Roasted tomatoes! How to make, store, and use.

No, like most all my cooking except baking (I don’t bake), I wing it. If I look at recipes it’s more for concept and or ratios

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Latest trials.

This Tomato and Caper Spread Is a Taste of Summer, Whenever You Like

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Home canning. Either or both of fresh tomatoes you can roast later or roasted tomatoes you can use right out of the jar. Product is shelf stable and can be stowed anywhere. Last for years. We certainly have a freezer but home canning is our preservation of choice.

I prefer the texture of tomatoes roasted at lower temperatures (about 250F) for longer (3 hours). We have a dehydrator; tomatoes from that are dry, not roasted.

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I do not can and do not intend to do so .
Because we had a vegetable garden for the first time this year, , lots of beautiful tomatoes, which we gave away partially but still, froze a lot, as a consequence, running out of freezer space.
So, decided to buy a dehydrator, and a commercial one at that
I have only dehydrated twice, the one thing we love are the cherry tomatoes, cut in half, dehydrated in Evoo for around 9-10 min.
We did not care that much for the larger tomatoes or the bell pepper, poblano etc. that I added
Question: I do love roasting tomatoes in the oven for 3 hours ( serious eats Lopez recipe for the best slow cooked tomato sauce paired with the best chicken breast , pan fried with mozzarella and parmesan after marinading in butter milk)


Have you ever tried cooking your tomato sauce in dehydrator? My Vulcan oven is too big for a Le Creuset French oven cookware , too small for a 14 L tin lined copper daubier which I purchased for slow cooked food. When I used the 14L pot, it cooks beautifully but problem is loading and unloading it was a big problem. I had to actually wait hours and Horus until it cooled down, stand on a step ladder to empty it slowly) I can actually put my French oven inside ( I think) or at least use my 8 quart stock pot.
If you have used your dehydrator and it works, I would give that a try.
Thanks

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Your choice on home canning. It works great for us. When we lose electrical power I don’t worry so much about what is in the freezer.

I’m not sure what “oven is too big” means.

We make marinara and pasta sauces on the stove top.

Next weekend we are making a family recipe for bread and butter pickles (water bath canning, likely eight pints) and my own recipe for pasta sauce (pressure canning, probably two quarts and ten or twelve pints). I’m going to squeeze in some Branston pickle if I can find rutabaga.

As noted the dehydrator just dries things. If you want the flavor of roasted tomatoes in your sauce you’ll have to roast them and that means the oven or grill. If you want roasted tomato sauce you shouldn’t really peel the tomatoes but that does mean more blending. We find an immersion “stick” blender to be much more efficient than a stand blender.

If you are going to freeze sauce cooked in large quantities it is best to accelerate cooling in an ice bath to avoid the bacterial growth “danger zone” of 140F to 40F for extended periods. Be careful with that step ladder.

My 2 ovens are part of my restaurant Vulcan E60 range.

I hardly used them nowadays ,just use my countertop wolf oven.
I do not peel my tomatoes when I made those tomato pies and as for cooking roasted tomatoes, I followed KLopez, that means stove top, then oven. I can use a regular blender if I use my now bags and bags of frozen tomatoes to make tomato a good quality sauce as I do have a vitamin as well as a regular 13-14 cup cuisinart food processor.
I guess perhaps, I will google some more and see if I can use my dehydrator to give it a roasted effect since I read that one can use oven to dehydrate.
The 14L Daubiere pot is excellent as I can leave it on for up to days ( so they say) as it cooks 3 dimensional bec of its conductivity. However, suggestion is to cool it down in an ice bath using a cambrio to avoid bacterial growth but that is impossible for me and the size of that daubier.

Thanks for your advise re using step ladder, I have had too many accidents.

just received my SS cart 2 days ago , so now, it has its permanent home but tomatoes harvesting are getting scarce now.

I guess perhaps, I will google some more and see if I can use my dehydrator to give it a roasted effect since I read that one can use oven to dehydrate.

You can absolutely dehydrate in an oven. You can’t roast in a dehydrator. The temperatures, while low for roasting, can’t get high enough in a dehydrator.

Do take advice from Mr. López-Alt with a grain of salt. Serious Eats is ad driven.

Here are some paste tomatoes that I peeled and roasted in olive oil and garlic at 250 f. A little salt, pepper, pinch of sugar.

@Auspicious, what is your technique for canning roasted tomatoes? Seems like they they’d need to have added liquid.

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thanks for advice
I will not roast in the dehydrator then.

An older link here talks about sun dried tomatoes superior than machine dried ones.

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It looks like some kind of robot. I’d be worried about it coming to life and trying to dehydrate me while I’m sleeping.

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Hi shrinkrap,

Your tomatoes look lovely. I use https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/GUIDE03_HomeCan_rev0715.pdf . I usually add water as the product seems to have a greasy mouthfeel adding oil. Hot pack. YMMV.

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Naf,

Do you mean “Sun dried tomatoes” soaked in Italian extra virgin olive oil ?

Delicious on a pizza or in a salad or paired with mozzarella di bufala and Genovese Basil, a Caprese Salad or with Buratta di Bufala in a Caprese Salad.

Balsamic vinegar I use is: Valerio Bellini, Acetaia Ferretti - Corradini
Reggio Emilia
www.passionebalsamica.it

The Evoo, I am extremely fond of is: Poggio Grimodi
Azienda Agrícola Poggio Grimoldi
Caronia, Sicilia
www.poggiogrimodi.it

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@Auspicious; thank you!

Here are some Principe Borghese sun-drying, at least in principal.

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Nice. Have you tried aluminum foil or another reflector under your grate? That might be helpful.

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I suppose. It is 105 right now. I’m good. Maybe later.

I am at it again. Focusing on the small Maglia Rosa and Principe Borghese right now. In addition to cutting in half, I think longitude on one, latitude on the other, sprinkled salt, pepper, garlic (I think powder), and a spritz of olive oil. So I figure I’ll be doing these in a low oven vs outside.

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Your tomatoes look fantastic. I have made oven-dried tomatoes a few times, usually with the last cherry tomatoes at the end of the season. We eat them quickly at our house so I can’t vouch for how well, or how long, you might store them. Yum.

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Thank you @tomatotomato.

Two hours on 250f.

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