Overwhelmed with Tomatoes!

[Constance]

You know how it is...you look forward to fresh tomatoes all winter...you wait and wait, anxiously anticipating that first sweet red tomato...then suddenly, you're covered up with them!
I don't need to put any up, as I still have plenty in the freezer from last year.

I'm going to make another batch of salsa this evening, but does anyone have any other ideas as how to use them up?

[sparrowgrass]

I don't know if I saw it on this site or another one--make roasted tomato sauce.

Cut your tomatoes in half, and lay them out on a well oiled sheet pan. Put some garlic cloves on there, too, and maybe chop an onion and a couple stalks of celery. Roast at 400 for an hour.

Scrape everything into the food process, and blend til smooth.

This uses up lots of tomatoes--as long as you have the oven on, make 2 sheet pans full, and either freeze or can the leftovers.

Bet it would make good pizza sauce, too.

[pdswife]

Iman Baildi
( ok..this only uses 1 cup...but it's good!)

3 lb Japanese eggplant ( you can use the big ones but the small taste so much better)

1 lb sweet onions sliced

3/4 cups olive oil ( I never use this much)

chopped parsley ( to taste)

1.5 cups tomatoes

2-3 cloves garlic ( more or less depending on your like of garlic)

1/4 tsp pepper

Wash and cut the stems off of the eggplant.
Make 2 slits down the leangth of each ( don't cut all the way through)
Let stand in salt water for 30 minutes, remove and squeeze out water.

Fry onions in oil until soft add garlic cook until that is soft but not brown and then add the rest of the seasonings and the chopped tomatoes.. Heat through.

Stuff the eggplants with this mixture and bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Yummy!

[jennyema]

I gave a ton away to my family. Then to my neighbors.

Then I did exactly what Sparrowgrass suggested -- made roasted tomato sauce. I tossed my tomatoes --quartered, seeded big ones and whole cherries -- in olive oil and salt before I roasted them at 450 for abour 1/2 hour, then removed skins and cooked down some more with 1/2 cup red wine that was about to go bad, garlic and some more olive oil.

The sauce was so delicious!

And yes, sparrow, it made excellent pizza sauce!

I wish I had a gallon of it.

[pdswife]

We have ONE that is just starting to turn red. Things happen so much slower in WA. lol. Soon I'll be trying this too. It sounds great.

[ronjohn55]

We've been making "Not sun dried" tomatos on our dehydrator. We cut them in half, sprinkle with salt and dehydrate. They taste so much better than the sun dried tomatos we can get in the store around here.

We set it to about 125F and let 'em go, takes about 2 days for them to properly dry out.

Then we'll use them in pasta dishes (or anything else that they might sound good in) for the rest of the fall/early winter.

John

[jennyema]

Originally Posted by ronjohn55

We've been making "Not sun dried" tomatos on our dehydrator. We cut them in half, sprinkle with salt and dehydrate. They taste so much better than the sun dried tomatos we can get in the store around here.

We set it to about 125F and let 'em go, takes about 2 days for them to properly dry out.

Then we'll use them in pasta dishes (or anything else that they might sound good in) for the rest of the fall/early winter.

John

Do you use a special dehydrator or the oven?

My oven won't go as low as 125 ...

[pdswife]

I have a dehydrator but always do my in the oven... ( add lots of spices too) I'll have to try the dehydrator I bet it works better.

[goodgiver]

You sound like me and ALL my cucumbers. I will tell you just what my fellow foodies told me when I asked for suggestions on what to do with all my cukes. They all told me to give them to soup kitchens, or chartiable orginaztions etc.

[lulu]

If I had any spare tomatoes I would definitely be making some of that amzingly flavours clear tomato soup. I dream of that stuff, and yet only made it once....I adore it though. I was living off gazpacho earlier in the summer, its so easy to keep a jug of it in the fridge for lunches or a healthy snack. My youngest niece fell in love with it this year, so that was a bonus too! My favourite way to eat them though is quickly stewed with butter, pinch sugar and salt and pepper on toast for breakfast. Simplicity with beautiful fresh ingrediants always wins!