Healthy eating may kill my husband

Jim is terrified of healthy eating. But not for the reasons you would think. When he opens the refrigerator and sees fresh fruits and veggies, he starts to panic. He is deathly afraid of things spoiling. It's almost comical. He will worry himself sick over peaches going bad and then will reach for a bag of chips.

So after my exciting day of receiving my first Farm Fresh Delivery order, it dawned on me that I was getting ready to leave town. I left Friday afternoon for Chicago and got back late last night. I'm home today and tomorrow and then leave early Tuesday for a full week in San Antonio (yes, Texas is August. No, this is not for pleasure). So what to do with all this produce?

Well, dinner Thursday night for both Jim and myself was corn on the cob so that took care of that. But I could see that little basket of cherry tomatoes lurking in the fridge and could feel Jim's eyes on me saying "you're wasting our money on food we're never going to eat". I'll confess that popping a tomato in my mouth as a snack will never happen. I have major issues with texture and the slime of raw tomatoes just gags me. But I'm devoted to finding alternative uses for tomatoes that the whole family will eat (the kids have developed my phobia of slimy foods as well).

One thing I DO love is sundried tomatoes so I thought I'd give that a whirl. I inherited my grandpa's food dehydrator (at some point in time someone thought he was going to make his own jerky. Not sure if that ever happened). After a little checking it was determined that it would take about 10-11 hours to get these puppies into my favored state. I was concerned that using the dehdrator overnight would catch my house on fire and Jim and I would end up dehydrated ourselves but fortunately that was not the case! I think that generally people use Roma tomatoes for this but I had to use what I had on hand.


So anyhow, these things are DELISH! Before starting up the dehydrator I sprinkled them with a little salt and dried basil. That's what I had for breakfast on Friday morning- about 30 slices of sundried tomatoes! And it has opened me up to the possibilities of the food dehydrator; dried pineapple, fruit leathers, crispy vegetables, who knows?


The tomatoes have a shelf life of several months in the fridge so I'm sure we'll get through them in plenty of time. I realize that they DO lose some of their nutritional value in the process but I still see this as a great option for making different types of healthy snacks.



And the best part? Jim can rest easy, knowing that the shelf life of these little beauties has been extended. AND, making your own sundried tomatoes costs pennies on the dollar when you compare them to the cost of buying a jar at the grocery store. Ah, saving the world (and my husband's sanity) one day at a time. It's a tough job but I'm up to the challenge.