It is so interesting to me that 10 months out of the year, we pay up to $2 per pound for tomatoes that really aren’t that tasty. The other 2 months of the year, we enjoy very yummy tomatoes that Dave, my husband, grows in our yard.
Like so many others, we plant a few tomato plants in our yard each summer. While we don’t have a garden and we don’t garden, we do grow tomatoes. And, like so many others, we also have a lot of tomatoes by the time September rolls around. We try to give them to friends when they come by, but really we have more than we, and our friends, need.
So what are we to do with all these tomatoes? We don’t like to throw them away but there’s just so many of them. They sit on the counter, they need to be washed, stored, and prepared for some greater purpose.
Our mission is to find tasty, useful ways over the next five days to use our tomatoes…47 tomatoes and more to come!
Day 1 – Fresh Tomato Salsa
A favorite tomato recipe is salsa, fresh, homemade salsa! This one is a great recipe that isn’t too hot, spicy that is. If you like hot you may want to add some jalapenos or canned chilies.
Salsa
12 fresh cubed tomatoes
1-2 teaspoons salt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small Vidalia onion, finely diced
¼ c. fresh cilantro, chopped
1 T. lime juice
Dice the tomatoes with or without the skin…depending on how much time you have and how much you dislike the skin in your salsa! Add remaining ingredients and let sit for at least 1 hour. You can food process this if you prefer a less chunky salsa. Serve with tortilla chips.
Day 2 – BLT (Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches)
This is an easier way to use tomatoes. If you have a family of four you could use as many as four or five tomatoes.
Day 3 - Angel Hair Basil Pasta Toss
I peeled and diced 3 tomatoes. This is a quick and easy recipe; it can be cooked in the time it takes to boil the pasta. You can find the recipe right here at Meal Essence.
Day 4 – Spaghetti Sauce
The hardest part about making this sauce is peeling the tomatoes. It isn’t difficult but for some reason it keeps me from making sauce more frequently. You can find the recipe by searching “spaghetti sauce”. Keep in mind that it freezes well. I used 20 tomatoes…definitely using up the tomatoes. Nine to go!
Dave brought more in as I was cooking, but he made up for it by helping me peel the tomatoes! 18 more!
Finally, the way to use a tomato and probably the easiest of all, freeze them whole.
Yes that is correct, wash them and place them in a zipper locked bag, put them in the freezer and save them for another day. You will have to cook them once they’ve been frozen, but you don’t have to do it now. When you remove them from the freezer you just dip them in hot water and the skin falls off. You can use them in soups, sauces, crock pot dishes, and baked casseroles.
So now that I’ve had my five days of tomatoes, I can honestly say that by far the best way to use tomatoes is to make your own pasta sauce. I used 20 tomatoes and the sauce was so much better than anything you can buy. It can easily be frozen for future use.
Let me know how you are using your extra tomatoes!