More tomatoes, for drying. 9.17.18

 I've made enough tomato sauce.  There are still some ripening tomatoes, especially on the sauce tomato plants.  Now, with cool wet weather, there are rotting tomatoes too. 

I wanted to make use of some of the remaining fruits.  It's been a great tomato year!  So, I gathered what I could find, and it turned out there were more than I thought.  I washed them off, sliced them, and put them through the dehydrator.

I use a low setting.  They turn black in the high setting.

These are so delicious.  Great in salads, casseroles, breads, cornbread.  When thoroughly dry, almost crispy, but not black, I place them into a freezer bag and store in the freezer.  That way they don't get moldy or flies.  They'll be good for a year.

Sun drying is not an option in this weather.  Plus, I think the UV might decrease nutrients and flavor.  The air dryer is a perfect way to preserve these tasty fruits.

Preserving Summer. 8.16.15

Sundried Hollywood Plums.  8.16.15

Sundried and Sun-drying tomatoes.  8.16.15

 There is so much now from the kitchen garden.  Can't eat it all at once.  I give some away.

Dried fruit from home garden is surprisingly good.  The near-black Hollywood plums are tart and sweet and concentrated plum flavor.  Like fresh ones but more intense.  Nothing like a prune, which is a dried European plum.

The home grown sun dried tomatoes are even better than store bought,  And store bought sun dried tomatoes are pretty good.

They don't have to be Roma tomatoes.  Ning taught me we can dry any kind.

With these fruits, we dry a few days in the sunroom.  During the day it is in the 120s there.  I can use a food dehydrator, but the sunroom works as well with no power.

Then they go into food bags into the freezer.

Freezer Jam.  Finally found instant pectin.  The advantage is, instant pectin does not need to be dissolved.  No water needs to be added.  So the jam is just fruit, some sugar, and pectin.

Today's Harvest.  8.16.15

 For grapes, only 1/2 the recipe amount of sugar is needed.  Maybe not even that much.  This was amazingly good:

2 cups washed grapes.   These were Price grape.
1/3 cup sugar.
2 tablespoons instant pectin.

I wash the grapes. Place them in food processor and chop coarsely.

Then combine the sugar and pectin.  Add to food processor and process until well mixed.

Ingredients for Grape Freezer Jam.  8.16.15

 I leave the seeds intact, and don't worry about chopping the skin too finely.    Grape flavor is highly concentrated in the skin.  Grape seeds are a health food and the crunchiness adds fun to the jam, similar to seeds in figs.

Cornbread with Grape Freezer Jam.  8.16.5

Very good on cornbread with butter.  Use unsweetened corn bread.  Or mixed with plain, homemade yogurt.

Ladle jam into jars.   Any small jar will do.  These keep 1 year in freezer or 1 month in fridge.  The uncooked fruit flavor sings with joy.

Hollywood plums also make excellent plum jam.  Same as grapes, but slice the plums flesh off the seeds.   Leave the skin on the slices.  Use 2 cups, same as grape jam.  Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  The rest is same as grapes.  It's almost like candy, sweet and sour and full of undiluted flavor, unlike cooked fruit jams with high fructose corn syrup from the grocery store.

In either case, the jam fills 2 8-oz jars.