Solar drying tomatoes

Continuing on the theme of removing water for preserving foods. Why not use the energy of the sun? Yesterday, late in the day, I started drying tomatoes, cut in half with a bit of olive oil and salt,  in the Solar Oven, Today, I"m continuing the process. Even early in the day, you can get quite high temperatures by adjusting the oven to capture the sun. For dehydrating, you leave the glass door, slightly open so that condensation doesn't happen. The oven comes with some racks that you can use with parchment paper, I may give that a try later today.  You can do three racks at one time. My plan is to pack these tomatoes in oil and store in the refrigerator.

Vegetables preserved in oil

This lovely jar of semi-dehydrated vegetables in oil was inspired by the 3 days we spent at The Apple Farm in Philo, Ca. We had a lovely time, but one of the highlights was a Food Preserving class taught by Karen. She talked about several different techniques including, cheese and butter making, jam and pickle making and even making bread crumbs. All of these techniques all have one thing in common - the removal of water.   

The jar of zucchini, eggplant and peppers packed in oil  was done following the principles from the book, My Calabria by Rosetta Costantino, after being semi dehydrated by a combination of salting for 4 hours to remove water and several hours in the dehydrator (she air dries), and cooking in vinegar (to reduce the pH), followed by another drying, they are packed in oil and stored in the refrigerator.  I made a few batches of zucchini last year and enjoyed them for several months, taking care to cover with oil and return to the refrigerator for storage. This year is the first time I"m trying eggplant and a few peppers.  The peppers and eggplant were grown in our garden. Unfortunately, our zucchini plants haven't started producing yet, so those were purchased from the local farmer's market.