Preserving for 1,000 (continued)
It`s almost 1 AM. I wrote out last post 24 hours ago – at that time we had a dehydrator full of 18 pounds of tomatoes and a lot of hope.
24 hours later we have 262 dehydrated tomato halves. a dehydrator with some of the thicker product from yesterday and 7 trays of fresh tomatoes that were placed under the gentle heat just over hours ago. We`re a long way away from 800 tasting portions. We still have no sauce, crackers or veggie powders.
The next 24 hours will be essential. We`ll need to have our sauce done and know that we have enough tomatoes for the sauce that`s required. I alternate between thinking that we have too many op vflb 13to marvel
Thee above turned to gibberish as I fell asleep on the couch. It`s now 10.45AM Sunday morning. Things have been progressing nicely. I pulled an additional 700 tomato pieces out of the dehydrator this morning – my target of 1,600-1,800 pieces seems feasible. I have to get the next load on before noon if I`m goint to get 2 rounds in today. It`s going to be a race.
I`ve also been up to the suburbs and back. All of the tomato sauce equipment is now here – two burners, 2 60 liter pots, propane, the grinder and a spoon that could double as a snow shovel. It looks like we`ll be aiming for about a bushel of sauce though I`ll know a lot more once the dehydrator has been refilled.
So far we`ve dehydrated 32 pounds of tomatoes. Each piece has a quick bath in cider vinegar before a touch of maple syrup is added. The net effect raises both the core acidity and sweetness of the tomato and these are bursting with flavor.
There`s still a lot of work to do – roasting and dehydrating peppers, carrots and other veggies for the 1,200-1,500 crackers we`re making on Friday night will have to be fit in some time soon. For now, I better get cutting some more tomatoes…
Still excited, still having fun.
Comments
Stop writing! Keep cooking!!!