Preserving nature’s harvest is one of my very most favourite phrases at this time of year and encapsulates everything that I think we should be doing. It actually gives me a case of the warm fuzzies. I absolutely love to grow things but when it all comes at once, it can be a bit overwhelming.

I’ve grown up with my mother always making odd chutney combinations of what ever she had a glut of and I think that this has perfused it’s way into my very being.

My chutney recipes now are only very loosely based on things I have done in the past, I very much make it up as I go along depending on what I have in front of me. Most weeks the hubster walks in from work on a Friday to find my pans hubbling and bubbling on the stove with jars in the sink and in the oven. Only in the last year or so have I actually started writing down what I do each time as we can be tucking into a chutney which everybody raves about, asks me for the recipe and I have to confess I have absolutely no idea what I did at the time because it was six months or a year ago! I’ve a few of my favourites listed on my recipes page.

But last year, someone threw me a curveball in and gave me the most spectacular gift. ‘Sun-dried’ tomatoes from her allotment. I was bowled over. Teeny, tiny little pockets of exploding tomato flavour like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I had to try to make them for myself!

So, a short discussion with my friend Mr Amazon later, and one food dehydrator was duly purchased.

My first foray I saw very much as a trial run so before committing hordes of my own homegrown tomato people, I bought some beautiful little baby plum tomatoes which were on special at the local shop. I bought eight punnets.

So this is what you do. All very straight forward. I followed the advice of said friend who had gifted me the originals as I like to call them.

Slice your tomatoes in half and lay them in the dehydrator cut side up. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and salt and pepper. Turn on dehydrator and walk away. Do something else, go out, read a book, knit. Don’t stand and watch it and expect to see something happen as the magic takes hours my friends!

These went in at 65 degrees for eight hours. Then I removed the smaller ones that were leathery and left the bigger ones in for another hour.

Then they all had a sixty second dunk in red wine vinegar and got packed into jars. Now I believe from my research that these will keep quite happily in jars for some months. However, I wanted to replicate the jars stored in oil and so they got topped up with good quality extra virgin olive oil. I figure that once you’ve used the tomatoes, the oil will be fantastic. Whenever I make ciabatta, I always use the oil out of my sun-dried tomato jars in the fridge and not just plain stuff, gives a great extra little bit of flavour.
That’s it then!

They’ve come out brilliantly so I’ll be doing lots more to go into my Christmas hampers for the famalam. The way things are going this year, the hampers will be so big that I will need to provide a donkey to carry them too.

I’ve started experimenting with dehydrating my fresh herbs so check back for progress!

TTFN x