Sundried tomato puree.

The first of this years  tomato crop are in the dryer, we've been picking enough to eat for about a week but now there are too many  so they will be for 'out of season'.   But another job that needed doing was to make space on the kitchen shelves for this years dried fruits and vegetables. 

There were still 2 jars of dried tomatoes from last summer but no tomato puree so Thursday afternoon I put the tomatoes into boiling water to soak and then simmered them for about 10 minutes before liquidising.  You need equal amounts of tomatoes to water and that's it.  The hardest part is getting all the puree out of the liquidiser, I don't put all the cooking water in with the tomatoes but keep some back and use that to rinse it out afterwards.  It can always be added to the puree if needed - it's easier to add it than to remove it!  While it's still hot I put it into sterilised jars and when cold, into the fridge.  Don't know how long it lasts as we always use it quickly.

The strawberries dried very quickly and have such a wonderful intense flavour.  A dinner plateful - 2 layers actually - have dried so much that they only fill an ex-mint jelly jar.

We have one and a half kilos of apricots in the kitchen which we were looking forward to eating but they are very disappointing -  no juice at all - at least they won't take long to dry as we reckon they're half way there!   I thought about cooking them and then freezing for winter pies and crumbles but drying and storing in jars make much more sense especially as it's free and there is more use for dried fruits which can be rehydrated if needed.  Just need to get the tomatoes dried so there's some space for the apricots - but more strawberries coming - need a bigger dryer!

Tomorrow - Sunday  - is watering day and having done a last walk round everywhere just before sunset, I know that there are more tomatoes and strawberries waiting to be picked.  

It's time now to put my feet up and  have a large glass of wine .......or maybe two.