Today I Made Tomato Powder - A Long Desired Item To Have

   Years ago, when I was little, a truck used to come through our neighborhood, and what the truck drivers sold was Charles Chips Potato Chips. Of course, we would get them. I loved the barbecued flavor potato chips.

    When I got older, I would try to replicate the things I liked as a kid. But how do you make the flavoring that goes on barbecue potato chips? The only barbecue flavoring I am familiar with are the liquid barbecue sauces. Putting barbecue sauce on potato chips doesn't even sound appetizing to me though.

   I was able to replicate many things, but making the barbecue flavoring that goes on potato chips was a mystery to me. That is, until I learned how to make tomato powder.

   Months ago, I found some web sites that help me understand how to make tomato powder. The step was so easy I don't know how I could have missed it.

   All you do is to take a couple of tomatoes, put them in a slow cooker or Crock Pot and turn it on high for about an hour, or until the skins start splitting. Then turn off the slow cooker (I don't remove the tomatoes until they cool off.). When they are cooled, peel the tomato skins off. I use the tomato pulp for making tomato sauce. We eat a lot of pasta and the sauce goes quickly. But take the skins and either dehydrate them or put them in an oven, turn it on the lowest temperature and leave it on for about an hour or two. Take them out and see if they are dried. If so, they can be ground. It is hard to grind just a small amount of skins, so I would take the skins and put them in a clean jar if there is just a little amount of skins. Do this often and you will get enough skins to make a decent amount of tomato powder.

  Also, when I take the skins off, I place them on a glass, ovenproof plate to dry on. You can let them air dry, but if the air has too much moisture, mold could grow on the skins.

   Here is something I am going to try:

Spicy Tomato Powder

Handful of dried tomato skins
a few pieces of dried hot pepper

Grind both the tomato skins and the dried pepper. Use the powder on baked chicken, fish, meatloaf, roasted potatoes, etc. Sprinkle on salad to spice up a salad.

I have not tried this yet, but I think it would turn out really nice.

Here is a web site that has a recipe for making tomato powder using a dehydrator http://homejoys.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-to-make-tomato-powder.html

The recipes for making tomato powder on this site uses the whole tomato, not just the skins. There are also recipes for tomato sauce and tomato paste by adding water to the powder.

Here is the slow cooker I use. I like it because it is small, and it also has different temperature settings (low, high, or keep warm). I have two other slow cookers like this but they don't have any temperature settings available.







  They actually still sell the food dehydrator that I have. I bought mine many years ago and it still works fine. Amazon has several to choose from and I have heard good reports of Excalibur dehydrators, although they are more expensive than the others.
 You can use an oven for drying tomatoes, but keep in mind that the lowest temperature on most ovens is 170 degrees. 150 degrees is ideal, but ovens do not go that low on their temperature, so check your food often if you are trying to dry them in the oven.