Thanks CanMan & KYH I appreciate the info. I am looking forward to my dried goodies. And CanMan I will store my dried tomatoes in the fridge:) Personally I hate food poisioning:o

Cathy

Hey Cathy,
I have a Nesco professional grade dehydrator. I got it for the same reason you plan to get one. I want to dry tomatoes. I have used it to dry store bought crappy tomatoes and garlic so far and it has done well. I cannot wait to try it on fresh tomatoes soon.

Amen Sister - 'aint nothing like a fresh grown tomato from the garden!

You know what I was thinking about doing? I really was going to just use my car to dry tomatoes. Seriously, you leave your parked car in a blazing parking lot for 8+ hrs everyday while you're at work and it is a dry heat (you could leave the window cracked a little for air circulation) by the time you kick off from work...BINGO...your tomatoes are dried and ready to be Pasteurized and Conditioned for storing. The chart I read on-line says 8 to 10 hrs to dry tomatoes. My main concern though is that the car would probably be far too hot, but I am going to temp it and see! What a cheap food dehydrator it would make!

I am always open to suggestions and your in-put forum friends. So what do ya' think about my idea?

I don't know which would be worse, the food picking up the flavors of sweat and overheated vinyl or the car acquiring a new flavor to mix in with the existing aromas.

I've left a lot of food in my car before (stray french fries, etc) and nothing ever got dehydrated, though it did seem to transform into something else unidentifiable. Maybe if it was left "outside" the car on the metal -- tried that and a bird flew down and grabbed it, leaving some poop in trade.