Tomatoes will continue to ripen after the harvest.
If you have more fresh tomatoes from your garden than you can eat, preserve them to enjoy these flavors all year long. One method of preservation involves dehydrating them and grinding them into a fine powder. Add the powder to your soups, pasta dishes and casseroles to boost the flavor and add important nutrients, like lycopene and phytofluene -- two carotenoids. If you have a food dehydrator, use this to dry your tomatoes. Otherwise, dry them in your oven at a low temperature.
Instructions
1. Wash your fresh tomatoes and dry them with a paper towel. Slice them in half lengthwise.
2. Remove the seeds from the tomato halves, but try to leave the pulp in them. Remove discolored spots. Slice the halves in half again.
3. Arrange the tomato quarters on your oven rack (not a cookie sheet) with the cut side facing upward. Place aluminum foil underneath them or on the bottom of the oven. This will catch the tomato juice.
4. Heat the oven to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and leave the oven door slightly open. Allow the tomatoes to dry for about six hours. After three hours, use a spatula to flatten the slices and stir them around a little.
5. Test the tomatoes after six hours. Tomatoes intended for powdering must be brittle, rather than leathery. If you can easily break a tomato slice, it is ready. If it bends, allow it to dry longer.
6. Take the tomatoes out of the oven when they are done. Let them cool completely.
7. Add the tomatoes, about 2 cups at a time, to a food processor. Turn the setting to "high" and run the food processor until the dried tomatoes are the consistency of a fine powder.
Tags: fine powder, food processor, fresh tomatoes, tomatoes about, your oven
