Foods Alive Recipes + Newsletter
COMMUNITY SHARING & TOMATO LEATHER
We are all engaged in sharing most every day of our lives. We share our time over a cup of tea. We share our homes, our talents, and produce or fruit and flowers from our gardens. We share our happiness, hopes and dreams and know that we are strong and effective as families, neighborhoods, towns and beyond. Maureen Robertson and I shared time and ideas today as we planned the Enderby leg of the Great Big Run for Africa. We combined our creative ideas and feel excited to make this a community effort to help women in Ethiopia feed their families. I feel privileged to live in a community where participation is generously extended, especially when the cause is to benefit others.
Of course our talk turned to food and our abundant tomato crop and what to do when the harvest is ripe and spare time is limited. I started thinking about that on my way home and decided to experiment with the big tub of tomatoes that was waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
My criteria for the experiment was; 1. Use the most produce in the least amount of time. 2. Preserve it for 6 months or more. 3. Must be handy to use. 4. Has to pack small and travel light. 5. Taste awesome 6. Retain nutritional integrity. 7. Store without using energy. (Our freezer is full) I added the pack small, travel light because Maureen needs to pack light when she does her back country hikes and ski’s (How’d you like to carry a mason jar of stewed tomatoes across the continental divide?)
The experiment is drying on five teflex sheets in my dehydrator and even though I have not tasted the awesomeness of it yet, I have a hunch that Maureen will approve.
Food processor batch number one:
- 6 cups juicy tomatoes, cut into quarters
- One squirt of gourmet, garlic infused balsamic vinegar.
- Generous squirt of agave nectar.
(You may use brown sugar or honey if you are not afflicted with a severe sugar phobia like me.)
Process until chunky. This was pretty sloppy and I spilled some on the floor on my way to the dehydrator.
Food processor batch number two:
- 6 cups Roma tomatoes, quartered.
- 2 cl. Garlic
- 1 jalapeno pepper
- sea salt
- Some balsamic vinegar
- sea salt
- Agave nectar.
I contemplated using basil leaves, but decided against it, because I prefer to add basil to my tomato sauces just before serving. I managed to pour this salsa on the teflex sheets and transfer them to the dehydrator without spilling.
Batch number three:
Fill one dehydrator sheet with thick slices of fresh tomatoes. I slice off the top and blossom end and keep the slices about ¾ “ thick.
Batch number four:
Same as number two with the addition of 1 large peach cut up in chunks. I bought a box of mealy peaches, ( it happens to best of us ) and thought that this would add fibrous flavor and fill my criteria for using a lot of produce. I peeled the mealy dud with a knife to save time. Dehydrate at 140 degrees for the first hour than turn down to 119 degrees.
Creative work takes energy and in my world that translates to; Food. A perfect excuse to find a bench in the sun and make a lunch of freshly julienne cut zucchini, with sauce number four and a side of pesto. A potato peeler works just as well to make the “noodles” for this salad. I can just imagine Maureen and Dave adding some of this Tomato Leather to a pot of beans and melted snow somewhere in the Selkirks this winter.