Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tomatoes: Dehydrating


I saved the skins and seeds from making sauce to dehydrate to make powder.  Why powder?  Well, to add to soups or stews to give it a little tomato flavor, of course!  You can also add it to spruce up your recipes without adding extra liquid.

I placed the skins and seeds on a roll-up tray in a thin layer.

After about 4 hours on high, I used a fork to lift and flip the mass of skins.

I let it dry another 4 hours.  It probably didn't need that long, but I wanted to err on the side of caution.

The next morning, I put it into a quart canning jar and used the bottom of my blender to create it's own canister to grind it up into.

I had to keep shaking the jar to get it to grind, but it only took a couple of minutes to become a fine powder.

The kids were astonished as to how small the skins from over 100 tomatoes ground up into!

2 comments:

  1. Hey, that was a good idea - I just gave the chickens my "left overs" from my Foley food mill....I will remember that for next year. Blessings from Wisconsin

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  2. I have an American Snackmaster food dehydrator, I dried them at 145 degrees F for 3 days (probably over-kill, but I didn't want any moisture in them), only turning the dehydrator off at night.

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