We will be visiting home for a while — a late summer vacation!  In the mean time, it may take a little longer to publish some of your comments or respond them.  Hope to be back here in a few weeks.

I never thought I’d say that but I think we are lucky to live in this area where the summers are hot and dry; perfect condition for baking jam under the sun and drying fruits! There were couple weeks this summer where it was 100F + during days. It cools off at night, which is wonderful, too.

I have been drying vegetables for the last few years, mostly the tomatoes. It is quite common to dry small eggplants, okra and apricots in Turkey.

If you have the chance, I’d suggest you take some time to cut them up for drying. Other tha laying them under the sun, there is hardly anything else to be done. Just leave it up to the sun. Dried tomatoes are good for putting in the stews, pasta sauces breads, paninis etc. Recently I have been dropping couple of them in the hummus as well; quite tasty. Dried fruits can be added to your morning cereal or you can make your own trail mix with them. Unless you are picky about their color, I’d suggest putting them under the sun the way they are; without dipping in any sort of preservative to preserve their colors.

For tomatoes, I have sliced them about 1/3 - 1/2 of an inch thick. Lightly salted and lay them down on cooling racks. Covered with cheesecloth, making sure it does not touch the tomatoes and let them dry. Depending on the conditions the time it takes to dry changes. If you live in humid areas or have not enough space for drying them under the sun, you can use your oven; let it heat to 200F, and keep its door ajar to let the moisture to escape.

In our summer heat it took about 2 - 3 days for each batch to dry. Just be patient; you do not want to have soggy, half dried fruit.

Once dry enough, you can keep them in glass jars as they are or mix with olive oil, garlic, rosemary mix.

This time, the first time, I am also drying eggplants. First I skinned as shown. Knowing that they will shrink quite a bit, I cut them in about an inch cubes. Laid them under the sun as did we the tomatoes. Once they are dry enough, I will keep them in a bag made out of cotton fabric so they do not spoil.

Carrying over some of the summer; that’s what this whole food preserving is all about.