Adventures with Tomatoes

Once again we managed to be busy, busy, BUSY during the peak of tomato season. This means several pounds have sadly gone to mush on the vine, but earlier this week I went out and picked pounds and pounds. I've been hearing all about people drying them in the oven ("sun dried" for Portland) and thought I'd give it a whirl.

Several of the "Roman Candle" paste-type tomatoes sliced into quarter wedges (the long yellow ones) along with the larger cherry types and some small plum types.

A whole roasting pan full of cherry and grape type tomatoes cut in half and put face down.

Hours and hours and HOURS later the yield: 3 cups of dried tomatoes.

The verdict: I think the oven is very inefficient for dehydrating food. We've been pondering an Excalibur model and this experiment has moved it up in priority a bit. This project took over the oven for quite a while and it would be preferable to be able to turn on a dehydrator and let it run.