SUN-DRIED TOMATO KRAUT RECIPE. YEP.

I am perpetually looking for alternatives to canning tomatoes. Not that I don't love me some tomato soup come wintertime, just that I wish canned tomatoes still had the life they had before we canned them. Fresh food is what I miss most in winter––heavily cooked tomatoes simply don't quite fill that void like, say, a kraut or kimchi. And of the many tomato ferments I've read about, I've been underwhelmed. So I've been tinkering.Sun-Dried Tomato Kraut RecipeIngredients:1 small (organically grown) cabbage1 or 2 large tomatoes (organically grown, and heirloom preferably)Sea saltMake half a quart of kraut (chop, salt, massage and stuff one small cabbage into a quart mason jar with some garlic and hot pepper if desired). Plenty of liquid should have formed, enough to at least cover the cabbage. Top the rest of the jar within an inch of the top with thick slices of tomatoes and make sure everything is submerged (add lightly salted water if needed). Weight the tomatoes down with a bag of water (or however you can keep the solids submerged). Leave covered with a cloth (to keep bugs out) for a few days to ferment on a plate for spillover (as you would kraut). Strain and remove contents (cabbage and all) after five to ten days and sun-dry. Once dried, chop and mix together.What you have is more seasoning than substance, but this bit of dried kraut/tomato can be mixed into soups or pastas, salads or vinaigrettes. The flavor is bright and acidic and should be a little salty. Think of it as potentized tomato that you can simply add to the water in which you cook rice, or a spice you can throw into your meal or just eat as a healthy little snack. The sky's the limit.Variations:I've fermented and dried the tomatoes without cabbage, and I've also cold-smoked the sun-dried tomatoes (for flavor). I think the drying is the key here. I love the flavor the sun adds, but I also like the texture. In fact, alongside many of my fermentation experiments this year, I've simply sun-dried many tomatoes without fermenting them, and I look forward to having these lively little treats around all winter. Oh, and tomato wine. That's a great fermented tomato variation as well––especially for cooking wine.Tips for sun drying:Most sun-dried tomatoes are not actually sun-dried. They are oven-dried or dehydrated in a dehydrator. We are lucky to have a greenhouse to sun dry them in, placed on wax paper or a non-galvanized grate for two sunny days, brought inside at night. You can dry them without a greenhouse, but it takes a few very sunny days, sometimes a whole week covered with cheese cloth and brought inside at night to avoid dew. Otherwise, use the dehydrator or an oven at 150 degrees or less until dry (several hours). Remember, however, truly sun-dried tomatoes always taste best!- Jesse.