I got this recipe / technique here and have reposted it before. It is the only way to do Dried Tomatoes, they are far superior to anything you can get in the market. I am doubling my Roma tomato planting this year so I have more to dry. DRIED TOMATOES Wash, stem and slice each tomato into 1/4" thick slices. If using Roma-type Tomatoes, slice in half longitudinally and scoop out seeds. Place in a very large bowl or clean bucket and cover with cheap red wine. I use Merlot but if you prefer something else, knock yourself out. I have a friend that swears by cheap Chianti! Soak tomato slices 24 hours in the wine. Drain well. Lay tomatoes just touching on dehydrator shelves or on screen in your sun-drying apparatus. Sprinkle each slice with a mixture containing equal parts of dried basil-oregano-parsley and then sprinkle each slice with Kosher Salt. You may choose to forego the salt if you wish but tomatoes will take longer to dry. Dry tomatoes until they are firm and leatherlike with no moisture pockets, but NOT brittle. (If you get them too dry, soak them in lemon juice for a few minutes.) To store, place in vacuum bags or ziplock bags and freeze. IMPORTANT!!! If you will be storing sun-dried tomatoes in Olive oil you !!!MUST!!! dip each slice in vinegar before adding to oil. To pack in oil: Dip each tomato into a small dish of white wine vinegar. Shake off the excess vinegar and pack them in olive oil adding 1/4 cup red wine. For tomatoes in oil I am selling, I put the tomatoes into the oil two weeks ahead of time and store in the refrigerator. Make sure they are completely immersed in the oil. When the jar is full, cap it tightly. I use my vacuum sealer to seal the canning lids on. Store at *cool* room temperature for at least a month before using. They may be stored in the refrigerator, but the oil will solidify at refrigerator temperatures (it quickly reliquifies at room temperature however). As tomatoes are removed from the jar, add more olive oil as necessary to keep the remaining tomatoes covered. I have stored oil-packed tomatoes in my root cellar for over a year. . I have tried a number of methods to pack the tomatoes in oil, but the vinegar treatment is the difference between a good dried tomato and a great one. It is also important from a food safety standpoint, as it acidifies the oil and discourages growth of bacteria and mold. Soaking in the wine also acidifies them. ****** WARNING ******** Do *NOT* add fresh garlic cloves or fresh herbs of any kind to oil-packed dried tomatoes, UNLESS you store them in the refrigerator and plan on using them within 7 days. Garlic is a low-acid food which, when placed in oil, creates a low-acid anaerobic environment just perfect growth medium for botulinum bacteria if the mixture is not refrigerated. Be safe and add your garlic to the dried tomatoes as part of the recipe for them *after* they come out of the oil. Steve

> I'm not so worried about the safety factor. The problem is that the tomatoes are dried to a crunch and I've since found out that because they are that dry, they won't absorb the oil. What do you mean you found out? You heard it somewhere, or you tried them? If you tried them, how long had they been in the oil? I'm asking because it doesn't make sense to me -- I would think that, if anything, more dry would mean more absorption. But I bet it takes a few months, either way. >I should have only dried them to the leathery stage. I'm wondering now, since I saw wine used in one recipe, if I could strain off the oil, then mix them with the wine to slightly rehydrate them, then repack them in the jar with the oil? If it were me, I would fish out, like, 3 slices and try the wine thing on them, see if it's worth the nbother :). They might absorb the wine, or their oil coating might prevent that. But the result can't be anything but delicious either way, right?

Sorry, I was at fault for missing the fact that you don't have a bread machine. But if you like that combination of ingredients, you can work with the suggestions here from joannaw and ksrosgers or look for a comparable recipe. Most sources talk about adapting conventional recipes to a bread machine, not the other way around. If you want to use that recipe, here's how to do it: Take 1 1/2 cups of warm water (no more than 105 degrees); add the sugar and the yeast and leave it to "bloom." Meanwhile, stir together 2 1/1 cups of the flour (reserve the rest for kneading in if the dough is too soft), the powdered milk, the salt, basil, pepper and shredded cheese. When the yeast has bloomed in the liquid, then you want to add the liquid mixture, the lemon juice and the reserved oil to the dry seasoned flour mixture. You can do it by hand or with a stand mixer. [There are some strategies for withholding the salt till later for a better rise and for adding some of the flour to make a batter, letting that rest a while then adding the remainder of the flour, but since you're a beginning baker it's simpler to just do it all at once except for the reserved half-cup of flour. This recipe has plenty of yeast so adding the salt right away isn't a problem anyway.] You have two choices with the chopped tomatoes. You can get 2/3 of the flour mixture added then toss the chopped tomatoes with the last 1/3 and mix that into the dough. Tossing the tomatoes with the flour helps separate them so they don't clump together in one glob. It's a good strategy for adding any ingredient (nuts, dried fruits, etc.) to quick breads, yeast breads, cakes. That way they stay separate and don't sink. Or you can mix up the dough and then knead the tomatoes in. That's harder. Once you have the dough check to see how stiff it is. You can add more flour with the mixer or you can take the dough and scrape it out onto a lightly floured board. (Use some of the half-cup you held back). Then gently knead the bread until the dough is smooth and resilient. This may be a sticky dough because of the oily ingredients, so oiling your hands will help. One thing to remember: The most common beginner mistake is adding too much flour; less is better. Once the dough has come together and is smooth, put in an oiled bowl. Turn the dough ball so all sides are oiled. Cover with a cloth and allow to rise until nearly double. Then turn out on the floured board again, give it a quick final knead and put in your greased pan. Allow to rise a second time and bake. Any of the recipes ksrogers linked to should give you comparable baking temps and times. You can also check u-tube for videos of kneading, etc. if visual will help. Good luck and let us know how your bread turns out. Carol

Eileen, all you have to do is pick all your green ones, bring them in the house and they will all ripen/turn red. You can also pull the whole plant out of the ground and hang it in a garage or barn and they will all continue to ripen. To encourage ripening on the vine outside, discontinue watering. I don't know if you could dry green ones (can't see why not) but they sure would be bitter and I don't know what you would use them for. You could use fresh green ones for salsa verde or fried green tomatoes. Earl, smaller types I slice length wise. Bigger types, stem end down to bottom. I grow only paste types so few seeds, which I remove most of. If you are using tom's with a lot of seeds, you should probably remove them as they get pretty bitter. And I know seeding tomatoes (other than in a squeezo or something) is a huge pain-in-the-butt! Cutting slices that are the same thickness is important because then your slices will dry at a similar rate of speed and you don't have to keep picking through the trays on the dehydrator taking out the ones that dried the quickest. Also, I have a commercial dehydrator so mine has 1/2" metal squares. I spray the trays with pam to avoid sticking. Most home dehydrators have teflon trays but if not, the Pam works really well.