Voici la définition du dictionnaire : Opération consistant à réduire, aux fins de conservation, l'eau contenue dans certains fruits et légumes. We've been overwhelmed by the tomato crop this summer. And the plants are still producing fruit. We've been eating fresh tomatoes almost every day, prepared as salads, on pizzas, or as ratatouille. Walt has made two huge batches of tomato sauce for the freezer; he has put up 12 or 13 containers, a total of 12 liters or so.
Then a few days ago, he brought in another two dozen mostly gigantic, extremely ripe tomatoes. What would we do with them? There was no more room in the freezer. Suddenly, it dawned on me. We have a dehydrator. We bought it years ago. Because our tomato crop in 2022 was so small, we had forgotten about one method of preserving tomatoes that doesn't require freezer space — la déshydratation [lah-day-zee-drah-tah-SYÕ].
Now we've cut up and dehydrated about a dozen big tomatoes. It's time to put them up in sterilized jars. That's today's project — or at least one of them. We also have a big batch of green beans and wax beans to process. Maybe we can find room in the freezer for those, after we eat some of them for lunch.
When the dehydrated tomatoes are in sterilized jars, you can store them any place. Good.
ReplyDeleteNow, how do you use those dried up tomatoes? Do you have to rehydrate them before use, and does that work somewhat? Or do it another way? Can you make tomato sauce with them? Those are dumb questions, but I can figure out only one way that is to use them in ratatouille or the like with fresh vegetables.
Sorry about the mess, but when I published, it told me there was an error publishing, so I tried two more times with the same result. It’s only when I refreshed that I found out that my unpublished comment was in fact published each time. Les joyeusetés de l’électronique!
ReplyDeleteNo problem. As for dehydrating tomato sauce, you can. You spread it on a baking sheet (or a lèche-frite in French) in a shallow layer, maybe one inch deep, and you set it in a slow oven (not hot) and let it evaporate. What do you get? Tomato paste (concentré de tomate). It's a lot of trouble to do, because you have to watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't burn. And then you have to store it in the freezer, or in sterilized jars in the pantry.
DeleteI don't know about making tomato sauce with dehydrated tomatoes, but it would be worth a try. Otherwise, you drop pieces of dehydrated tomato into almost any stew — beef burgundy, coq au vin, aillade de veau, etc. — or soup for added flavor. Mine are almost ready to come out of the oven now.
It seems you can “rehydrate” dried tomatoes with “any” interesting liquid. I’m thinking white, rosé or red wines.
DeleteI've seen dried tomatoes billed as "sun dried tomatoes" mixed in with all kinds of pastas at restaurants. Are sun dried the same thing? I'm sure that tomato sauce you two made is excellent.
DeleteI just found this web site about uses for dried tomatoes: https://www.tomatodirt.com/dried-tomatoes.html
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link.
DeleteSo glad you have a bumper crop this year!
ReplyDeleteI have a great old recipe for using tomatoes called frosted tomato soup....all you do is cut up the tomatoes into small bits and add a couple onions finey diced and a few spoons of mayo then put in freezer (but just for a while) take out about 30 minutes before serving...add parsley and additional mayo to serve...(You can also add curry powder at start but I don't like) this is like a frosty gazpacho and so refreshing on a hot day...everyone loves
ReplyDeleteThanks Melinda. I'll that that soup this week. It's supposed to be very hot here until about Thursday, and cold on Friday (relatively speaking).
DeleteMelinda, that sounds unusual, but really interesting.
ReplyDeleteKen, I seem to recall you telling us about storing oven-dried (or, at least, very slow roasted tomato wedges, roasted at very low temperature) tomato wedges, maybe in jars with some oil? Was that the way that you dehydrated tomatoes before having the dehydrator? Or am I just mixing things up in my memories?
Before we got the dehydrator, we dried tomatoes in the oven. I've never packed the dried tomatoes in oil, though. I just put them in sterilized jars and then put the jars of dried tomato pieces in the oven.
DeleteSo happy for the bumper tomato crop. Melinda’s frosted tomato soup sounds delicious. I would definitely add the curry.
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
I'd probably like the curry. Or I might put powdered fennel seed in it.
DeleteI've used up my two jars of purchased sun-dried tomatoes that were tightly packed in olive oil. I used a couple of scoops each time I was making my zucchini spaghetti. I added those scoops to my pan with the already sauteed onions and zukes with some tomato paste and of course some water. Deliciously added flavor as compared to when I just use tomato paste. (I believe sun-dried is no different than a dehydrator)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good, Mary. I don't think there's much difference between sun-dried and dehydrator-dried tomatoes. Thanks for the ideas and recipe.
Delete