Preserving tomatoes.

[herbs93]

Anyone here tried sun-dried (or oven dried, or dehydrator dried) tomatoes? Last summer I made a smaller batch from garden-grown cherry tomatoes and wanted to preserve them in olive oil so later in the winter months I would have sun-dried tomatoes in a jar.

But when November came and I opened the first jar, somehow the tomatoes were so bland and also really hard to chew? Any thoughts? What did i do wrong?

 

[Durgan]

Anything dried has to be hard to chew, since softness indicates moisture, which leads to spoilage.

Commercial dried material in stores, which is soft, is laced with chemicals to inhibit spoilage.

The beauty of drying is produce can be kept for long periods at room temperature. The package is also small, ideal for packing and carrying.To make edible soaking is usually the method.

Your dried tomatoes appear to be excellent. They should have some flavour.

 

[Beth_B]

I've oven dried tomatoes then put them in canning jars with garlic, red hot pepper etc (can't recall exactly since its been years.) I used them mostly in pasta type dishes so they got rehydrated during cooking and not quite as chewy. And they had a fairly strong flavor.

How are you eating or preparing yours? If that's a photo of your own tomatoes they look great!

As an aside I have a friend who does cold-canning and makes among other things tomato jam and tomato sauce. Consistently excellent and she has not killed anyone with botulism in the 14 years I have known her. That's another option for preserving tomatoes.

 

[alexiskilgannon]

From what I understand, it's extremely hard to sundry your own tomatoes without it ending in a disaster. If you're looking for something that isn't so chewy, I would dry them in the sun until they are almost completely dry and then put them in the oil. Make sure they do not completely dry out and still maintain a bit of moisture.

 

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/2015/August 2015/16 August 2015 Pure Tomato Juice/HTML/ 16 August 2015 Pure Tomato Juice.
Twenty nine pounds of tomatoes picked today was made into 14 liters of juice, stored in liter jars. The tomatoes were cooked in one pot with one liter of water added to facilitate cooking. The jars were pressure canned in batches of seven for long term storage at room temperature. Pressure canned was 15 PSI for 15 minutes. No fuss and no muss.

 

[Corzhens]

This is the first time I've heard of preserving dried tomatoes. I have read in one article (not sure if that's in this site) about pickled tomato as a means of preserving for later use. Unlike ordinary pickles with vinegar, this pickling process has no vinegar. But the most common is preserving tomato juice.

 

[KimmyMarkks]

Sundries tomatoes is a good idea. Last time I tried to make them it was a total failure, they didn't taste good at all. I may try again this summer though.
I usually make pasta sauce with my excess tomatoes. Then I freeze the sauce to use during the winter months. It's hard to get fresh tomatoes in the winter to make sauce.

 

[dreamseer]

My mom and I usually can tons of tomatoes. Our record was over 300 jars one year! The last few years we have experimented with drying. We didn't sun-dry, but used a dehydrator. They turned out good and we even powdered some in the blender to use in bread and other recipes.

 

[herbs93]

Anything dried has to be hard to chew, since softness indicates moisture, which leads to spoilage.

Commercial dried material in stores, which is soft, is laced with chemicals to inhibit spoilage.

The beauty of drying is produce can be kept for long periods at room temperature. The package is also small, ideal for packing and carrying.To make edible soaking is usually the method.

Your dried tomatoes appear to be excellent. They should have some flavour.

Oh, I didn't know that the chewiness depends on the chemical stuff. Then I shouldn't worry about my tomatoes but be happy because they don't have any artificial in them. Thanks for the info.

 

[KimmyMarkks]

Another great tip for preserving tomatoes is pickling is also a great way to preserve (green tomatoes). Other than pickling, making sun dried tomatoes and using them for sauce I don’t know if there is a way to preserve a whole red tomatoes.

 

[marlingardener]

Whole ripe tomatoes can be frozen. I wash the tomatoes, take off the stem and core them, place them on a cookie sheet and slip them into the freezer (usually overnight). When they are little red hard balls, I put the frozen tomatoes in a freezer bag and stick them back in the freezer. When thawed, the skins slip off as if they had been blanched. These can be used in sauces, stews, chili, but not as you would use fresh tomatoes.

 

[Pat]

I have only attempted to preserve tomatoes for sauce or stews.

 

[headfullofbees]

Whole ripe tomatoes can be frozen. I wash the tomatoes, take off the stem and core them, place them on a cookie sheet and slip them into the freezer (usually overnight). When they are little red hard balls, I put the frozen tomatoes in a freezer bag and stick them back in the freezer. When thawed, the skins slip off as if they had been blanched. These can be used in sauces, stews, chili, but not as you would use fresh tomatoes.

I do the same.