Drying and Canning

Ryan has gone on a drying spree.

We've been given a bunch of peppers and tomatoes by a lady I work with and we had too many peppers for salsa alone. Ryan decided to dry the various peppers whole in our dehydrator. He dried jalapeños, habaneros and another garden pepper, I'm not sure what kind it is exactly.

Many of the tomatoes we got were big cherry tomatoes that we cut in half and dried in the dehydrator, too. These ended up being perfect for dried tomatoes because they were so big that by the time they dehydrated all the way there was actually something left. Ryan

dried tomatoes

had the idea of grinding these dried tomatoes up and using them in things like sauces and salsa. It worked out great. He ground up the tomatoes and it turned into this great powder with a pungent aroma and deep flavor and color. I can't wait to use it in everything.

Most of the tomatoes were cut up into chunks, cold packed into pint jars and preserved for over-winter. I would so much rather have my own canned tomatoes than buy them at the store where they have tons of sodium and other preservatives. This is just tomatoes, lemon juice and water.

dried tomato po

I saved back a portion of the tomatoes for salsa. I have never made my own salsa before, and this batch ended up a success. I pretty much looked at two or three different recipes to go off of for amounts, but kind of just threw what I wanted in the pot. Once I got everything in there that I wanted: Jalapeños, red and green bell peppers, chopped onions, garlic, one habanero pepper, red pepper flakes, dried tomato powder, cumin, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper, I brought it all to a boil and let it simmer for 30-45 minutes. Really just until it was the right consistency. Then, I canned it. I did pints because quarts are just way too much and anything smaller is definitely not enough. Pints are perfect for salsa.

Our last two tomato plants are still giving us some tomatoes. The Cherokee Purple is going strong and the Sunrise Bumblebee is doing okay. The purple ones are big, beefy and great for slicing and canning. We've made BLTs with them and the flavor is on point. The texture is perfect, too. I want to grow these every year. We had an abundance so I canned a quart of them and threw a handful into my salsa. I still have five or six that I just picked this morning that will be ripe in the next couple of days.

Ryan made pasta dough with some of the dried tomato powder, as well as the butternut squash from the garden. There is just all kinds of things you can do with dried tomato powder and I intend to try more and let you know.

Handy Dandy Dehydrator

Over the weekend, I've been messing around with a food dehydrator Ryan and I bought on Amazon. We discussed it for awhile and decided that we would have plenty of tomatoes to dry and other projects we'd like to try (dried fruit, beef jerky, fruit leather, etc.), and we felt it would be a worthwhile purchase. We spent about $65 for it with free shipping.

The dehydrator we bought is electric with a fan that runs. There aren't any settings on it because we decided on a basic model since we are beginners. Of course there are more expensive ones that let you play with settings like timers and temperature control. That would be nice, but those models cost more around $200 and we just weren't ready to spend that much. One thing I like about our model is that the trays can be stacked one way for a shallow drying surface for thinly cut foods, and stacked another way for thicker cut foods, you just flip it over. That way, you don't smash your food or give too much room either.

For the first round, I kept it simple with cherry tomatoes. Later, I added basil, which didn't take very

long at all.  I cut the tomatoes in half and placed them cut side up. The tomatoes weren't too juicy so I didn't have to worry about them dripping into the fan, which is something I have to watch out for on this particular model. I didn't treat the tomatoes with anything at all, I just stuck them into the dehydrator after slicing them and turned it on.

A little bit later, I added some fresh basil from the garden. The basil only took 45 minutes to an hour. It was quick and the smell was amazing. I just stood there and smelled it all for awhile and enjoyed the aroma. When the basil was dried, I found a container and crumbled the freshly dried herb into it. Ahh, it smelled so good! The freshest dried herbs you'll ever use are ones produced this way. I opened my store-bought basil and compared and it just didn't make the cut. The store-bought stuff was gross compared to what I had just made. It's hard not to throw it out, but it's gonna happen eventually I'm sure.

Dried cherry tomatoes

Yesterday, I found some somewhat old blueberries in the fridge. They weren't yet moldy, but they were just a little shriveled. I thought, 'what the heck' and threw them in the dehydrator. Why not? I left them in for about 11 hours and they were almost all the way dry, except for the bigger blueberries, they were like little pebbles. The bigger ones were a little more like raisin-consistency.

I also dried some herbs -- thyme, basil, pineapple sage and rosemary -- but I did those first so the flavor wouldn't leach out into the blueberries. That wouldn't be good.

Next, we want to try bananas, peaches and maybe even some kiwi.