I'm not really against the concept of organically grown produce, but I'll be the first to point out to you how sad it is that our society has reached a point where the only way you could have possibly made food just a hundred years ago is now a hip, niche market trend that very few people can afford. And don't get me started on the farm bill and the ever-lessening standards for what counts as organic - that's another post.
What I'm trying to say is that buying organic products isn't the only, or even the best, way to lessen your footprint and connect to your food. Cookbooks like Fannie Farmer and Better Homes and Gardens just might be. You can buy all the organic mac and cheese you want without understanding the origins of the food you eat, but when you learn how to make that food yourself, you'll understand exactly.
Think of how little you'd waste if you had to make everything from scratch. Everything would be precious, everything would be a unique creation. Food would become more personal, less nutrition than art. it would be much harder to toss the last pickle if you crafted it yourself.
I think that what scares people most about making food from absolute scratch isn't always the time commitment, it's miseducation. People no longer understand how to make simple foodstuffs such as bread and pickles. The process seems mind-boggling, insurmountable, and, above all, dangerous. To someone with nowhere to begin, the simple process of baking bread seems like a tedious laboratory experiment that will probably fail, and the idea of pickling conjures up images of petri dishes growing lethal bacteria. It can definitely be daunting.
Armed with in-depth cookbooks from eras past, and an fear of foodbourne illness that has lead to an encyclopedic knowledge of the topic, I dive head-first into home-canning, bread-baking, cheese-making, and other lost arts. Every Wednesday I'm going to report on one such experiment, attempting to make it approachable to even the most timid of home cooks. My first topic: Sun-dried tomatoes.
Sun Dried Tomatoes are expensive. Daaaaaaaaamn. You would think they used tomatoes made out of gold. I am not part of the population that can afford sun-dried tomatoes, so when I saw some only mildly blemished tomatoes on the damaged shelf at A&P (alright, so I stepped foot in a grocery store- but I didn't go grocery shopping, so it's OK), I just had to try to make some. After reviewing a couple of recipes, I had my game plan ready. it was simple, really.
First, wash and trim your tomatoes, and Preheat the oven to 200. Damaged tomatoes are good for this, because you won't notice any damage after they've shriveled up. Roma tomatoes can be halved, cherry tomatoes left whole, and larger tomatoes cut into wedges. I cut mine into sixths.
Arrange the wedges on a baking sheet and sprinkle LIBERALLY with KOSHER salt. That's probably the mot important part. Sprinkle on tons and tons of salt so all that moisture can wick away from the tomatoes, and make it kosher so that the salt crystals don't leave with all that juice. next sprinkle with some Italian herbs and pepper, just enough to season it a little.
Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or just oil, if you please, and stick in the oven.
The Next Most Important Part: DON'T OPEN THE OVEN! just let it do its thing for the next 6-8 hours, and then check on it. Opening the oven door is only going to make the whole process slower.
When you check on the tomatoes, they should look like this:
If they don't, leave them in until they do. If they do, take them out before they burn. You can keep them covered in oil, in the fridge, for a couple weeks, or freeze indefinitely.
After doing all that cooking and witnessing ll that shrinkage, it's easy to appreciate the price of sun dried tomatoes, and now I'm just a little closer to where my food comes from.
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