When Life Gives you Lemons--or is that Tomatoes?

Well, last week we had our first serious frost warning. And our poor garden--which we neglected due to being gone much of the summer, still had one row of tomato plants that were loaded with tomatoes! What to do? My parents often pick their tomatoes when there is a frost coming--and wrap them individually in newspaper waiting to ripen. But since 99% of mine were the small roma tomatoes, I did NOT see me wrapping each separate tomato--and THEN I read on-line that you are to unwrap each and check them each week. Not going to happen.



But neither did we want good food to go to waste. So after some thought, we decided to divide the tomatoes into a single layer if possible, in various boxes, and then just place a layer of paper over the whole layer. Had no idea if it would work and if they would ripen or not, but thought it was worth a try... And after a week in the basement, I was VERY happy to discover tomatoes ripening--even without being wrapped each one like all the experts tell you to do.












But then I had a new problem--what do to with them? I made several recipes that used them, but I still had more. Yet not enough to can, and I already had some in my freezer and didn't want to take up more freezer room. So finally decided to haul out the dehydrator! It's a good way to take care of just a few at a time. I've heard you can dry in a regular oven as well, though I have not tried that. My dehydrator just has gentle heat, and a small fan blows on them. You cut slices as uniform as you can, and it will dry them in around one day and night. (I think the oven method takes longer, as there is no fan blowing.)



You can buy extra trays for the dehydrator. I don't know how many it can go up to, but I know I have two extra trays for mine that my mother-in-law bought me years ago. The rest are ones that came with the dehydrator. Of course, the more trays you add, it takes a bit longer for the foods in the upper trays to dry.













The finished product--and believe it or not, my family snarfles these down like they were potato chips! I have to hide them if I want some to use by cutting small into pasta dishes. But I already have some hidden away (shish! Don't tell!) so I just let them munch these. You can't complain when your kids are begging you to let them eat a vegetable!