in the kitchen...dehydrating tomatoes

A friend surprised me with a lot of grape tomatoes.  Usually when I have too many tomatoes I can them, but grape tomatoes would give me lots of skins in the tomatoes.  So, I thought I'd dehydrate them.  I love sun dried tomatoes.  And while these aren't quite "sun dried" I think they'll do nicely.


Some went into the trash, some to the chickens and the good ones went
into the dehydrator



One bowl filled four trays



The four trays filled one quart jar after dehydrating



To Dehydrate Tomatoes:

• Wash {I used a little vinegar water as some of the ones we threw away were quite yucky}
• Slice {no larger than 1/4" thick}
• Put in dehydrator {skin side down, it they are cherry or grape tomatoes}
• Dehydrate on 150 degrees until all the moisture is out {these took about 24 hours} 

I usually use dried tomatoes in stir fry type dishes but I've heard that you can grind these into a powder and then mix it with water and use like tomato paste. I think I'll try this when we make spaghetti sauce with our tomatoes this summer.  I'll also use it when I make mexican rice - the tomato bullion that I can find locally has msg so I try to avoid it. 

This post is linked to Barn Hop , Works for me Wednesday and Tasty Tuesday.