don't dry your own (who does that anyway?) check the label.

This is actually really easy. Pictured above is how to do it very poorly with a lot more maintenance. What you need is a cake rack placed on a baking sheet. I just used a baking sheet brushed with olive oil. I did not have my Atwater Library membership or my three loaned books on preserving at the time. Had I known...

Anyway, slice Italian tomatoes (the sauce tomatoes that already have less juice, not field or beefsteak or heirloom or cherries - though you could get away with cherries and they'd be sweet...hmm...) in half and place cut side down on the cake rack or something that elevates the tomatoes and lets air pass underneath. This will dry the tomatoes in half the amount of time otherwise required. You can brush the tomatoes on both sides with olive oil if you like, but I'm sure this doesn't expedite the drying process.

Then stick them in the oven at the lowest possible temperature with the door a little open. And wait...

And wait...

And wait...

And then...

If you didn't elevate them you might need to turn them over a few times in the process, though having them skin-side up doesn't really help the liquid evaporate out. I used bigger tomatoes that had two cut sides, so there was more juice but also more turning required. Basically it required a day and a bit of turning to dry these guys out when overnight should have sufficed. I was scared to under-dry them because then they'd go moldy and all would be for naught - those precious tomatoes reduced to barely nothing as it was. I'm stocked for winter. So much pasta sauce...