Tomato Day

Yesterday was a busy tomato day. That means I took a bunch of ripe tomatoes and did some stuff with them so they wouldn't go to waste.

The first thing I did was make some dried tomatoes. Many recipes suggest quartering the tomatoes but not all of my tomatoes are plum type so I cut them into 1/4" slices. I spread them over our dehydrator racks, sprinkled them lightly with kosher salt and turned the machine on. I had them on outside since I didn't need any extra heat in the house (it was in the upper 90's yesterday).

Several hours later, the tomatoes were dried. I layered them into my clean jars with about 4 crushed garlic cloves between the layers (that is to say 4 cloves per jar). Then I poured olive oil to the very top of the jars and sealed them. I didn't process them because they should stay good just like this for several months.
The second tomatoey thing I did was make tomato sauce. I didn't take pictures of the process because I didn't know how it would turn out. Since it did turn out quite well I'll post pictures the next time I do it, but basically the recipe includes tomatoes, garlic, sweet white onion, olive oil and carrots.


We didn't can the sauce either, but put it in plastic bags and froze it. It should last a long time that way.Most of the tomato plants are still producing quite well so I have no doubt I'll be making more soon.