Tomato Slices and Tomato Powder

This topic hadn't been on my mind until some folks asked questions about what to do with excess tomatoes. This was something I did one year in an effort to keep from completely losing almost 50 lbs of tomatoes when life threw a curveball that I just couldn't completely dodge. And actually found myself doing again today to finish off the last few tomatoes from the salsa box and two containers of grape tomatoes. 

Part one was that I wasn't going to have time to do my normal canning due to life. Part two was that while I could have cooked the tomatoes down enough, using the steam juicer, to make tomato paste, I didn't have near enough 4 oz jars for that quantity. And we just don't use tomato paste that often. For today, it's just that we don't tend to eat fresh tomatoes unless it's for tacos. And I don't want waste.

So for the first batch,way back when, I did some research and found no reason why I couldn't just slice tomatoes evenly and dehydrate them. As long as I didn't add oil, there was no reason the tomatoes wouldn't store just like my other dehydrated veggies.  And no reason why I couldn't use them in stew, roasts, etc later on.  So the first box got sliced on the mandoline and went into the dehydrator until I had no more room. I normally run the dehydrator ~ 120 degrees and I had nicely dried tomato slices within 48 hours. Those got vac sealed in a canning jar and used over time, including a nice batch that my SIL appreciated.

But I couldn't leave the remainder just sitting in the boxes. So I decided to do something that had been suggested for tomato canning leftovers - tomato powder. From prior experience I knew that if I wanted a powder after dehydrating, I needed as close to pure liquid as possible before canning. And while I couldn't store full boxes in the fridge for a few days, I could store a large bowl or two.  So I cored the tomatoes and ran them through the blender. Over and over until all the remaining tomatoes were pureed liquid in two large bowl. Then I put covers on them and put them in the fridge.

When the slices were done, I lined each of my dehydrator trays with parchment and spread out the tomatoes that I had pureed.  Again at 120 degrees, but due to the sheer volume of liquid I made sure to rotate the trays top to bottom twice a day.  Most of it was ready in 48 hours. I just let the rest keep going until it was done. I would consolidate it on fewer and fewer sheets as I pulled what was done. And, once it was dry enough, flip it over on the parchment paper itself. I did keep the parchment paper under it until it was completely done.  

As I pulled the dried portions, I put them through the food processor to powder them.  The end result looked so amazingly small. Twenty five pounds of tomatoes yielded approximately two cups of tomato powder. But boy does that powder pack a punch.  I don't buy tomato paste anymore. I don't really buy tomato sauce unless it is something like Rotel.  If a recipe calls for tomato paste or sauce, I just pull down the jar and add the tomato powder. And each year, whenever there's an extra tomato, or two, or three, I add more to the jar. I can't help you with proportions though because I'm one of those cooks who wings it most of the time. I can tell you that when a recipe calls for a can of tomato paste, I use about 2 tbsp of tomato powder and then about a 1/4 c. of water/stock/broth.

So I hope this gives you some extra ways to use those bounties of tomatoes and keep that flavor in your food all year round.