Sun Dried (Oven Dried) Tomatoes

I am sad to say that tomato season is over for me now that it is late October.  In June, I planted two tomato plants in my sunny yard this year a "Roma" (my favorite) and an "Early Girl" variety. Only a few weeks ago I had so many delicious tomatoes I was cooking a tomato dish everyday.

One day I made sun dried tomatoes, or a more appropriately "Oven Dried" tomatoes. I found that there are a lot of different methods that one could use to make these tasty morsels but this is what I did.

A made a big batch and used probably around thirty tomatoes. It takes about 10 tomatoes to make 1 ounce of sun dried tomatoes.
Oven on 200 degrees F
Cut the tomatoes vertically in at least 1/4 inch slices ( I cut some thinner and they got way over done.)
Place on cookie sheet (I didn't grease mine.)

I sprinkled a little sea salt and herbs on some of the tomatoes but after tasting the results,I don't think they needed any additional flavor. The tomato flavor alone gets super concentrated in this drying process.

I cooked my tomatoes for about 6 hours total, flipping the slices at the half way mark.

When the tomatoes are done they should have the consistency of a plump raisin while maintaining their rich color like in the picture above. I lost a lot of slices in the process due to being cut too thin and being over cooked. Keep an eye on the tomatoes while they are cooking, I cooked three cookie sheets at a time and switched there placement on the oven racks when I saw the top rack was getting more heat that the others.

Let the tomatoes cool completely when they are done.  I put my tomatoes in a ziplock bag to store and found that this wasn't an efficient way to preserve them for the long term, some of them got a little moist. For long term storage I would suggest another method like in a jar with olive oil or another air tight method.

But really, these tomatoes are so delicious that you probably won't need to store them for long. I have bought sun dried tomatoes in the grocery store and have enjoyed them but not half as much as these homemade ones. The store bout tomatoes have a distinct smokey flavor, the garden fresh "oven dried"  tomatoes are all intense tomato flavor. For more ideas and cooking methods see the link below.
http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sundriedrecipe.htm

I'm a new blogger, would love to hear your comments, and suggestions.