Just bought some tomato powder and am wondering if anyone has any recipes for using it.

We dehydrate a lot of veggies and I'm wondering if it's worth the time and effort to powder dried tomatoes. The powder certainly should store a long time without spoiling if it's packaged properly.

Thanks

-- Carol - in Virginia (carollm@rockbridge.net), November 30, 2001

Answers

Where did you find that stuff? Never heard of it, although it sounds like it might have its uses. What do they suggest? My experience drying tomatoes has only been marginally successful, as it takes forever for them to get crispy. I usually dry them to the "rubbery" stage and use them in large batches of spaghetti sauce, which I then can. I cut them fairly small, and it does cut down on cooking time for the sauce. Now, something that I have powdered successfully is mushrooms. Normally, I take the stems from Shiitake mushrooms, which I grow, and powder them. Makes an interesting flavoring agent and thickener for soups, stews, and sauces. You can also use the "reduced" price mushrooms that the stores want to move fast. GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), November 30, 2001.

I had a room mate from Venezuala a long time ago. She bought the powdered tomatoes and used them in her rice dishes. I wish that I remembered what she did. The rice had a nice reddish color to it and it was very good. She also used some peppers with the rice to make it spicier. It would be great for vegetable soups, stews, chili, enchiladas, and anything that you would put tomato sauce in.

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), November 30, 2001.

I can't seem to KEEP my tomatoes from drying crispy! :) We keep the dried toms in the fridge in jars and I like to blend them into a powder when making pasta sauces and the like. The powder helps thicken up the sauce a little, and the flavor is marvelous. Also good to toss cooked pasta in (a la pesto), with a little olive oil and garlic. Also good in breads, soups, salad dressings (French, etc) and so on. Use to dust fancy homemade crackers with instead of salt or parmesan (toss cut-out crackers in it before baking), add to veggie juice drinks, use as pot pie sauce base, and on and on. Goodness, now I'm hungrey. And there are still some dried toms in the fridge....

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.

I had tons of cherry tomatoes this summer and so I borrowed my sister- in-laws dehydrater and dried them overnight and then made powder. It only gave me a small jar's worth but if you look at the price of tomato powder from a company that sells #10 cans of dried vegatables, a #10 can costs $33. Tomato powder can be used in just about everything. Experiment and see. I plan on doing it again next year and have even thought maybe there could be a small market for gourmet tomato powder. You don't see it anywhere and nobody I know has heard of it until I told my sister-in-law what I was doing.

-- Billie Sowell (bbsowell@earthlink.net), November 30, 2001.

Biilie. Did you dry the cherry tomatoes whole? I had WAY TOO MANY cherry this year and many were wasted.

-- DW (djwallace@sotc.net), November 30, 2001.

I powder about half of the tomatoes I dehydrate. I use it for sauce, soup and seasoning.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 30, 2001.

Hey DW, I simply sliced them in half and laid them with the slice side up and turned the dehydrater on. I also have a food mill and made the rest into juice and froze it.

-- Billie Sowell (bbsowell@earthlink.net), December 01, 2001.

Tomato powder, otherwise known as instant soup. instant sause, thickens the chili or the stew, flavors the meat loaf, the roast or the chicken, Decorates the stuffed eggs or the pasta salad or the potato salad......

-- Thumper (slrldr@yahoo.com), December 01, 2001.