I'm writing an article along these lines. If you have an interesting (not humorous!) use for all the tomatoes that come along at once, e.g. a good recipe or home remedy, could you posibly email me at gillianj_harvey@yahoo.co.uk for more info!
THANKS x
Thanks for all your responses! This is great :)
I make herby tomato soup which can be bottled, as can ratatouille. My sister makes chutney, or freezes them.
Surplus tomatoes - we always have too many but we freeze what we don't use fresh and use those during the rest of the year. Cherry tomatoes are washed, dried and frozen in old plastic bread bags - they free flow and you can use them gently heated as a vegetable, straight onto pizzas, etc. Large tomatoes are frozen whole (washed and dried first) and then used in dishes like layered lasagne etc. They are a bit watery after freezing so let them defrost in the sink before using - the flavour stays and with no preservatives, are better than tinned or fresh winter flavourless toms.... and the skin comes off easily. Otherwise I make a recipe - no measuring and just by eye - tomatoes, onions, capsicums + seasoning - when I have these vegies in excess together. Chop all into smallish pieces then sauté the onions, add toms, capsicums and seasoning and cook through until capsicums change colour. Use this mixture to fill pancakes (roll them like a big cigar) - bake in oven covered with grated or sprinkled cheese of your choice. Freeze surplus vegie mixture in meal sized blocks - I make about 3-4 pancakes per person.
We oven roast them slowly (most of the liquid can then be poured off) and bottle them for winter. You can get very inventive with what you roast them with, ie rosemary, olives, onions etc. Often we have a small amount of a variety of tomatoes which can be roasted together adding the smaller ones towards the end.
Or we make tomato soup and leave it in a concentrated state for the freezer ready to be defrosted, reheated and cream added just before eating...yum.
We freeze our surplus large tomatoes, but surplus cherry toms we cut and in half spread on a foil baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and dry in the back of the car. Then put into jars of olive oil.
As an excess of tomatoes seems to coincide with an excess of courgettes, I make bags and bags of ratatouille for the freezer - it comes out a little watery when defrosted but add a teaspoon of concentrated tomato paste after defrosting and it's perfect . . . I use it as a vegetable dish to accompany other things, as a starter topped with some mozzarella or chevres, as a pasta sauce, as a base for a chilli . . . and so on!
Oven dry them and then preserve in jam jars in olive oil. i.e. you are replicating 'Sun-dried Tomatoes'.
So, you can add black pepper, salt, mixed herbs, garlic etc. It does take a long time (all that turning over and rotating them etc to not burn any), but the results can be sublime (a salad niçoise will never be the same again).
That is undoubtedly what I would do with them.
I just chop mine up into a large stock pot and reduce them by about 1/3 at a low heat. After they cool I run them through a nifty sieve that I found at a local jardinier. It looks like a plastic meat mincer and gets the skin and seeds separated out nicely. I then put about 1 liter each into zip lock bags and freeze them, stacked lying flat. After they are frozen they can be efficiently stored in the freezer on end like books. They last me all winter long as a base for chili, marinara, soups, etc.
I just received several heirloom types from the states a month ago. The semis are about ready to go into the garden. It should be a bumper crop of some interesting varieties this year, if the weather cooperates.
Hi, Gill, well, mine, I started off with two recepies I found online, sort of merged them, and have changed it ever since. I never look at the measurements, I just dollap stuff into the pit, and it seems to work out fine every time, last years was a bit more acidic, but it still went down a treat with neighbours and friends.
So, about 10 pounds of tomatoes,
3 large onions, or 4 smaller ones.chopped finely. you see where I'm going here, lol.
2 green peppers (or orange or yellow, I just prefer green) finely chopped
2 red peppers, around same size/amount as the greens, again, finely chopped.
2 teaspoons of mustard seed (i've often not had seed handy, and used wholegrain mustard.. same effect)
1 Teaspoon celery seed (also, here, one year I couldn't find it in the shops, and just added celeri salt, didn't notice a huge difference.
4-5 cups of vinegar (seems like a lot, but trust me)
2-3 cups of brown sugar
3 tablespoons of salt (unless you're using celery salt, when you would use less)
2 teaspoons of ginger. The recepies said groundbut I'm a sucker for the smell of freshly grated,or chopped ginger so I tend to go fresh.
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (again, i prefer grinding a stick, but most people have ground cinammon in the kitchen)
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg.
So, it's dead easy, peeling the tomatoes, as I said is the hardest bit. I bring a large pan of water to the boil, and have the sink beside full of cold water... score a small x in the tomato, chuck it in the hot, wait about 10 seconds, and you'll see the skin soften, lift it out with a spoon, lop it into the cold water, and it'll basically fall out of the skin in your hands. messy job, but it's a question of technique (and I am crap at it)
So, chop up your tomatoes, fairly fine, put them in your stockpot, along with the onions, and peppers.vinegar, and start to heat... just throw everything else into the pot, pretty much straight away, bring it to the boil, stirring from time to time,
reduce heat, and let simmer for about an hour, until most of the liquid has been reduced.
There you go, ready for jarring.
Thanks Zoe and Margo - don't have any recipes I could pinch? They'd need to be your own, or at least your own adaptations and I'd give you a credit in the article! :) xxxxxx
I make a country relish with mine, there are plenty of recepies out there, but I found, through the years, mixing and matching is best, I easily make enough for the whole year for me, and a small handful of friends. Perfect on cold meat sandwiches, or home-made burgers.
I don't even measure the ingredients anymore, and it always turns out a different shade, and taste, but always delish!!. The hardest bit's peeling the tomatoes, if you got a magic method for that.. what have you got to lose!.
Edit.. if any are left over, OH makes semi dried tomatoes in the oven, we also always have a few jars of those lying around also. Not sure how it works, oven on really low, and long time, with olive oil, garlic, and other strange stuff, I can ask if you like.
I got my dehydrating machine from Lakeland - I use it for drying fruit in season and then feed them to the kids as 'bon bons' it worked well until they discovered real bon bons! Will keep on trying though. A group in our village use it for drying saffron too.
The drying machine is made by Severin. It dries anything as long as it is sliced up. Apples & plums are good. It takes about 18 hours to dry a batch but the electric consumption is small. I think we got it from Amazon. It's brilliant. Toms dried with a bit of salt & stored in olive oil are great with drinks. The rest are frozen until wanted for a meal or chopped up to add to a bread mix etc.
I forgot to mention that we also make Passata & juice the toms with a machine we bought at the local farm shop. both are frozen in ice cube moulds.
vic
I dry mine in a low oven with the door propped open a tad to let humidty out and then freeze them.
Well, you couldn't eat them whole but for cooking, they're much nicer than using tinned and it's no trouble sticking them in the freezer, quick wash and dry, all done. We freeze them in a box then pop them in a bag once they are frozen to save space.
Nor could we...
Ooh, what's the machine called? Do you have a particular recommendation?
That sounds like a good solution - do they come out in a fit state? xxx