Oven dried tomatoes

As the end of summer approaches, we tend to get a glut of cherry tomatoes.  Instead of making "pasta sauce"  another great alternative is to make sundried or rather oven dried tomatoes

I was gifted a set for Christmas which included lemon flavoured sea salt and olive oil, so I used those for this recipe.  You can totally use normal sea salt and olive oil and add lemon peel to replicate, leave plain or whatever takes your fancy!

INGREDIENTS

Cherry tomatoes

Sea salt

Olive oil

METHOD

Slice the tomatoes in half (lengthwise if you have pear or roma shape) and spread them out in an even layer cut-side-up on a baking paper lined oven tray.  Season (crack/sprinkle) your salt the tomatoes

Note: I filled 2 oven trays. You may notice I also roasted the green ends. That is purely for aroma, not eating.  Do not eat or store those  

Slow roast in the oven for about 4 hours on low heat at 120C (fan forced) or until they reach your desired level of dryness.  You don’t need to flip or rotate the tomatoes during this time, but check at the 3 hour mark to ensure that any smaller/thinner ones don't burn

Then once your tomatoes are done, they are ready to serve or be used in a recipe (hello foccacia!) but also can be stored in jars and further flavoured

Sterilise a jar (I prefer hot water method but use whatever method you are comfortable with), place the tomatoes in the jar and top up with olive oil (you will need quite a bit) so that the tomatoes are completely submerged

My preference is to season the tomatoes in the jar with bay leaf plus whole black peppercorns and Tasmanian mountain pepperberries, but you can add whatever fresh or dried herbs/seasonings you have in your garden or pantry (eg mixed herbs, rosemary sprig, peeled crushed garlic, lemon rind, dried chilli whole or flakes)

Keep refrigerated!

PS small jars make cute gifts