making sundried Tomatoes from your garden

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     One of my favorite pizza varieties is one with white sauce, chicken, bacon and sundried tomatoes.  We went to a Fired Pie restaurant recently and I had one and it was so delicious.  I came home and made one at home.  But, that isn't what I'm going to tell you how to make today.  Today, I 'm going to talk about the sundried tomatoes! I have hit the surplus of tomatoes stage in my garden and I thought that since I love that kind of pizza, it would be great if I could make my own sundried tomatoes for that purpose, as well as other purposes!  I'm going to tell you all about sun drying your own tomatoes, plus reconstituting them to use on pizza and in other recipes!   Just click the Read More Button! 

     For Christmas last year, Maddy and Will gave me this awesome new food dehydrator.  I love it and have used it and have plans to use it for more things in the future.  But, this isn't the toy that I used this time.  As I researched about making sundried tomatoes, I truly wanted them to be sundried, I came across this beauty on one of my gardening groups:
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     It is a mesh solar dehydrator!  This herb drying rack is a must-have for any gardener! Great for drying herbs, fruits and veggies.  This thing is huge, so I can dehydrate lots of stuff, plus I am only using the energy from the sun, which we have plenty of in Phoenix, AZ!  Here are the pros of using it for me:

• It uses no electricity
• It doesn't heat up the house
• When I have huge amounts of produce to dehydrate, I can use both my electric and my solar dehydrators
• It holds a lot!
• It folds up and is easy to store
• So far I have found that in our summer heat, the dehydration process isn't much longer than the electric dehydrator.  

     Of course, it won't work so well in the winter months, but that's okay since I have my electric dehydrator for that time of year.  (Yes, I do dehydrate quite a bit!  It is a great way to preserve produce and make jerky or fruit leather!)   
       The first tip for dehydrating safely is to clean your produce well.  That means washing it first.  I put a quarter cup of white vinegar in about 10 cups water to give all of it a good wash and rinse.  This will help to get rid of any unwanted mold spores, microorganisms and bacteria like E.-coli
       I recently used that solution on some of the herbs that I wanted to dry from my garden .  Here are a few examples.  These were dry and ready to store so quickly.  I put them in the solar dehydrator one afternoon, and the next morning they were perfectly dry! That is what happens in 112 degree weather.

Malabar Spinach-I will grind it up and add it to my greens powder.

Oops, I forgot the before, but I dried a bit of Moringa leaves to also add to the greens powder. 

Dried Oregano that I will store separately to use in cooking.  Have you tried this Strawberry Oregano Shortbread?

      Of course, the next logical step was to dehydrate my tomatoes.  I used the abundance of cherry tomatoes that I had from my garden, plus a few of the smaller tomatoes that came from another variety of tomato that I planted.  

        To begin with, I cut the cherry tomatoes in half, and the larger yet still small tomatoes I quartered.  I wasn't sure if I needed to take the seeds out or not.  I knew that leaving the seeds in would take the tomatoes longer to dehydrate, but I wanted to see what would happen, because it is of course much easier to leave them in, so in the end I took some of the seeds out of some of them, and some of them I left in.  

I took two platters of these tomatoes to fill up 1 shelf of the dehydrator!  
I let them dehydrate for a day, and then when they were partially dehydrated, I added some truffle sea salt to them to season them.  I've read that adding dry herbs of any kind at this point is the best time to do it. You could add dried Italian Seasonings or Garlic or whatever your heart desires! 
I was right about the seeds causing them to dry more slowly, it took about 2 & 1/2 days to get them totally dry.  It is very important to make sure that tomatoes are free of moisture if you are going to store them for any period of time.  

     They are nice and crispy!  I don't think taking out the seeds was really necessary, so next time I probably won't worry about it.  

     Of course, I don't want them crispy on my pizza, and in the store you always see the tomatoes in jars covered with olive oil.   Trust me when I tell you, simply soaking your sundried tomatoes in olive oil will not make them soft again.  I tried it.  I soaked them all day!  When I went to use them on my pizza, they were still crispy!  I thought, "Well, maybe they will soften up in the oven."  They did not.  I had black little crisp things on my pizza.  Not really pleasant!  
       Here is what you need to do: 

• Use your Jar Vacuum Sealer  and seal your dried tomatoes in a canning jar.  They will live like this for a long time as long as air doesn't get to them.

I already had taken some out of this jar to reconstitute.

• When you are ready to use some of your tomatoes, remove the desired amount from the jar and then reseal the jar of dry ones. 
• Put the sundried tomatoes that you are going to use in a small sauce pan and barely cover them with water.  Then, bring them to a boil and simmer them for about 5-10 minutes.  
• Now, drain off the water and put them in a small jar and cover them with oil and any seasoning that you want to add.
• Remember that in this state, the tomatoes should be used within about 4 days, so don't reconstitute too many! 

       Because the tomatoes reconstituted and stored in oil have a shorter shelf life, I have thought of a great way to give them as a gift instead of already in oil! 
Put some dried tomatoes in a small jam jar with a sealed lid.  Present them with a small bottle of olive oil. Add a tag that tell how to reconstitute them.   Here is a simple tag.  Click on it for the pdf to print it. 
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Watch for the pizza recipe, coming soon!