16 lbs of tomatoes that need to be used NOW!

[tinuviel_k]

Help! I just went out into the garden and found 16 lbs of ripe tomatoes. It is a shared garden space but the neighbors who's garden it was moved out early this month leaving the majority of the tomato harvest behind. I finally got out there today to pick a few and found the vines overflowing.

Now I have 16 lbs of VERY ripe tomatoes sitting on my counter. We can't possibly eat them all in time. What should I do with them?
I don't want to waste them: this quantity of fresh tomatoes at the local farmers market would cost me $56!

I thought to make sauce, but these are not roma or paste tomatoes, just your basic mismash of heirloom eating tomatoes. Can you make sauce out of those? Is there anything else I could do with them that would be tasty?

[cristeen]

Take a big pot of water, bring it to a boil, and drop 2-3 tomatoes in at a time for about 20 seconds. Then drop them into a large bowl of ice water.

Then sit yourself down at the table with a couple towels, a big empty pot, a bowl for waste, and a knife. Peel and remove the stem ends. Then just roughly cut the tomatoes into pieces and drop them into the pot... this doesn't have to be perfect. When I did 12 pounds of tomatoes, I filled my large soup pot with chopped tomatoes, so grab a big one.

Put the pot on the stove and cook it until it comes to a boil and reduces a bit. I reduced mine QUITE a bit - it's just easier to store that way. Then I packed it into wide-mouth pint jars and popped them into the fridge. The next day I put them into the freezer. The pints are about the same amount as a can of stewed tomatoes, and the wide-mouths can just be rinsed in hot water and the ice block will slide right out into your pan. I think with 12 lbs and reducing it drastically I still got about half a gallon of tomatoes. Reducing it that much gives it more of a "sauce" flavor than fresh, but if you want the fresh flavor, you can skip cooking them at all - just pack them into jars and into the freezer - just do serving sizes.

Of course, there are plenty of people who pop the whole tomato into the freezer as is. Let it freeze solid and then bag them up. If you have the room for that, it works well, and the skin will peel right off when they thaw.

[mysticmomma]

I'd be taking tomatos to everyone I knew!

Chili
Tacos
Tomato and cheese sandwiches
Salads

[AJP]

My new favorite way of preserving tomatoes is to roast/oven dry and then freeze. I remove stem ends, cut them in half, dump out loose seeds and excess juice, place cut-side-up in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle on a little salt, then roast at 200F for about 10 or 12 hours. Depending on the size and how long you roast them, they can be anywhere from leathery like sundried tomatoes to still juicy but reduced by about half in volume (they'll get too dry and brown if left too long, although my husband liked the "tomato chips" that resulted, I thought they tasted burnt at that point). Let them them go as long as you like, depending on what you want to use them for. Once they're to the stage you want them, let cool, then freeze. I put them in layers in freezer bags, separating layers with waxed paper. You can also lay them out on sheet pans to freeze individually and then put in freezer bags. You can use them later to make sauce, or if you let them get to the leathery stage anything you'd use sundried tomatoes for. I'm lazy, so not having to peel and chop appeals to me, and this method really concentrates the flavor, plus it uses up a large amount of tomatoes at once, especially if you can get two or three pans going at the same time.

[Alyantavid]

Totally agree with the pp about roasting and freezing.

You can freeze them whole and uncooked too. Beyond that, I'd make big pots of spaghetti sauce and some salsa.

[tinuviel_k]

Thanks for the advice!

I used a couple pounds to make salsa for the next couple days. I took about 4 lbs and sliced them up to dehydrate in the oven as several of you suggested. Tomorrow I am going to make a HUGE batch of tomato soup to freeze. And then I think I'll peel and dice the rest to pack into freezer jars. Yea!

[KatWrangler]

I found this tomato relish recipe this morning you might be interested in.

http://susancoggin.blogspot.com/2008...to-relish.html

[KatWrangler]

Here is a roasted tomato recipe.

http://susancoggin.blogspot.com/2009...-tomatoes.html

[tinuviel_k]

Thanks Anne! Both of those recipes look super. We're having a nice stretch of late hot weather next week so I expect by next weekend Ill have a whole new batch of tomatoes to use. I really want to try that roasted tomato sauce.

[Oonah]

I just blanch and peel them then freeze them whole.

[babygrant]

I pop the whole tomato in the freezer. When they are taken out of the freezer, run under hot water, and the skin pops right off. Then use as you would a regular tomato in a recipe.

[BetsyS]

We ate over 200 pounds of tomatoes fresh this season (today is day 59 of the season!).

How? Every single meal, every single night, is heavy on the tomatoes. 16 pounds could go in a week easily, here.

One night, spaghetti. Another, cacciatore. Another, salsa. You can make grits and grillades. Eggplant parmesan. Tortilla soup. Tomato salad (with Italian dressing). Curry. Pepper steak. Pasta with salsa cruda. Tomato gravy, with or without meat. Gumbo. Tomato soup. There are so many, many tomato recipes. You could eat tomatoes every night and not get bored. For lunch, I tend to eat tomato sandwiches, tomatoes with cottage cheese or tomatoes with tuna.

That said, I freeze tomatoes whole, plus I can them, make ketchup/chili sauce out of them,, and I make creole tomatoes for an easy supper all winter long.

[WC_hapamama]

My mom used to make huge batches of spaghetti sauce to freeze when Grandpa's tomato harvest was huge.

[inkedmamajama]

i would oven roast them and then make a sauce and jar it

[Honey693]

Salsa!

[BedHead]

Originally Posted by babygrant

I pop the whole tomato in the freezer. When they are taken out of the freezer, run under hot water, and the skin pops right off.

This, exactly. I have too much other garden produce to deal with in the fall - I save my tomatoes this way and then use them in sauces etc. later when I have time.