1). Slow roast them. Cut in half, place on rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle a little EVOO, salt pepper. 200 degree oven. About 8 hours. Then freeze. I usually throw a handful on our salad each night.

2) I'm linking a recipe for "Sun Gold Sauce". Yummy. Freezes well. Yes, it takes a stick of butter. But you only use a little . I freeze in 1/2 cup containers. I've made it with other varieties of cherry tomatoes as well. Sun golds make the prettiest sauce!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sun Gold Sauce

A question about drying tomatoes-

Is it possible to dry them without EVOO, keep a good flavor & texture, and still be able to keep them in jars at room temp?
I run out of room in fridge and freezer and would like to be able to store more dehydrated vegetable and fruits in the pantry.

brokenbar posted a sundried tomato recipe back in '08, that doesn't use oil. It is an overnight soak in wine, then sun drying with herbs. Would that recipe be shelf-stable?

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sun Dried Tomatoes

Thanks for posting the brokenbar thread again - I remembered her method but forgot she mentioned cherries
"Hey Bonnie...cherry's are fine, just more work. I try to cut them and leave just a small area conecting the two halves together. You need to put the cut side up so that the herbs and salt sticks to the tomato and they dry faster too. You will need to keep and eye on them because they dry pretty fast. Also, make sure there are no pockets of moisture. A friend of mine dry tons of cherries and she puts them on the rack on top of a towel and kind of smashes them down with a plate to get rid of some of the moisture and to make them more even in thickness. Don't worry about taking the seeds out of cherry's (you would be taking seeds out right up until Christmas!)"

The good thing is these should dry while everyone's at school/work. I've got tomatoes piled up on the counter (well, most in bins, some "gotta use ASAP" Krims on a paper towel, I should try dehydrating those).

Thank too for the Sungold sauce link - I'll have to try it with the others. I sold a few pounds of mixed "artisan" tomatoes, have some left (mostly Galinas) but DD will eat those. I actually got people to buy Green Doctors last night! But I think the Black Cherries and Sungolds got picked out.

If you dry them until very crisp, you can whiz them in the FP and make tomato powder. A VERY handy ingredient to have on hand. When mixed with water, you can turn it into tomato paste, sauce, soup, or juice later simply by adjusting the amount of water.
It's a way to store large amounts of tomato in a small space!

Deanna

I was looking for something else today and found this blog from "Food In Jars" author about ways to preserve small tomatoes. Cool blog. Five Ways to Preserve Small Tomatoes.

Thanks - I don't care for them frozen and thrown in dishes - all skin, everything else just turns to water. Maybe dehydrating but I don't have the time or counterspace to pull out the dehydrator today and have 5 pints of SS100 that HAVE to be used today (I culled this morning and 4 hours later after sitting in 75 degree kitchen more had gone mushy/split).

90 degrees today so my choice of slow-roasting (and I already put 6 lbs of tomatoes in freezer today, have about 20lbs to go) or making tomato jam. I have experimented with tomato jam using slicers, peeling them and using no-sugar pectin. Do you think the FiJ's method of just cooking them down with sugar (no peeling! Yeah!) is safe? Seems dense. I wonder if NS pectin (and maybe NO sugar at all since these are so ripe/sweet) is the way to go - but I'm wondering about skins?

I am drowning in tomatoes - just picked a 5 gal bucket of paste tomatoes off 6 plants (just blushing, I have some time, but the ones I already picked seem to be softening without really getting ripe?). Still have to pick green beans and cherry tomatoes now that I've picked the bigger tomatoes but it's getting too sticky out there. Maybe after dinner?