[Papa]

Dear Athenaeus:

I am sure there are those who have better ideas about how to make sun dried tomatoes, but I thought I would share my personal experience with making these tomatoes that I love.

The way we made our sun dried tomatoes in Brittany (where I had difficulty finding them in the market most likely due to my inadequate searching) was to slice the tomatoes in very, very thin wedges, place them on an (olive!)oiled baking sheet, and place them in a warm oven set on a low temperature. I believe it was about 60 degrees C, but I advise using the lowest oven setting rather than relying upon my [sometimes woefully unreliable] memory about a specific temperature. The drying time will vary depending upon such factors as the use of a regular or a convection oven, the thickness of your tomato slices, and the lowest temperature setting permitted by your oven. I thought I had those tomatoes in the oven for several hours, but I must admit that it has been awhile since I have made them. I did not salt the tomatoes at any time. Although I know you were probably using salt to help eliminate the water, I left mine plain so that any seasoning done on the tomatoes was simply done for my future selected recipe.

After the "sun" dried tomatoes were dried in the oven to a consistency that I wanted for use with salads, some of my favorite cheeses, pizza (one of my favorites is sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese)and other dishes, I removed the baking sheet from the oven, let the tomato slices cool and placed them in conserve jars filled with olive oil. What I loved most about that storage method was that I used the tomato infused oil in my salad dressings as I used up the tomatoes.

I hope that this is of assistance.

[mudbug]

Athenaeus,

I do dry mine in the sun.

Here's how:

I have a food dehydrater I bought at a garage sale. I use the trays to lay the tomato slices on.

I slice my tomatoes with a mandolin on the thickest setting or they'll shrivel to tissue paper if too thin.

I spray the trays with olive oil, then arrange the slices of tomato so they do not overlap on the trays. I sprinkle them very lightly with kosher salt (if you hold your hand up pretty high over the tomatoes, the salt will distribute evenly) and freshly ground black pepper.

I then take the lid of my black weber grill, turn it upside down on the ground (use rocks underneath so it doesn't tilt too much) and arrange the trays in the lid. This adds to the heat to dry the tomatoes. Or I put the trays on top of my car! LOL!

It works for me!

PS Next time, just post your question once. Everyone can always to to this page to see Today's Active Topics. It is most appropriately posted at the Cooking Questions forum.

No need to "cross post" at more than one forum.

[Athenaeus]

It's only a few days that I am trying to follow your interesting discussions up. I am not sure that I have figured out yet how the systems functions, so, I will post my question to several forums.Sorry about that!

This year I planted two varieties of tomatoes. I had in my mind to prepare (among other things of course) sun-dried tomatoes. All my attempts have failed so far :-(
It's such a disaster! I put them under the sun, covered by coarse sea salt. They become so salty that you cannot eat them afterwards. If I skip the sea salt they go rotten within 2 days. Another day wasps ...attacked them.
I hung them by a rope as they do in the island of Santorini. i think that I've been feeding the bees and the birds of the whole area...
Do you have any ideas about that? I begin to have doubts whether sun dried tomatoes exist or they are just tomatoes dried in the oven.
Please help me! I have about 20p of tomatoes waiting ...
Thanks in advance

[Papa]

Dear Cchiu:

Something tells me that you live in a part of the World that is sunny and does not have a lot of humidity! The top of your car!