Kitchen Garden Forum

http://www.tchibo.co.uk/is-bin/INTERSHO ... KU=0001774

dont know if anyone is interested in this, think I will get one to try, seems a good price

mandy

plus if you add the code 302270 in at checkout you get £5.00 off if its your first order
looks like they sold out pretty fast, got mine just in time

I managed to get one as well, thanks. It arrived yesterday and it seems ideal.

I dry loads of tomatoes in a low oven each year but this looks a better tool for the job.

What else will you be using yours for?

Jerry

mine arrived yesterday too, mostly tomatoes i think although I might try banana and apple slices, I expect i will get more adventurous once i get going with it, I'm really pleased theres loads of room in it. I was a bit confused by the instructions in the booklet for beans as it seems to say to cook them first?

mandy

Hi Jerry,

how do you dry your tomatoes via the oven and then how do you store them, do they keep for long?

I have just installed a polytunnel with the intention of growing loads of Roma and San Marzano for passata, and would love to divert some of these to drying if possible.

Hi Piglet

I'm not going to try and answer your question on "how" to dry tomatoes in the oven, I'll leave that to Jerry. What I would say is I tried it a few years ago and having had my oven on for hours and hours and hours the result wasn't really worth the effort. If you're doing a load of tomatoes I would think an investment in a food drier would be a good thing and soon pay for itself.

Chantal

We have oven dried toms for a few years now, 5 or 6? But I hav wanted a dryer for some tims as it does take a while.

What we do is half or quarter the toms, we dry everything from cherry to plum to large toms.

These then go on a rack in a baking try with a sprinkling of maldon sea salt and some mixed herbs.

Into a low oven, 70 to 100 degrees with the door just ajar. Afetr about 2 hours check and remove the toms just as they start to take on some colour.

These go into sterile kilner jars and covered with olive oil. Store in a cool dark place and they will last for 6 to 8 months. We are still using last years at the moment.

Mum does much the same but has a 4 oven aga and the bottom left oven is ideal for the job.

The idea of the drier is to do more at a time and to save the oven bill.

Jerry

Forgot to say, I grow San Marzona and it dries very well indeed.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry

Last year I tried doing some oven dried tomatoes but wasn't exactly sure how far they had to be dried, i.e. whether they should have a little moisture left in them or whether they should be as dry as leather. I dried them for 3 or 4 hours and then covered them in a sterlisied jar with olive oil. However, after a couple of months mould started appearing on the top of the oil. What did I do wrong?

Considering the amount of tomatoes I cut up and dried the end result seemed rather unrewarding, so far this summer I've turned our surplus toms into tomato purree with onion & basil and freeze it, which seems to be a more reliable and versatile way of preserving them. However, would like to try once more to get the oven dried recipe right so any advice would be welcome.

If you dont cover the toms with oil to keep the air of them you can get a bit of mould.

I watch our jars and top up the oil if required.

Jerry