Ingredients:

Any number of Roma Tomatoes, as long as they’re perfectly ripe and relatively flawless

Some olive oil (for this you can use your expensive Extra Virgin Olive Oil) – about a tablespoon or so per 12 tomatoes (This is a low-temperature process, so you can use your best Extra Virgin Olive Oil here)

Some Garlic – about one clove per 12 tomatoes, or to taste

Some Shallots – about twice as much volume as the garlic

Some dried herbs (I like a nice Italian blend – thyme, oregano, basil)   (If it’s still summer in your garden, you can use fresh herbs instead – thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon – Chop them up finely and add them in)

Some freshly ground black pepper

Some Kosher salt (be sparing)

(If this already reminding you a lot of the “Hot Tomatoes” recipe, aren’t you observant ! )

You know the trick about putting a damp cloth or dishtowel under your cutting board to keep it from scooting all over the counter when you’re trying to use it, right?  I had to go to cooking school to learn this – boy did I feel like my mother had forgotten to teach me an important kitchen rule!  Of course, when I was growing up, no one in my kitchen did this….

I have these little serrated knives specifically for cutting tomatoes.  It doesn’t seem to matter how recently you sharpened or honed your chef’s knife, the tomato skin will defeat it.  Get yourself one of these – they never need sharpening, and they always do a wonderful job.

Method:

Wash the tomatoes.  Cut them in half through the “cheeks” – if you look at the tomato, it will be slightly oval, rather than perfectly round, around the circumference.  If you cut parallel to the slightly flattened side, you will open the seed chambers so it’s easy to scoop out the seeds, leaving the flesh in the middle intact (more to eat, ultimately).  Notch out the stem — it’s pretty fibrous and not very flavorful.  Alternatively, you could use a melon-baller and scoop out the seeds and that central membrane, if you wanted prettier, or stuffable, dried tomatoes.  Don’t throw the “guts” away, though.

While the seeds are thought to be undesirably bitter, the juice in the jelly surrounding the seeds is full of flavor.  Save the seeds in a sieve as you’re prepping the tomatoes; swish them around with a wooden spoon to release the juice.  If you taste the juice, you’ll find it very delicious – kind of like pulp-free tomato juice.  If you removed the fleshy internal membrane from your tomatoes, you can rub that through the sieve too.  Give the juice a little salt and drink it down, or save it for your next soup or sauce.  You could freeze it if you weren’t planning to use it within the next couple of days.

Make flavored oil:  Make enough to just dress the tomatoes as if they were a salad – lightly coated, but not dripping.  Remember that everything in that bowl is going to shrink down and intensify a lot during the drying process, so be gentle with the seasoning.

Render the garlic and shallot into puree by either running them through your Microplane grater, grinding them on your garlic dish, using a garlic press on the garlic, or you could just chop them finely.  Add them to the amount of oil you think will nicely coat the tomatoes – for my batch of 24 halves, I used a generous tablespoon.

Add your dried herbs of choice (or your fresh herbs of choice) and the freshly ground black pepper to the oil as well.  Stir it all up – it should look almost like pesto.

Come to think of it, you could probably just use some pesto if you were in a hurry.  OR, you could probably toss all the flavored oil ingredients into your Magic Bullet and zizz it until the garlic and shallots are pureed, which would save you having to deal with the smell on your hands.

Add your flavored oil to the tomatoes in the bowl, and swish them around with your hands until everything is lightly coated. (To get rid of the garlic smell
afterwards, wash with soap, and wipe your hands around on the walls of your stainless steel sink if you have one, or play with a stainless steel spoon – I don’t know why this works, but it does.)

Set the tomatoes out cut-side-up on a rack over a baking sheet.  I turn my rack upside down because it’s warped, and if I invert it, they don’t all roll off.  If there is flavored oil left in the bottom of the bowl, divide it between the tomato halves so everybody is tasty.  Check around a bit – sometimes one tomato half will be absolutely full of garlic and herbs, and another will be empty, so take the time to do a little re-distribution, if required.  Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt at this point; you get more even distribution and better control of seasoning.  Don’t salt them any more than you would if you were going to eat them right away – in fact, salt them a little more lightly than that.

The length of time it will take your tomatoes to completely oven dry will vary depending on how juicy and/or large your tomatoes are.  I like to set mine up in the evening after dinner, say 7pm, because I know they are going to take at least 12 hours, and I want to keep track of them after that.  The batch in the pictures took about 18 hours.  You need to stop the drying process when they are firm and dry on the surface, but still pliable.  A completely dried-out tomato is leathery and no fun to eat, and somehow everything that is wonderful about a dried tomato becomes slightly bitter if you dry them for too long.

Ingredients:

A whole bunch of grape tomatoes –Choose ones that are really dark red, and pretty uniform in size

Olive oil

Herb/Garlic dry seasoning blend, salt and black pepper

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°F without convection, or as low as it will go if it is a convection oven.

Wash the tomatoes, and roll them around on a kitchen towel to dry.  Put them in a bowl.

Drizzle them with olive oil.

Sprinkle lightly with herb blend, salt and pepper – no more than you would if you were going to eat them right away.  Toss to coat.

Spread them out in a single layer on a rack over a baking sheet.

As with Roma Tomatoes, drying time will vary.  I start these in the morning, and they’re usually done before I go to bed, sometimes by dinnertime if I use the convection setting on my oven – all that moving air speeds up the process a little.  I like to let them get to the point where the skins are a little bit crispy, but the insides are still nice and chewy.  If you dry them until they’re crunchy throughout, I don’t think they’re as nice.  If you leave them too soft, their shelf-life will decrease (but they sure are tasty).  I store mine in a container in the fridge. They’re never there for long, but I’ll bet they would be good for a month if they were perfectly dried.

Have you read “If you give a mouse a cookie…”?  Like the mouse, the Tomato “Raisins” always wants a little something more.  Sometimes I just put them out in a bowl, but sometimes I pair them with tapenade or cheese spread or thick yogurt dip on a cracker, or a cucumber slice, or a jicama stick.  They’re good with cream cheese too.  They’re really nice with a bit of melted smoked cheese. Put ‘em on your pizza!  Sneak them into your grilled cheese sandwich!

When people swoon over your oven-dried tomatoes, it’s a good idea not to tell them how simple they are to make.  Imitate that old Rice Krispies Squares TV commercial – muss up your hair and pretend it took you hours of difficult work – you’re the only one who needs to know they practically made themselves.