Tomato Leather

We mentioned our new favorite trail food here and we have to share how easy & delicious it is. We have Ray Jardine's Trail Life to thank for putting this idea in our minds. The favorite dinner he and his wife shared on many long trails (think PCT, AT, CDT) was corn pasta with dehydrated tomato sauce that they then rehydrated in their pasta water. We preserve as much Tomato Glut Sauce each year as we can from vegetables we grow so we dehydrated three trays (about two quarts) worth to try it out.

The first little piece of this tomato leather I tried shocked me it was so delicious! I kept breaking off more little pieces to sample - as you would expect, dehydrating really concentrates the flavors.

We have two Nesco dehydrators and a couple of solid trays that fit in them to make different leathers. We dehydrated the tomato sauce at 145 degrees Farenheight for about 7 hours. You might want to do more or less depending on what you prefer and the level of moisture in the sauce initially. This tomato leather is so packed with the goodness of summer and nutrient density of real food it fueled us right on down the trail.

The dehydrators are also salvaging our punky, mushy apples that didn't store well this year by turning them into delicious little chewy bits. Waste not, want not!