Dear Liza,
As the summer winds down, tomatoes are sort of stacking up. And since they are basically little water balloons, they don’t last long.
Today I picked another pound and looked up how to dry them in the oven, since our damp northwest weather makes “sun dried” impossible. To start, I rinsed off the tomatoes and cut them in half.
Then I squeezed each half over a bowl to get out the squishy middle and the seeds. This is a messy job, because they squirt all over the place! Once they were done, I sprinkled them with salt and put them in the oven at 170 C.
They look sort of like soggy little shoes, don’t they? The recipe said to start with a period of 4 hours, so I set the timer and went about my day. A Giants game on TV, a nice long walk, writing to my friend Jennifer, and lunch took most of the time.
And, sure enough, after four and a half hours, the pound of cherry tomatoes had turned into a cup of these odd little raisin-y things. I ate a few, and they were delicious! Sweet and chewy and very intense.
To keep them moist and delicious, I put them into a jar and poured in some good olive oil. The recipe says they should be good for a few months, but I don’t think they will last that long. I’m going to put them in salads and on toast and in pasta!
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 