Oven dried tomatoes - enough to last me through the winter

Each time we drive to or from Tahoe during the daytime, we stop at this one farm stand in Davis, not for the produce necessarily, nothing is organic, but for this Middle Eastern and Asian drink that comes with many different names and grosses out 95% of Americans. It's just yoghurt mixed with salt and water. I've had it as Ayran (Turkish), Salt Lassi (Indian) and Doogh (Iran). And I could drink it every day, except that the sodium content would probably kill me over time.

Anyways, I digress. So the reason we go there is not the produce, but this time they had something that was too good to pass - a whole box of Roma tomatoes for $4.99. I didn't weigh it, but it was at least 20 pounds, if not more. Not organic, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. And winter is coming closer, and there is nothing better than a nice tomato sauce in the middle of the winter with beautiful oven dried tomatoes. Or better yet, the Albondigas I described here a few months ago.

I started with halving the tomatoes, and sprinkling them with salt (on all of them), and herbs and garlic in different mixtures on different sheets.

Off in the oven they went, with convection, at about 200 F. I'm not usually too concerned about the temperature, if you do it a bit hotter they get nice and caramelized, low temperature they are just dried.

Not only is Tahoe nice and dry, I also have this monster oven in the kitchen there, had I had more sheets I could have roasted even more in one go. What you're looking at here is perhaps 1/3 of the tomatoes in the box, btw.

I let them in there for different amounts of time, for different purposes. These guys here

were in for about 2 hours, and you can see that they are still relatively juicy. However, the juice is getting concentrated, so they are much tastier than they were when I put them in the oven. I cooled them, remembered my rant from last time, slipped the skin off, put them in old yoghurt containers and froze them.

You can also go for well dried. Which is what I did here, by first drying them as the ones above, and then leaving them in the oven overnight, with the fan on:

Most of the liquid is gone, and they are perfect one bite snacks. I put some of them in oil and stashed them in the fridge as antipasti or cut up in omelette or in salad. Some of them we took hiking, and some of them went in the freezer as well. I guess you can dry them longer if you like the hard leathery ones you can buy, but I was happy with these nice juicy morsels.

I envy all of you that have tomatoes in their back yard btw!

Cold Tomato Soup? With Vanilla Cream?

This post could also be called: "Why should you try things that sound weird?". The NYT's Diner's Journal Blog had a recipe on a Gazpacho with Vanilla Cream last week. It wasn't just the vanilla cream that was weird (the soup is salty, after all), but it also used a bottle of lemon flavored Perrier. The lemon flavored Perrier was the inspiration to the recipe, but I'm not keen on buying water that gets shipped over from France - period. Stupid recipe I thought.

Until I came across very reasonably priced organic tomatos at the farmers market. And lemons. And so I figured I could take another look at the recipe, and reinvent it in the same spirit. And perhaps the vanilla cream wasn't so bad after all.

The recipe calls for tomato paste - don't have any, so I opted for oven drying the slightly salted tomatos for 2 hours at 250 F. The tomatos had plenty of wonderful summer flavor, I just wanted to get a little of the water out.

And I wanted to remove the skins - these tomatos had pretty thick skin, and I just didn't fancy chewing on little bits of skin. They went in the blender, along with a peeled cucumber, some lemon zest and lemon juice and a little cream. I left out the tomato paste, the Perrier, and the salt - I had salted my tomatos before they went in the oven. And no need to splurge on fleur du sel unless you put it over in the last second. While still in the blender I put in some of my best olive oil. Not too much, but enough to give the soup some body. I put it in a bowl and stashed it in the freezer.

Just before serving I added a splash of carbonated water, to give it a little fizz. I'm not sure it actually did much, but it fizzled nicely. And I made a little bit of whipped cream - perhaps 1/4 cup before beating it - with the vanilla pulp of half a pod - I thought that was plenty.

The result is amazing! It's a very sublime taste, the lemon and its zest brings the tomato flavor out in full force. The EVOO makes it nice and thick. And the vanilla cream - what can I say - it sounds weird, but it rounded everything out. We had guests that night, and they said that it was better than what they had at one of our towns great restaurants the night before. For $8 / bowl!

Sorry, no recipe as I didn't measure anything, but I hope between my description and NYT recipe you'll be all set.

Ulrich's Albondigas

A very long time ago I had a very good friend that I hung out with a lot. It was student times, and we cooked a lot for each other, nothing fancy, but mostly good. My favorite of his foods is still one of my staples - his Albondigas. Albondigas is nothing else but a fancy way of saying meatballs. But these are soooo good. And they get better!

Emptying out the freezer and getting it ready for the arrival of the quarter pig, I found some oven roasted tomatoes and garlic that I had made at the end of the last tomato season. Perfect starting point for the albondigas.

The trick is to put all the seasonings in the meatballs, and leave the tomatoes fairly unseasoned. And then cook everything until the tomato sauce comes together in a very thick sauce, at least an hour, if you have time better two. And if you have more time let it cool down, and reheat it the next day for perfect flavor!

The seasoning is mostly garlic (yes, that's one pound of meat and probably 6 garlic cloves), and your favorite chile. I like a combination of Ancho and Chipotle, but you probably have your own ideas. Make little meatball, less than an inch in diameter.

In the meantime get the tomatoes heated. I used my oven roasted tomatoes, and a small can of high quality canned tomatoes. In the summer I use fresh tomatoes, I'll just have to let it simmer longer, but the taste is out of this world. When the tomatoes are simmering, carefully add the meatballs to the sauce, bring back to a light simmer, put a lid on, and go on with life.

This is at the beginning of the process, two hours later it's very thick and very red and very yummy! (Note to self: next time pick out the tomato skins before freezing them.) And duh, of course, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, I was hungry! I promise to take a photo of the whole goodness the next time.

Recipes:
Ulrich's Albondigas


2 lbs tomatoes, fresh or roasted (see below)
- or -
28 oz can of good quality canned tomatoes, e.g. fire roasted Muir Woods
- or -
any mixture thereof
1 lb ground beef
6 garlic cloves
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, minced, or 1 fresh chili
salt - very little if using canned tomoatoes, a bit more if using real tomatoes.

Heat tomatoes in a medium pot. Chop garlic and chili, add to ground beef, form little 1" diameter meatballs. When the tomatoes are heated, carefully add the meatballs, stirring as little as possible until they have firmed up. Leave on stove at low heat for at least 2 hours, stirring every once in a while, until the sauce has thickened.

Serve with fresh crusty bread.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes


When you see a good deal on tomatoes (I usually find them on the Farmers Market late in the season when people are sick of tomatoes) buy as many as you can handle / afford / stick in your freezer. Or, if you are lucky enough to be a good gardener, use your own (and watch me turn green with envy!) Wash, cut in half, put them on cookie sheets, cut side up, slightly salt, pepper, add some garlic cloves or herbs if you have, and stick in the oven at 300 with convection. Convection helps dry out the tomatoes, and you can pack your oven with several sheets at once. Timing? I've had them in there anywhere between 30 minutes and 1 1/2 hours, depending on the tomatoes, the humidity, the amount of tomatoes, just keep an eye on them. When they start shriveling up, take out and let cool down, take off the skins (!), then freeze. You'll thank me in the winter!