Tomatoes 101

Now that the tomatoes are growing and you are starting to see red... what do you do with them?

Yummy romas -- my favorite for sauces.

Well in growing, you plant, feed, prune, tend, etc.  Yet with the arrival of fruit you are constantly on the run from the garden to the kitchen.  I pick at least every other day, in season.

In preserving tomatoes, you can freeze them -- they loose their texture though so don't do this expecting fresh tomatoes in January.

If you are canning or making any preparation/sauce you start with taking off the skins.  Now, I personally find it more manageable to do this step the day before I prepare/can a recipe.  It cuts the amount of dishes and the time needed to process it down into a more manageable chunk.  If I didn't get to be mom at the same time, I'd probably do it all at once, but I just can't do everything all at once anymore.

Tomatoes 101 -- Remove Skins

1. Pick and store until fully ripe (sometimes they are slightly orange and the flavor and flesh will be better after a little sun).  I like to use these open flats from the garden center as the tomatoes don't end up rotting in a bath while ripening.

2. Clean your tomatoes.

3. Core -- you can use a knife, but a good friend clued me into this nifty gadget -- a strawberry/tomato huller.  It's a lot like a tiny melon-baller, but note the jagged teeth.  It's a very economical tool and it makes the process go like a breeze!

4. Blanch the skins off.  Drop cored tomatoes into boiling water for just a few minutes.  You will see the skins crack when they are ready.  *Do not over cook at this step -- it may ruin the texture of the tomatoes depending on what you are making.  Dip them out with a slotted spoon of your choice.  I like the spaghetti spoon for small ones, a frying spatula/dipper for bigger ones.




5. Drop them into a cold water bath -- this cools them enough you can handle them and helps the skin separate so you can peel the loose skins right off.  FYI -- my chickens won't eat the skins without fruit, so these can go straight to the compost.

6. Use or store.  Like I said, I do this step the day before sauce-making, so I put them in containers and store them in the fridge.  You can drop them directly into your food processor or on the cutting board if you are dicing them or making your sauce/salsa presently.  If you are canning them whole (or the large ones, halved/quartered), from this step you drop them right into the hot, sterile jars. Check your canning cookbook or manual or the steps and proportions of lemon juice and salt needed.

A last bit of wisdom from the hearth and home:

"You cook the tomatoes and you make sauce and you put it in your refrigerator.   When you are out of sauce you need to get more sauce or make salsa, because I like salsa."  ~DS3

There you have it... out of the mouths of babes... when you get tomatoes you make sauce or salsa :)  Stay tuned for lesson 2.  Until then, blessings to you!