Dried Fruit | Sun Dried Tomatoes

Tomatoes, horticolturally speaking are fruit; love fruit or love apple as they used to be best-known in times past gone, are great and fortunately there is a good deal of ways to eat them - in Italian pasta sauces, curries, salads or grilled on toast. It is the sun dried tomatoes, in my belief, that are the most value for money and labor. However, you might be faced, (depend on your geographic position), with insufficient sunshine in order to dry them out.

Typically, by the time you had enough of prepared in every other way, in all likelihood closer to Autumn, looking out of your window you could notice grizzly skies and in general miserable weather condition even though it was summertime a couple of weeks back. In any case, the point is you do not have the sunshine and hours of warmth to dry out tomatoes naturally and… Well as an alternative use the oven!

OK it is not precisely sun dried tomatoes 'naturally', but the finished product can be just as tasteful with a little bit of attention not to let the heat in the oven become too hot. Well, it's Oven Dried tomatoes in your case. There is actually not a lot to it - a pan full of tomatoes cut in half with salt and olive oil scattered over, that is all there is to it. It could not be any easier.

The following is a recipe for Sun …Oh well Oven Dried tomatoes then.

INGREDIENTS:
Tomatoes - sufficient to fill a roasting tray when cut in halves
Olive Oil - sufficient to generously cover up each tomato half in the roasting tray
Salt - only a little sprinkle on each tomato half
3cm deep roasting tray
Clean sterilized glass jars - to keep the tomatoes in!

METHOD
Cut the tomatoes into halves and put in the roasting tray with cut side up. Lightly sprinkle a little salt over the tomatoes, not too much, only sufficient to season them and absorb the water out of them to assist with drying out. Drizzle olive oil over each tomato half, just sufficient to coat each one. Excessiveness of olive oil in the pan is not a problem since the oil will be utilized to store the tomatoes in jars.

In addition to the preceding, if you like garlic and herbs their addition creates a great, impressive taste to the finished product. It is simple enough to blitz the garlic up with the olive oil ahead of pouring and then add the herbs to the tomatoes prior to pouring over the garlic oil. Be warned though if you do not like the odor….I love garlic.

After organizing the tomatoes in the roasting tray, put the tray in the already turned on oven at the lowest possible hotness - simmer at most. As a general rule, if you can not touch the roasting tray because it is overly hot, then the oven is too hot and requires either turning the heat down or the door allowed open for 10 minutes or so.

Leave the tomatoes in the oven for at minimum 4 hours - even 2 hours is OK, but the lengthier the better, 12 hours would be great. After taking them from the oven, place the tomatoes in sterilized jars (wash them well) and make certain to pour the olive oil on topmost so that all the tomatoes are wrapped up. Allowing anything exposed will not keep as long.

For tomatoes with garlic and/or herbs, make certain to keep them in the refrigerator until eaten - they keep about a month or so. The oil is first-class as salad dressing; do not let that go to waste material.

If the tomatoes were broiled in olive oil solely, the contents keep a bit better without the garlic and herbs. After a couple of months the olive oil is outstanding for salad dressings as well.

tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes