Success!
My sun dried tomatoes turned out perfectly.
This is them in some olive oil with a little oregano, some peppercorns, and a few rosemary leaves.
The largest slices took three days, and some of the smaller ones were done after only two.
The original advice I read was to make sure they were all about the same size. No doubt this was to prevent them being ready at all different times.
That was good advice, and the next time I do it I'll try to be more fussy with size.
Also I think I'll be drying them a bit less. I suspect the best home made result would be a semi dried tomato, dried a little more than a dried apricot, but not much more. I'd also only cut the tomatoes in half rather than smaller sections. The halves looked better and had a more even texture.
I think I'll still have spare tomatoes to give away, but from now on I'll be giving them away as sun dried tomatoes.
Rope some kids in to remove the seeds, and make some holiday season presents for the people next door.
All in all a total success. Easy, child friendly, and a great way to value add to left overs. I understand you can also do it in the oven on the lowest heat you can manage, but I think it's more fun to use the sun. In the end I didn't bother with the sieve, because the pests didn't seem interested during the day, but I did bring them in at night to keep the snails away. The first night they were outside, I found snail tracks on the sieve from someone trying to get in, and a small snail or any sized slug would probably have managed to get in and eat the lot.
