Last night the tomatoes and okra were done so I put them in jars and vacuum sealed them.
I’ve freeze dried tomatoes along with jalapeno, onions and cilantro to make pico but I don’t think I’ve ever freeze dried tomatoes by themselves. These are all out of my garden (except some of the okra came from a friend’s garden).
Those tomatoes taste like tomato flavored candy! They are so sweet and so good. I’d be happy to eat those in place of a potato chip or candy.
A lot of freeze drying folks will put their tomatoes into a blender and make a powder, then add that to food. I’m not doing that because I’m thinking if I ever needed food, I’d rather munch on a freeze dried tomato chunk than on a spoonful of tomato powder. If a recipe I’m making would be better with tomato powder, I can always dump the contents of one jar in the blender, then use it.
I ended up with five 1-1/2 pint jars of tomatoes; two quarts and two pints of oka.
Freeze dried food doesn’t really take up a whole lot less volume . . some but not a tremendous amount less than fresh but it weighs substantially less. My guess is that it takes about 2-1/2 pounds of fresh tomatoes to fill a 1-1/2 pint jar and that same amount of tomatoes freeze dried probably weighs less than 6 oz.
All I did with these was cut them up. Left the seeds in, left the skin on. I put them in a colander for about an hour to let some of the liquid drain out, then spread them on the freeze dryer trays and let the machine do its magic. Love those tomatoes. Heck, I don’t even mind eating the okra freeze dried either. It’s a tasty, crunchy little snack too.
vivoaks says
When I first saw freeze-dryers advertised I drooled over them. However, they’re way out of my price range, and if I had that much money I’d try to get the rain stopped from coming through the roof first… Anyway, the best ever thing I’ve had freeze dried was blueberries! Love, love, love them!!! Every time I see freeze-dried food for sale I look for blueberries. Never see them… 🙂 I envy you your freeze dryer. I’ll survive without it, but do enjoy reading about all the goodies you get to freeze dry. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Judy Laquidara says
Blueberries . . I love them too but don’t freeze dry them because you have to poke a little hole in EVERY berry. The home freeze dryers I guess don’t have enough vacuum or whatever to get through those skins. I sometimes mash them a little with the potato masher and freeze dry them like that but it’s more like eating peanut brittle than individual berries.
Nancy H says
I came really close a couple of years ago buying a freeze drier but then I realized I had no way to vacuum seal the jars of stuff and no Vince to build me a camber. Still think it is awesome, still want one.
Judy Laquidara says
You can store the food in mylar bags but I had tons of jars and prefer to use those. It’s pretty handy having that old pressure cooker to use as a vacuum chamber.
Rebecca says
I love that you enjoy freeze-dried produce as-is. What a healthy snack!