Friday, May 21, 2010

Sun Dried Tomatoes. Tutorial.

I was telling my sister how I make my sun dried tomatoes a few weeks ago and figured I'd do a tutorial for fun. They're easy, quick and a lot cheaper than buying the bottled kind.

You'll need (quantities can change depending on how much you want):

9-10 Roma Tomatoes
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper
5 Cloves Garlic
Basil
Rosemary
Balsamic Vinegar

I prefer using fresh herbs, but dried work too.



Cut your tomatoes into 12 pieces each, 3 out of each quarter. You want the pieces to be pretty small so they dry quicker.



Take all of the slimy seeds out. Amazingly, they never ever dry. Put your slices into a large bowl.


Salt, garlic, olive oil, pepper, balsamic, basil.


Mince your garlic, if you have a hard time peeling the skin off, just crush the clove with your blade. It will pop and then you can get the skin right off. Easy peasy.


Put your ingredients in with your tomatoes, enough oil and balsamic to coat the tomatoes and not too much more. Mix together thoroughly.


Line a cookie sheet with foil and line up the tomatoes. You can squish them pretty close together.


Pour the oil mix left in the bowl over the tomatoes.



With the oven set to 170, bake the tomatoes for 8 hours. I usually do this at night. I put them in, go to bed and take them out in the morning so I don't really time it.

Put them in a tupperware in the fridge. They last for a long time.

These lovlies can be used for so many things. Chop them up and put them on salads, on pasta, in sauces, puree them and make delicious tomato bisque or eat them plain! I like to take french bread slices, put cream cheese mixed with rosemary and bake them, then put the tomatoes on top for a yummy bruschetta. You can pretty much put them in anything because they're so delish. Enjoy!

Eat. Sleep. Crawl?










The new favorite sleeping position. I risked a lot to get this picture with the flash.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Baby. Sitter.

This whole sitting thing seemed to come out of the blue, but actually we've been practicing for the last month or so. It just happened that this last weekend he got really good at it. He was doing good for the last two weeks, but now he can reach to either side without toppling over. So hooray for baby! Isn't he just the cutest little lump?