What to Do With All Those Tomatoes



It's been an odd year for my garden.  A cool, wet spring met a cool, cloudy summer here in Portland.  It never even got over 100 degrees!  We finally had a couple of weeks of hot weather, during which my tomatoes really ripened by the dozen.  I'm not sure how much longer this will last with my tomato plants perishing and the weather cooling off again.  Every year it happens: I get tons of tomatoes at once, then I go the rest of the year yearning for them.  Here are some things that I do to prolong my tomato window.

Pick them green

If it's getting to be too late in the season, the vines are starting to rot and a frost is near, just pick them and bring them inside.  The green ones will ripen eventually.  One year I had tomatoes ripening in my kitchen until December.


Dry them

Linda of The Gluten-Free Homemaker has a great post on how to "sun dry" your tomatoes in the oven.  I did that last year with some tomatoes using her recipe.


Freeze them

I've heard that the simplest way to preserve tomatoes is to freeze tomatoes that you've de-stemmed and quartered.  Sometimes I'm too lazy even for that.  I just chuck them in a freezer bag and stick them in the freezer.  When I thaw them out, I dip them in a bowl of warm water for a moment and the skin peels right off.  Voila!

Make tomato sauce

It will take several hours, but making a tomato sauce is a simple way to use several pounds of tomatoes at once. 

Use Them Fresh

Basically, just use them in everything.  If you don't have quite enough for a tomato sauce, try one of these other recipes:

Gazpacho
Beer-Braised Chicken in Orange Tomato Sauce
Sungold Tomato Salad

Location: Portland, OR, USA

Comments

l'actrice said…
Lucky you got these awesome tomatoes fresh from the garden. Pretty sure they taste like tomatoes :-)
September 23, 2011 at 12:37 PM
Shaheen said…
If I had the freezer space, I would freeze them, otherwise making some chutney appeals. You are so fortunate to have had so many - I am envious as this year we have not grown any :(
October 11, 2011 at 4:40 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gluten-free Sourdough Discard Bread

Image
You’ve made your gluten free sourdough starter . What now?   The discard, or unused portion of the starter can be repurposed in a number of ways.  It’s the part of the starter that you don’t need to refresh or to use to leaven bread. You can throw it out, or you can use it to replace some of the flour and water in other recipes.  It adds a great texture and flavor to recipes, and it’s particularly useful for gluten free recipes. There’s something about gf grains that benefits immensely from the fermentation process. They become more flexible, more workable, and much tastier. In this bread recipe the sourdough starter lends the bread strength, flexibility, and flavor. Want a sandwich loaf recipe? Check out my  Yeasted Sourdough Sandwich Bread . Why is it not a regular sourdough bread?  This bread is considered a discard bread, or sometimes called a hybrid loaf, because it contains sourdough but it's leavened with commercial yeast. What does it taste like?   ...
Read more

Quick Yeasted Sourdough Sandwich Loaf Recipe

Image
Readers have been asking if they can bake the Gluten-free Sourdough Discard Bread in a bread tin.  The answer seems to be yes, it usually works.  However, I've created this new recipe that is more of a sandwich style loaf.  This recipe is a single rise recipe, so it's quick and easy. Need to create a sourdough starter? This is the method I use most:  https://glutenfreegourmand.blogspot.com/2021/10/sourdough-starter-ready-to-use-in-3-7.html Why yeasted sourdough?  Sometimes it's tricky to get a great rise out of sourdough when you're first starting out.  Also, creating a new sourdough starter creates a bit of discard that can be used up in other recipes to improve the flavor and texture of the product. This recipe adds a little baker's yeast to help the rise and get the loaf in the oven more quickly.  This is a sourdough discard recipe but you can use active starter if that's what you have.  Yeasted Sourdough Sandwich Loaf Recipe Dairy-free, c ont...
Read more

Mild Country White Sourdough Bread

Image
I gave up on producing a showy loaf a long time ago.  I always rolled my eyes a little when I saw photos online of perfect bloom or wide-open crumb.  "The mustard is going to just fall right through," I would think to my self disapprovingly, shaking my head a little. It turns out, I was just jealous. After a decade of gluten-free bread baking and recipe development, and through a collaboration with some other bakers, I've come up with a gf sourdough bread recipe that produces an open crumb, a large bloom, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, an ear.   The bread has a very mild, pleasant sourdough flavor and is very light in color. The crumb is very open but not too delicate.  It has a chewiness to the texture that I associate with a good sourdough bread.  The crust gets a nice browning and it toasts up nicely. And I don't mind the mustard falling through as much as I thought I would. Many thanks to Michael Hollesen who came up with the original version of this reci...
Read more