FAKEY-FAKE SUN-DRIED TOMATOES (IN THE OVEN)

Let me tell you, a month in the life of this challenge is a loooooong month.  And once I reached mid-October, that little voice in the back of my head (you know, the one with the common sense that I ignore much of the time) started yelling "Girl, you'd better get on this!  Thanksgiving's around the corner, ya crazy biatch!"  And the cooking commenced.  Like a whirlwind.

I'm sure this all would have been done sooner except in my line of work, when you come home, you don't want to cook.  You want to drink.  Or in my case -- the teetotaler I am -- lie down and watch Netflix 'til your eyes burn.

I've trudged ahead; however, as I've piece by piece fit in making most of the food, I haven't had time to blog it.  So be prepared for a barrage of recipes.  I'm about to tear this mother up.

Just to ease you in, I'll start with a quick one.  I actually acquired some lovely home-grown organic tomatoes when I set up a colleague's LCD projector (Thanks, Jan!).  And I assure you, I didn't ask for them and I didn't buy them, they just showed up on my desk.  And they smelled sooooo good.  First I thought "OH MY GOD TOMATOES.  I HAVEN'T HAD A FRESH TOMATO SINCE JESUS WAS BORN."  But then then I realized, very quickly, that I was going to have to make something with these suckers.  Time being of the essence for me, I decided to shrinky-dink them down so I could use them later but wouldn't have to worry about them getting bad.  Pretty simple really (original recipe from Kellie at allrecipes.com):

INGREDIENTS:
Tomatoes
Salt

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 125F.
2. Cut tomatoes into quarters and remove juice and seeds.

3. Lay, skin side down, on an oiled baking sheet.
4. Sprinkle with salt.

5. Bake until tomatoes are a leathery texture.  Because I had small pieces, this took about 6 hours, but might take more or less time depending on your oven and your tomatoes.

The verdict: The jury's still out because they're currently stewing in a soup as we speak, but I'll let you know what happens.  Also, I apologize for not having a final picture.  I think after I waited up so late for the tomaters to dry completely, I just wanted to hit the sack and forgot to preserve the moment.  But you know what sun-dried tomatoes look like.  They looked like that.