My Inspiration Behind Oven-Dried Tomatoes

I have a really dear friend that is hosting her annual A1C Camp next week.  She has 30 campers that will be in attendance, ranging in age from about 5 to 18.  She was needing a little help with an activity for Monday.  I checked my calendar, saw I would be available to help, then asked myself how I could help my friend and her 30 campers.

After a little pondering whether I would do a craft or what exactly, with the 30 campers, I thought about some recipes that I have come up with in the past.  Recipes that have been liked by not only my own family but others we have invited over to share a meal, or that I have made at one of our summer Bible studies.  A recipe would be the activity I decided.  Now, what would be inexpensive, fun, and a healthy snack alternative for these campers?  A healthy snack alternative packed with more protein and fiber than carbs?  Also a healthy before ball practice, after school or summer snack that could be pre-cooked, placed in the freezer and then taken out and popped in the microwave.   The gears were turning!  How about my Amazing Greek Pizza with homemade pizza sauce and my whole wheat pizza crust?!?!?  Yeah!  That's it!

Then I had another idea, DING!  My friend had talked about having someone come later in the week to  teach the campers how to juggle.  They were going to give the students a set of their very own juggling balls to take home with them that day.  What could I have for the campers to take home?  I know!
I usually put sun-dried tomatoes on my Amazing Greek Pizza.  How about if I tried my hand at sun-drying some tomatoes and we use those on our pizzas, then have a tomato plant for each camper to take home?!?!?  The goal: for the campers to invest time and energy into growing their own tomatoes, and in turn take an interest, and learn how to enjoy the different flavors of vegetables!

Extra bonus too, let me tell you about this!  We refinished our wood floors this month.  This prompted me to clean out any extra things in closets, the house, my two areas in the garage, etc.  Or as another friend of mine said today, "purge" these areas that we need to reclaim as open areas not to be refilled by "stuff"!  I liked the use of her word, "purge".  Webster's defines purge - to rid of something that is unwanted.  I must say some of those things I "purged" from our home weren't necessarily unwanted they were just items needing to be gotten rid of.  As I was in the garage purging my area of items, I kept noticing that my husband had acquired a large quantity of 5 gallon and 1 gallon buckets.  I decided we needed to "purge" some of these from our garage.  I will use the word "purge" for these because they were "unwanted" by me.  I would give each camper there very own tomato plant to plant in their very own 5 gallon bucket!!!  Yes, believe it or not, there were enough 5 gallon buckets for 30 campers, and then some!!!  Can I get a "hoarders" from anyone!!!!

Okay, back to my homemade sun-dried tomatoes.  I found a recipe on the internet that I will share with you: http://litu.dlife.com/diabetes/diabetic-recipes/recipeDetailPrint.html?id=7855 and I made my very own oven-dried tomatoes!  I have to tell you though, this process took way longer than the recipe said, probably because I changed things just a little.  I had a little over 2 lbs. worth of Roma Tomatoes, I added olive oil in the bottom of my baking dish, and I roasted them in my roaster oven so I had added water to the bottom of it.  Took almost 10 hours to get these to the dried perfection I wanted.

Here are some pictures and the steps involved:

Step 1:  Wash tomatoes.

2 lbs. of Roma Tomatoes or your choice of tomato variety.

Step 2:  Remove tomato stem. 

Step 3: Slice tomatoes in half, length-wise.

Step 4: Sprinkle with sea salt and place on paper towels skin side up.

Step 5:  Press or chop, finely 2 cloves of garlic.

Step 6: Place a thin layer of olive oil in  the bottom of a cookie sheet or   9x13 baking pan.
(do not use a cooking stone)

Pressed Garlic

Step 7: Place tomatoes on cookie sheet or baking pan
 that has a thin coat of olive oil in the bottom, skin side down.

Step 8: Sprinkle sea salt generously onto tomato halves.
 Next, using a spoon place pressed garlic on the top of each tomato half.

Step 9:  Bake in oven or roaster oven.
 (I cooked mine in this roaster oven on our patio.)

Cook in oven/roaster oven, on 300 degrees, for 6 hours.

Beginning of cooking time.

Step 10:  Finished Product!
Store in air tight container in the refrigerator up to 1 week.
Store in air tight container in freezer up to 3 months.
Use in any recipe that calls for tomatoes!