Every year after you have had your tomato canning weekend, the stragglers inevitably start to roll in.  These are the extra tomatoes that weren’t quite ready to be picked or are being offered to you by friends and family.  Typically you have made your salsa, stewed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce and you really can’t get your motivation ramped up again to do more canning so soon.  If you are like me, you hate the idea of all this great food going to waste.  What do you do with them?  Here is an easy way to save extra tomatoes without dragging out all that canning gear again.

Creamy Tomato Soup Mix

This is a great recipe that takes those extra tomatoes from the fall harvest and turns them into a easy to prepare creamy tomato soup mix that can be given away as gifts or saved for those blustery winter days.

Drying Tomatoes

1. Core the tomato and cut off the stem and bottom end.  Slice the tomato crosswise into slices ¼ inch thick.
2. Arrange the slices in a single layer on a mesh sheet of a dehydrator drying tray.
3. Place the tray in the dehydrator and dry for 8 to 12 hours depending on the type of dehydrator and the amount of tomatoes being dried.
4. The tomatoes should be leathery without any pockets of moisture.
5. Let cool.

Making the Soup Mix

This recipe makes mix for about 1½ quarts of creamy tomato soup.  Scale as necessary for the amount of tomatoes you have.

1. Take 3 cups of  dried tomato slices and place into a blender or food processor.  Process until smooth and powdery.
2. Add the following ingredients:
   1. ½ cup dried milk
   2. 1 tablespoon sugar
   3. ½ teaspoon salt
   4. ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
3. Blend all ingredients well and store in tightly sealed container or glass jar.

Preparing the Soup

This is the real easy part.

1. Boil 1½ quarts of water in a kettle.
2. Stir in contents of container or jar.
3. Reduce temperature and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add one tablespoon  butter or margarine before serving.

The entire Creamy Tomato Soup recipe plus many more can be found at HomeFoodGourmet.com.  You can also find dehydrators, accessories and other food preservation gear at the Home Food Store.

Tags: canning, Creamy Tomato Soup, dehydrator, dried, Home Food Gourmet, recipe, salsa, soup, tomato, tomatoes

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am by theidel and is filed under Dehydrated Food Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.