Was out in the garden and tlosd the wife doesn't look like your going to be canning many tomatoes this year knowing we have not done any yet.

She informed me she has been taking them over to her best friends and she has been freze drying them and we are splitting them. Sounds great to me. Our garden is larger than her friends back yard and it is going to be a great way to see if I like freeze dried stuff more than canning before spending the money on a freeze dryer.

Would like to see what freeze dried tomatoes look like.
Didn't know this was a thing. The first of our tomatoes should start ripening this week.
I can tomatoes because freezer space it at a premium at my house. Lots of deer, walleye and critter parts.
Does freeze dried store in the cupboard or freezer?

Show us some packages

I don't know what we will get back. Most likely will be sealed in mylar packages. I think some will be in powder and x table spoons = # of tomatoes for somethings. Others I think will be sliced or completely and add x weight of water. From what I have been told weigh product before and after. The difference is the weight of how much water it takes to get it back.


It's something I have been wanting to buy and get into but it's an expensive experiment if I didn't like the results. But if this turns out I can see a freeze dry in our future.

Edit, talked to wife. Apparently we have 2 quart jars of freeze dried tomato powder now. I toolk a picture of one but even after croping it it's not loading. So picture a jar full of pink powder the texture of a pixi stick.

Have a friend that has one and he and his wife freeze dry lots of things. I have had fruit and some type of candy they freeze dried and it was really good. Eric

Hope that works for you and your family. I can't wrap my head around how dried tomatoes can be turned into juice, salsa, sauces etc. but there may be a way to achieve that.

Bryce

We have been coring them as they ripen and freezing them in gallon bags. When we get a bunch we drop them frozen into boiling water and the skins come off immediately. We will keep doing this except for slicers for BLTs.

bblwi, from what my friend has told me, Providence is describing the process exactly, weigh before freeze drying and add water to the freeze dried product to reconstitute. Eric

you will like the freeze dried stuff -- got one and am finding more uses for it monthly.

Just a more extreme method of condensed. But has a 25 year shelf life, is very light ans takes up much less space.

Cool stuff

Do the seeds and skins get ground up too?

There's so much water in tomatoes, it likely takes a long time to dry them and there's probably not much left. I'm curious about it.

I have 11, 10 pound boxes and 1 peck of tomatoes I need to process. I'm just going to wash them, chunk them up, cook them soft, run them through a food mill to take out the skins and seeds out and cook the remainder down to sauce.

Keith

I'm interested in hearing about what you do with your freeze dried products. Tomato or otherwise. I have had some freeze dried fruits that I really liked but am having a hard time imagining how other freeze dried products could be used.

I have had a freeze dryer for a couple of years now. The freeze-dried tomatoes retain a good flavor and work well in soups, stews, etc. but not for eating like a fresh tomato.
Just like canned or frozen, there is no substitute for a tomato just out of the garden. Fruit like strawberries, apples, bananas etc. are great. You can rehydrate them or just use them for a snack. Eggs are great, scramble them and after freeze drying, when rehydrated it is hard to tell them from fresh scrambled.
Have freeze-dried several soups, even creamed soups and all have turned out well. This year we want to try chili, stews and lean meats like venison. Also going to do garlic and make powder out of it. I have done zucchini, okra, peppers, etc. and all worked well in soups, stews, and casseroles. Long story short it lends itself well to many things but not as good as fresh. I bought the machine to build up a long term food supply from the garden and hunting without the need for refrigeration of any sort. Stores in mylar bags with a desiccant and will keep for many years and is lightweight, and takes up little room. Lots of things I want to try in the future.

Zim

Wife has a food freeze dryer, try asparagus, its like eating asparagus cheese puffs, but real good as a snack.
watermelon is another good one.

my folks started freeze drying tomatoes this year. They said they actually prefer them that way. The freeze-dried tomato slices do make a good snack