DIYS Gardening:  ....  and More Tomatoes

What to do with the the next crop of tomatoes?  I have done the tomato sauce, and the salsa.  Now what?   I don't feel like making tomato sauce morning, noon, and night.  However, I do need a way of preserving them.  I like the idea of sun-dried tomatoes, but I don't want to put them out in my backyard and them the squrieel, rabbits, chipmunk, and yes a ground hog get at my tomatoes. 

So I brought a food dehydrator.  I had one ripe tomato that I could test the food dehydrator.   However the the appliance demand you use all the trays, so I had to fill the the other tray with apple, peaches and nectarines.  After filling the tray I turned it on and waited.   About 10 hours later I had great apple chips that tasted wonderful.   My tomato was a little too dry, but I have several recipes that require dry tomatoes that have been pulverized into a powder.  The taste is something else.  They just scream TOMATO!  The flavor seems boiled down to the essense of what is a tomato.  I can see how you could make a great tomato paste using pulverized dried tomato in a sauce.

I'm using a food dehydrator made by Nesco.  I wanted something cheap, just in case things didn't work out.   However the test run has convinced me that drying the tomatoes and other thing would be the way to go.  I will not be wasting any tomatoes because I have too many for sandwiches, but not enough for pasta.