Saving Space - Dehydrating Canned Tomatoes

The love affair with my dehydrator is more intense these days.  If it's not nailed down or consumed, more than likely food will find itself on a drying tray. 

Nine pints of tomatoes sat in my pantry that were a couple of years old.  There are a lot of conversations lately about how long home canned items should sit on the shelf and a lot more disagreement about the quality of the canning lids or flats, as Mom called them.  The debate is not about the sealing material, but about how much of that material is on the lid, especially during the last couple of years.  Ball, Kerr, Mason packaging states that home canned items should be used within a year and claim that has always been the recommendation.  Home canners are upset that their canned goods no longer have a 3-5 year shelf life as they had been accustomed.  There seems to be no resolution.  So rather than taking a chance on losing my good organic tomatoes, I dried them. 

As is typical, I forget to keep a camera on hand during the process.  The text version will have to do for now.

I drained the biggest portion of the liquid from the tomatoes, mostly water, then gently spread two pints of tomatoes on a dehydrator tray.  Gently spread the fruit on the tray, but don't press down.  You want to keep the good tomato flavor in tact.  Cut the larger pieces in half so the trays fit properly in the dehydrator.  Set the temperature to 125 and let the tomatoes dry overnight.  The next morning, peel the tomatoes from the trays, flip the tomato pieces over, and allow dry for another 4-5 hours.  When brittle, remove and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Use a coffee grinder, a blender, or food processor to make a powder.  Sift the powder into a bowl and reprocess the bigger chunks again.  Store tomato powder in a canning jar with an oxygen pack.  Results:  Nine pints of tomatoes yielded 1/2 pint of tomato powder.  A scant tablespoon of powder is equivalent to 1 cup tomato sauce.  The powder is a beautiful red color and has a fresh tomato smell.  It dissolves easily in warm water - great for soups!

Finished Tomato Powder

You may be wondering how much tomato "trash" was left.  Less than a teaspoon!  I could not get this to grind any smaller; it was mostly some of the "unripe" parts of the tomatoes that were hard when I packed the jars. 


Dried Tomato "Trash"

All in all, I'm happy with the results and happier with the extra pantry space.  Good timing - there are a lot of tomatoes in the garden waiting to ripen.

Adventures in Sourdough, Part 1

Discovering sourdough, all aspects, is very much an adventure.  It seems quite wasteful to toss out a portion of the dough, just to feed it.  It's a much better service to feed my family, friends, and myself.  Suddenly, our bill for flour and butter has increased along with the need to bicycle away in the evenings.  But it's so worth the effort and extra calories.  Even then, using the starter is not always practical.  So we dry it.

Magic Man and I travel - a lot.  Often not together.  Maintaining the starter can be challenging.  Asking Magic Man is probably not the best idea either.  He has other things far more important than playing with paste.  He'd rather eat the paste than tend to it.

My supplier, Mr. M tells me I can freeze starter, thaw it in the fridge overnight, and feed the next day.  I discovered we can dehydrate starter, crumble and store in an airtight jar until needed.  Mr M was a happy camper... literally.  He loves to camp and now he can have his sourdough pancakes on the trail.

It's quite an easy process, along with a few memorable lessons, to dehydrate starter.  Let's begin...

First, feed the starter and when its happy, stir it down.  On a sheet of plastic (I used gallon sized freezer bags) or sil-pat, spread the starter just as thin as you can.  Then spread it a little more.  The air temp should be warm.  I oh so wisely chose to use my dehydrator set on low, taping the plastic to the trays.  That was good... and bad. 

Starter spread on plastic freezer bags

In 30 minutes, it was evident the dehydrator was drying quickly.  I smiled and walked away, proud that I was so darned clever. 

Starter after 30 minutes of drying

Something told me to check back sooner, but instead I returned three hours later.  The starter had "drawn up," pulled up the tape causing the starter to crumble.  When I opened the door to the dehydrator, I was blasted by a cloud of sourdough snow.  There were flakes everywhere. There was enough dried starter left on the trays for experimenting - without have to recover the delicate flakes from the floor. 

Next time, the dehydrator will run for 1 hour, we'll pull the trays and crank up the heat.  Then we'll turn off the machine, return the trays, and let the starter continue to dry in the warmed box.

To use, mix a little warm water with the starter flakes.  Slowly add water until the mixture is pancake batter consistency.  Let the mixture sit a few hours to activate.  Use in your favorite recipe.

Experiment: Dehydrating Eggs

I'm always looking for the unique ideas and skills on the pathway to self sufficiency.  Recently, I stumbled on this article about dehydrating eggs (all the details are here).  What the heck - I'll try it.  This lady dehydrates 9 dozen eggs at a time, so I decided to gamble with 1/2 dozen while we were drying pineapple.

Branching - pineapple is probably the easiest and most rewarding fruit to dry.  No special prep, other than slicing the same thickness of the fruit, and wow, does the home smell wonderful during the process.  An entire pineapple sliced in rings, fits comfortably in a quart freezer bag.

Ok, ok.. back on track.  So, 6 eggs took a quick whirl in the blender, a few seconds was perfect.  My non-stick pan is heating on the stove, with no oils, sprays, etc.  This is purely eggs to non-stick coating process.  Commence the scrambling process.  Using a spatula, break up the chunks into small pieces as you stir the eggs.  Once the eggs are cooked, spread them evenly onto the drying rack and place them in the oven.  Set the dehydrator to 145 degrees.  After 8 hours the eggs were close to done.  I tested by breaking some of the larger pieces.  By 10 hours, they were are ready to pull from the dehydrator.  The large hunks were the same color and texture inside and out.

Into the Blender

Grinding into Egg Powder

Volume results for 6 eggs: 1 1/2 cups raw, 3/4 cup dried.  Next weekend, we will try the egg powder in a blind taste test.

6 Eggs on the Left, 6 Eggs on the Right

Drying eggs and pineapple together?  The flavors did not cross.