"Pete Stockdale" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

... We gorge on tomatoes in their season - until Christmas. We gorge on
runner beans too, still having them every day.

drool

Val, when I clear the greenhouse I take off all the vines of green tomatoes
and leave them in a basket in the kitchen. No heat, no bananas, no drawer,
no windowsill, no special treatment at all. Every day I pick over the stems
and take off the ripened ones. We always have the last on Christmas Eve with
our pork pie, made that day.

Tradition!

OOOH
Drying
Recipe please !

No recipe! I have a dehydrator. It's very useful for dealing with gluts or
very cheap bargains of, say, mushrooms, grapes, onions. There's a high input
of my energy in cutting apples, onions etc. but it saves my energy in
preparation later. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that the results take
up very little room and no further energy to preserve them (as there is with
freezing). Don't get me wrong, freezing is great for some things and we have
two large ones, mostly for meat, fish and bread.

I cut tomatoes in half and put them on the trays, switch on and keep
checking. When they've reached the leathery stage I remove them, cool them
them either put them into containers or in jars with olive oil.

It's how most 'sun-dried' tomatoes are processed, no matter how much guff is
said about their being spread on sun-soaked terraces. there's nothing magic
ab out using the sun, except that it's free and doesn't have a carbon
footprint - which of course is desirable. The tomato drying season in
Yorkshire doesn't coincide with sun though ...

Mary