Tomato Dryer With a Water Bottle

Who doesn't love sundried tomatoes - perfect with salads and appetizers! Sometimes they are hard to find or overpriced. For this reason, here is a traditional way to make sun-dried tomatoes from a bottle of water and the greatest source of clean energy: the sun. 

Get some tomatoes and let's get started!

The first thing we need to do is to organise our table and terrace, have clear, well-lit surfaces and look for the following items:

-A plastic bottle

-A scissors or knife to cut the bottle.

-Seasonal tomatoes

-A sharp knife

-Aluminium foil

This should be enough to get the dried tomato. However, we will bottle the tomato we obtain in oil and it will be ideal for use with salads and mozzarella cheese toasts. For this we will also need:

-olive oil

-Basil (fresh basil is best, but you can also use bottled basil)

-Black pepper

-Garlic

And with all this we can get down to work!

Drying tomatoes requires only two things: heat and perspiration. For this reason, a bottle of water is perfect. It is made of plastic that can be in contact with foodstuffs, it allows light to enter and create a greenhouse effect inside it, and as it is perforated, the moisture from the tomatoes will gradually be lost.

The steps are simple: make holes with a knife or any other tool that allows you to make holes of less than 1 mm in the bottle (drawing pins, scissors...) All you need is patience! The more holes you make, the better the tomato will dry.

Cut off the top of the bottle to gain access to the inside later.

With our drying chamber ready, we just need to put the tomatoes in it. The skin of the tomato does not transpire very well and it is advisable to cut the tomatoes in half. In my case, I have split the tomatoes into more pieces to increase the drying surface and speed up the process.

Once cut, we place them on aluminium foil so that the sun reflects on them and we can put them in the bottle comfortably.

Now it's time to be patient and look for the place with the most hours of light and the warmest place. To dry the tomars we need the bottle to be in a warm place, exposed to the sun and ventilated. Depending on the amount of water in the tomatoes and the degree of drying you are looking for, you will need more or less time.

In my case, these tomatoes were ready in 36 hours.

Con los tomates deshidratados, ahora puedes guardarlos durante más tiempo hasta consumirlos. Al haberles bajado la humedad, se conservarán mejor. 

También se pueden embotar, como os enseñaré ahora y alargar su tiempo de conserva.

To preserve them, it is necessary to gather the ingredients listed at the beginning of the post. The quantities depend on the flavour you want to obtain in these tomatoes. If you want a tomato flavour and a light herb flavour, add a small amount. If you want a stronger flavour, increase the amount of spices. 

In my case I love garlic and have added a lot. With half a clove of garlic and half a teaspoon of each of the spices, it should be enough to have a balanced flavour (in micaso I have added a little more garlic to bring out the taste).

Finally, it's time to pack! You could put it in a jar and seal it in a bain-marie, but I don't think these tomatoes will last long without being eaten. I can't wait to eat them! So I'll leave them for a week or two macerating in oil and I'll eat them in a nice salad. For this reason, I just need to close the glass jar with a cork to insulate it from the environment.

I hope you will also be encouraged to make such a tasty and valuable product!

Enjoy!