Attention Jeannine: preserving oven-dried tomatoes

[Morris]

This question is especially for Jeannine  ;),pretty please I'd like to benefit from your generous wisdom. But others please do chip in!!

When I make these, I normally freeze them. I found this recipe:

http://chezpim.com/cook/tomato_confit_o which sounds yum.

But I'm not sure if this is safe for long-term preserving? Would the vinegar bath be acid enough?

Thanks xxx

[Morris]

[Gadget]

Hi Morris,

If you perserve them in olive oil and in a cool place they should last up to a year.
:)

[Jeannine]

Hi, truthfully I am not sure.. I think the vinegar dip is a bit slight.

I would be doing..the dried tomatoes in my dehydrator, but you can do them in an oven,they should be leathery but pliable.

Then I would let them sit is a mixture of half boiling water and half vinegasr for a while till thery soften to a chewy consitency,just a few minutes. Then drain, cover with olive oil flavoured with a small clove of garlic..leave to marinate for about a day then you can use them ..my top shelf life would be 1 month.
However as dried they will keep a long time and take up less space so there is little to be gained by making up a lot at a tiime.

You do not need to water bath them in fact by doing so you are removing the oxygen which in this case would make the environement worse.(botulisim needs low oxygen to grow) I would of course store in the fridge. Don't heat the oil,it is not neccesary, you don't want the tomatoes to go soggy or start to cook, the jars will not seal which they don't need to do in this case. This is not unlike any other non vacuum sealed jar you have in your fridge.

The person who adapted the original recipe is changing the form of the tomatoes and they will not be the same as she wants.

A few sprigs of herbs won't hurt either.

I would have no problem making this as above but I have some with both sets of  instructions given on the link.



XX Jeannine

[Morris]

Thank you Jeannine that is very helpful, as usual!

Your idea is genius - just make up a batch as needed. Why didn't I think of that? There is no need to stack up lots of jars.

;D ;D

PS I don't have a dehydrator but my oven lowest temp at 50oC and the door slightly open works well for me.

[Jeannine]

yep,  I need my space for jars,. I have 20 lbs of blackcurrants to do, some as jelly and some as ready to use  pie filling to go on top of cheesecake.

XX Jeannine