I found cherry tomatoes 3 pounds for two dollars, so I bought 9 pounds.
Pretty nice tomatoes đ
;
I bought 6 of these.
First step is to cut each tomato in half;
This cost me a little time, but the knife we as freshly sharpened; so no skin or blood.
After cutting the first one, this was left;
This is when you have to get tough, and stop looking at how many remain!
Nine pounds will totally fill my dehydrator;
The only problem is tomatoes contain a lot of water, so this has to be run a long time to get it fully dried. Don't be tempted to run the temperature higher to cut this time, because the taste suffers if you exceed 150 F°!
Take the time now, and keep the fresh flavor!
It took about 40 hours to get here;
They must be dry enough to snap under load. The other test is when poured they ring on impact.
I dump the dried stuff into a deep kettle;
This is because with all the work done on these vegetables already, and I don't want to spill any before they are packaged!
This filled exactly 2 quarts jars;
These have been vacuum packed at approximately 28 in of mercury with my sealing gear. These will be good for several decades, so these will move to the homestead on the next trip. I may pick up another 9 pounds when I pass that store again, if I can talk my hand into more cutting....
I always look for deals that will stretch my prepping dollar.