Page 14 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Vegetable Drying
Dometica tomatoes in Excalibur dehydrator
Cropping
The Apero is a heavy cropper and didn’t disappoint in 2022. The Dometica was without doubt a stupendous cropper (see pic), probably the heaviest cropper I have grown, the downside is the core, which requires to be taken out. Amish Paste, presumably, much used by the American Amish people, is grown from saved seed, I saved seed from the bigger tomatoes; since cross pollination can and does occur, there are anomalies from year to year. Mostly the first truss has mango shaped fruit, and the rest of the trusses have large plum shaped fruit.
Having had success with the three varieties mentioned, this year I will be
ADRIAN BAGGALEY
Sweet peppers ready for drying
The best news I have had for ages. Pictures showing empty salad trays and boxes on supermarket shelves, does this mean no more insipid, bland, colourless, and tasteless tomatoes?
Last Summer I was fortunate to ‘bump’ into a very nice lady called Gretchen, this lady has an Excalibur dehydrator, into this useful bit of kit go courgettes and tomatoes; this is how the conversation got started
in the first place, what to do with all those courgettes? I requested
a look at this wondrous
thing and lo and behold
she had it dropped off –
well I only wanted to look
at it, I was invited to try
it out. So much use did I
give it I thought I might
wear it out.
(Baker’s Creek). The latter is not F1 so I can save the seed – a lot more exciting. In addition to this I grew a beefsteak variety for the Sunday breakfasts. The Apero were the best they have ever been for flavour, sweetness and size, however they are a bit skinny when dried, and they are merely cut open lengthways. The Dometica were also cut lengthways in 6mm slices so the core can be removed, these dried to a very attractive pale pillar box red colour. Amish
I have to say that I
was not that impressed
with the dried courgettes – up to now that is, they are currently in sealed jars, the strips taste not unlike dried parsnip crisps which doesn’t appeal to me at all. Back to tomatoes, last year (2022) I grew Apero, Dometica (Select Seeds) and Amish Paste
Overall, I dried
of tomatoes, plus sweet peppers and courgettes, all these would have taken up a considerable amount of freezer space; there were already several kilos of ‘skinned tomatoes in the freezers.
The Apero were the best they have ever been for flavour, sweetness and size
Paste were cut crossways in 20mm slices, these dried to a dense, meaty smoky flavour. Given there are hundreds if
not thousands of tomato varieties I would think the ‘amateur drier ’ could come up with a prolific diverse range of flavour textures and colours. around a Rhino Tub
14 Simply Vegetables