I don’t think I’ll do a marinara - that example was used because it is the clearest version of a recipe that uses whole tomatoes and little else. I was thinking of how I might be making my bolognese, minestrone, chili, with only 2 cans of chopped tomatoes left in the house. I’m trying to avoid going back to the store until I really need to.
Dehydrated gives you the opportunity to rehydrate with more flavor than water (or just water.) stock, wine, etc.
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It is my understanding that much, if not most, of the ingredients listed on the labels of canned, jarred, and frozen foods come from China. For reasons of storage and shipping cost, these are dried/dehydrated before sale, whenever possible. Even if that can or jar of tomato sauce you buy is made in America, its tomatoes and garlic and onions were probably grown and dried in China. So I wouldn’t worry about subbing for fresh or canned.
Really? Footnotes? I have in my head that most of the shipping is North-South to take advantage of the opposite seasons in the hemispheres. So in US markets, produce from South America off season.
Oh that I can confirm, the cheaper canned tomatoes and bottled tomato sauce. I saw a documentary here that the tomato were dripping and molding in the ship and then the truck, really disgusting. Maybe even frozen ones… read your label carefully.
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This north south travel is certainly true for the fresh produce.
But like raisins versus grapes (or prunes versus plums, or dried versus fresh chile peppers), the fundamental “flavor” of dehydrated tomatoes is very different than fresh (or canned, or even tomato products “concentrated/reduced from fresh” but not completely dried dehydrated, like tomato paste).
Makes sense, and why maybe using the dehydrated would work somewhere that tomatoes were not the main star, but part of an ensemble cast. That’s what my instinct says anyway. I’ll give it a try soon. I can’t do the bolognese or the chili for a little while, because as my youngest said, everything we’ve eaten in the last week has had beans or carrots in it. Which is true. I stocked up on both when we did our armageddon shopping.
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Good luck - I’m facing the opposite problem. My cans of tomatoes are definitely beyond the best if used by date… Kind of hoping not to get food poisoning or anything, this would be the worst time for that. Fingers crossed!
Best by and food poisoning are hugely different things.
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I can’t supply references, but I recall this from when melamine-tainted Chinese ingredients were poisoning dog kibble manufactured in the U.S. You may recall that there was a furor over the safety of Chinese ingredients in our food products. The vast quantity of American-made infant formula that Chinese tourists bring with them when they return to China after trips here shows that they don’t trust their own government to safeguard their agricultural products. I believe the bit about the ubiquity of dried imported Chinese ingredients was from a radio interview with Corby Kummer, the context being that even if you are buying an American-made food product, following the supply chain nearly always takes you to China. And when a label lists, say, garlic, it is probably powdered or dried, and from China.
If the ends of the your cans aren’t bulging and/or nothing “sprays out” when you open them, the contents are safe. If they’re really old (like, 5+ years past the best-before date), the quality may have suffered (they may have darkened and/or taste funky), but even they won’t hurt you.
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Sorry I’ve been out of the loop; should’ve seen this post sooner. I’ve spent years processing tomatoes in almost every way possible, so here’s what I’ve noticed:
*Dried tomatoes have a limited shelf life, even if vacuum-sealed. Eventually, they darken and lose quality. If they appear red and taste good, they can be used for sauce. Unless they were blanched, peeled before processing, the skins will make any dish less appealing. Many tomatoes have seeds in quantities which can produce bitter off flavors if cooked for long hours, pressure cooked, or canned. For these reasons, I’d suggest a boiling water soak, until the tomatoes are soft enough to run through a food mill to separate out skins and seed. A Foley-type mill works well. Sieves would require a softer tomato-more water. Water can always be added later.
*“Fresh” sauce does not taste like fresh tomatoes, unless it’s raw tomatoes which have not been cooked. Even brief cooking makes the meaty, paste type tomatoes watery. My favorite sauces, from fresh tomatoes, are reduction sauces. Tomatoes are cored, cut into chunks and briefly simmered to destroy an enzyme which causes solids to separate, and to make straining easier. In season, I’m processing about 60 lbs/27 kilos every 4-5 days. To handle this volume, I use a Squeezo strainer to produce quantities of juice/puree. The Squeezo separates out seeds and skins by cranking the handle. Many similar products exist. Reduction, in volume, is carried out in a neverburn-type stock pot, set on gentle simmer for hours. These "never burn pots are perfect for the ask, since you don’t have to spend hours stirring, watching constantly; you need to pat attention more towards the end, when there’s little water left. The reduction is usually 11-12 parts reduces to 3, by volume. This is with Italian paste/plum varieties. Juice is canned in mason jars. Low acid tomatoes can grow botulism-add citric acid per guidelines. I grow old heirlooms, with plenty of acid.
*Freeze dried tomatoes rehydrate into a soggy mess, if you are thinking of using slices. While they may be useful in some dishes, you’ll still have the skins, which form unpleasant strands. So far, my favorite use for the freeze dried tomatoes is tomato powder. Add boiling water and you have juice or a type of sauce. This sauce may need additional cooking, depending on the flavor you want. Cold water added to freeze dried or dried tomatoes might lead to liquid/solid separation. To make tomato powder, crush the freeze dried tomatoes. I use a wooden potato “stomper”. This keeps seeds and skin mostly intact, while the soft parts crumble. Then, it’s easy to sieve out the seeds and skins. You’re left with a pink powder (if using red tomatoes). This gets vacuum sealed with oxygen absorbing packets, for long-term storage. Oxygen absorbing packets are non toxic, basically packaged iron which converts to rust, stealing oxygen from containers.
Tomato powder can be added to salad dressings or anywhere the flavor of tomatoes is wanted.
By far, tomato puree/juice (canned or via powder) is the best, most flexible product. You can make Bloody Marys, Gazpacho, reduce it to pasta sauce, reduce it further to paste.
I just tried something new to me. Since shelf space is filling and there’s a LOT of canned reduction sauce, I freeze dried the reduction, making it stable for years (if properly sealed). This should keep much, if not all of the original flavor. Unlike canned, which might keep a few years. Freeze dried can keep 15-20 years without degrading.
Disease has crept into the garden space. For years, I grafted heirlooms on resistant rootstocks, which worked great; tomatoes were super productive all season. Now, I need to grow something outside the nightshade family. Thus, the goal is to enjoy the past couple year’s supply of dried, freeze dried and canned in ways that little, if any goes bad.
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@bogman That was quite helpful; thanks!
With regard to disease in your garden, what are your thoughts about earth boxes? I use them almost exclusively for peppers and dwarf project tomatoes, but not because of disease.
BTW, I believe I am growing some of your seeds again; thanks again.
Earth boxes can work very well for certain situations. Some of these include: very dry climate, where the native soil acts like kitty litter, i.e. you water and it wicks away quickly. Another is if the opposite is true, you need to get drainage. It’s often easier to dump old soil, sanitize the box and start new than to do this in the field. The box can be a barrier, to a point.
Many diseases produce airborne spores which blow on the wind, especially in the humid southeast USA. Tomato blights are in this group, Phytophthora infestans being a big one; note the Latin name! No container can guard against these sorts of pests. Septoria leaf spot is also carried around via spores. Viruses typically have small sucking, flying insect pests, so the earth box won’t help.
If you have slugs or snails, it’s way easier to guard a box than in-ground.
Unlike in ground situations, it’s much easier for a container to get depleted of nutrients or to have a pH drift. That’s because soil (in ground) mixes nutrients, chemicals leach around when it rains. Osmotic activity tends to cause chemical drift from higher levels to lower levels. Also, plants can stretch their roots farther, as needed.
The more your container produces, the more nutrients it loses. So, fertilizing is critical. Checking pH is very important, maybe twice a season. Container plants that I harvest from, such as Thai Lime leaf, I fertilize every week or two and often spray liquid seaweed on the leaves. Most plants can absorb nutrients through foliage, especially Iron, Nitrogen, Calcium and others. This is a fast way to check if a fertilizer is working. If not, maybe the pH is off or you need a different nutrient(s).
In my case, boxes are not practical, due to the scale. I run a rototiller down 30-60 foot rows. The garden space is 140 feet on each side. Tomato plantings range from 30-50 plants, each over 8 feet high at maturity. Peppers numbered around 80-120, depending on the year; it’s small scale farming. It’s easier to back off a problem crop and grow something else for awhile, let the disease die out for lack of a host.
I can use areas that have not grown nightshades for 4+ years, but the more of that I use, the closer it gets to the old spots! Moles, damn them, are a major issue. They spread soil diseases like mad as they tunnel around. Moles don’t eat plants, but they wiped out most of my pepper crop last year by spreading soil-borne disease spores. One plant gets infected-pull it, toss it far away or burn it, don’t water that spot-it should be semi contained. Then mole tunnels appear up and down the rows. Two weeks later, everything is diseased. I’m trapping them now and going to try a repellent I’m thinking about in my head.
Animal rights folks, you might want to switch your screen! Having way more Carolina Reaper peppers pickled than I need, the idea is to emulsify them with cheap vegetable oil, maybe used, and mustard as an emulsifying agent. Blend it up in a Vitamix outdoors and it should be highly irritant to moles, if buried in trenches. If I dig a sloping shallow trench after tilling, about a foot deep, spray/pour that repellent on the soil and bury the band, it ought to get rid of the moles, which have very sensitive noses. The oil should absorb capsaicin well and resist washing away. I also dried a bunch of Scotch bonnets which were blemished, damaged, not suitable for food use; if I still have “repellent” grade, they’ll go in the mix.
Moles create, on average, 75 feet of new tunnels per 24 hours! … jerks.
Shrinkrap, glad you’re growing some of the seeds. Hopefully, the True Rocotillo did what it was supposed to, if it got planted yet. A fellow seed saver freezes his seeds, in jars or sealed in Mylar, to get really long life out of them. I don’t have enough freezer space, so have two fridges for seed and that works well enough. Did you grow the Peruvian Aji Amarillo? I simply could not resist starting some this year, so will find new ground for them, maybe two other types. Pure seed can be obtained here if they’re all different species. Bees are super plentiful here, so it’s easy to get “natures random mix” if one isn’t careful.
I have been trying to grow the rocatillo this year, but I could not get any seeds to sprout.
I did grow Peruvian Aji Amarillo, but I grew several Aji Amarillos, a d couldn’t figure out which was which. I have seedlings of yours again this year, since I figure they’d be interesting.
Here are some fresh and dried aji’s from last year.
The Aji look great! In Peru, the dried ones are called Mirasol, and appear in lots of recipes. Huancayina, made from the fresh ones, has a zillion variations. I go simple: Split/core/de-seed peppers, blend with 50/50 Feta cheese/queso Fresco, maybe a little garlic, to make a smooth paste. Great on potatoes, rice, pasta, veggies, chicken and fish.
If the Rocotillo seeds were stored in a jar, in the fridge, they should still be good. If kept at room temp. ,they’ll expire much faster. C. chinense seems to need more heat to sprout. They’re slower than most to come up. Email me if you need more seed next year; it’s getting late to start them in a week or so. My email server has been acting up. It may be better to use my gmail, found on pitcherplant,com. Click on News, at the top right, to get contact info.
Good luck with the Aji!
Tonight, I’ll sample some freeze dried tomato reduction sauce and see if it’s good or I ruined it. Gotta do that before making more!
I believe your seeds are in the picture on this thread;
The Aerogarden does not provide heat. I also have a tray with tomatoes seedling that is on a mat for heat, but I turned the heat off when they sprouted.
Yay for the Rocotillos! They’re so productive, you should get a bunch, even though they’ve been slow to come up.
The freeze dried tomato reduction sauce experiment turned out great. No change in flavor and it’s easy to add boiling hot water, bit by bit, for the perfect thickness. Best of all, it’s shelf-stable for 15-20 years, at least!
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