Home-Made Sun Dried Tomatoes

I've never been a fan of raw tomatoes and seldom use them in my salads because I dont appreciate the raw tartness of a tomato. So, I was looking for a way to make sun dried tomatoes when, seeing this recipe on PurpleFoodie, I was completely sold over into making these little babies at home.

Mine is a bit different, in that I didn't take the lazy shortcut of putting my tomatoes into an oven to speed up the drying process. Mine are lying in the bare goodness of the sun on my window sill. I'm blessed with over 5 hours of direct sunlight in the morning-afternoon on my window, so might as well use nature's oven than waste electricity or gas. It also used to be my personal tanning bed until a taller building next door sprung up and ruined the fun of having no prying eyes. I used normal tomatoes that we get in India, not the recommended meaty variety, used rock salt, and lastly used basil instead of oregano because basil and tomatoes are best buds, flavorwise.

I do not have pix of the final product yet and I have only just laid out my tomatoes for drying - I'd imagine they'd take about 2 days to dry out in the sun. But am so excited for them - they smell delicious already and I keep using the excuse of stray birds landing on my window to keep checking on my tomatoes, when really, I just want another whiff.

Update on 21st Dec: I now have my gorgeous sun dried tomatoes ready with me - after 2 whole days of the Indian sun to scorch the tomatoes into 1/4th of their original size. But size isn't everything. The flavor is so concentrated!

Sun Dried Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 5 small-medium tomatoes
• Teaspoon of rock/black salt
• 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 5-10 black pepper corns
• 2 teaspoons of dried basil

To make:
Cut the tomatoes into quarters (If they are really tiny, cut them into halves). You may want to remove the seedy pulpy center of the tomato - I haven't.

Pat each quarter with a tissue to take away any excess moisture.

Pummel your rock salt into smithereens and make about 1 teaspoon of rock salt powder.

Smash up your garlic cloves and pepper corns.

Combine the garlic, basil, pepper, and salt. Add the olive oil and mix well.

Dip each tomato quarter into your oily mixture and lay on a tray.

Cover with a net or fine cloth and lay out in the sun to dry.

After 8 hours in the sun:

After 2 days of sunning:

Next time, I'll make a bigger - much bigger - batch, for sure. My twenty tomato slivers are going to be gone in no time! :)