No-Sun Dried Tomatoes

My lab scheduled a picnic potluck for Jazz in the Park. Leading up to our the day of our scheduled picnic, the weather was beautiful with sunny skies. Following the day of our scheduled picnic, the weather was beautiful with sunny skies. The day of our picnic was unceasing torrential downpour creating Escalade-eating sinkholes and flooding every basement in the Midwest.

We rescheduled our picnic for River Rhythms the following week. The weather report was identical, with gorgeous skies before and after and epic flooding scheduled for our picnic, but we stuck to our guns and were rewarded for our tenacity with a beautiful evening and six surprisingly good bands.



Given my need to over-plan all things except vacations, I had already bought tomatoes for a bulgur-tomato-oregano salad-thing before the floods. I figured I could still use them with a slight change of plan: Dried tomato slices with goat cheese and a sliced baguette. My labmates approved mightily of Plan B.



The secret ingredient is a dead simple not-even recipe, everything else was store-bought.

Ingredient:
Delicious tomatoes you can't use before they spoil

Directions:
Slice tomatoes ~1/4 inch thick (you will really want a sharp knife for this)
Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper
Arrange tomato slices in a single layer on the parchment paper(s)
Put in oven on LOWEST setting until dry (if you have a pilot light and your oven is generally above 100 degrees F, don't even bother turning it on)

You will know they are done when they don't squish anymore when you poke them. I left mine overnight. If your oven is on, it will take less time to dry the tomatoes, but you may end up cooking some of the flavor out of them.

Peel dried tomatoes off of parchment paper. Store in tupperware or a bag. I got six romas into a 1 cup container.