apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time


How Are You Using Your Late-Season Tomatoes?

2009_09_04-tomato-basket.jpgTomato season is drawing to a close in many parts of the country, so it's time to eat them while you have them, or put them up for the winter. We want to know: what are you doing with your tomatoes?

 
 

I'm a gardenless apartment dweller, so I only buy as many tomatoes as I need at the farmers' market and have to make a point to buy in bulk when I want to preserve something.

When it comes to gardening, I live vicariously through my parents and their backyard vegetable harvests (a recent one is pictured above). They're deep into tomato sauce-making mode at the moment, and the Slow Cooker Tomato Sauce from All Recipes has become a quick favorite. What isn't going into the sauce pot is being oven-roasted or turned into fresh salsa.

Is your garden overflowing with tomatoes? Are you stocking up at the farmers' market? We want to know how you're using them! Any good tips to share?

Looking for inspiration? Here are a few tomato recipes and tips from our archives:

Recipe: Oven-Roasted Tomato Jam
Home Cooking: Slow-Roasting Tomatoes
Quick Tip: Roasting Tomatoes Under the Broiler
How Do I Make and Preserve Tomato Sauce?
Food Mill for Sauce Season
Tip: Use a Wide Pan to Make Tomato Sauce
Good Question: Do I Need a Tomato Press?
There's Only One Way To Skin A Tomato


(Image: Ves Miller for The Kitchn)

Tags

Gardening, sauce, tomato, roasting, preserving

Related Links

Share

Comments (16)

Season ending? My tomatoes are either still green or just budding. With the cool summer, all of the crops are behind. I'm trying to figure out what I'll do with all the green tomatoes when the frost hits. I'll also be getting some extra tomatoes from the market to can and freeze.

posted by bubble on September 4th 2009 at 10:20am
view bubble's profile

Ditto. We're all green here in Minnesota.

posted by kls987 on September 4th 2009 at 10:32am
view kls987's profile

I always have grand plans for my tomatoes but I end up eating them all before I get a chance to do anything special. Salads, sandwiches and just sliced up with a bit of black pepper. . . yum!

posted by kay_jay on September 4th 2009 at 10:42am
view kay_jay's profile

Same here in southern Ontario. I've had two full-size tomatoes so far this year. This week is probably the first time we've had more than a couple days of sun in a row.

posted by sebastian_dangerfield on September 4th 2009 at 10:43am
view sebastian_dangerfield's profile

The cherry, grape and golden are all overflowing, but the the early girl (go figure) and roma are struggling still! I made Tomatoes Provencal, a great way to use up extra tomatoes! http://twitpic.com/gcmju

posted by poweredbytofu on September 4th 2009 at 10:45am
view poweredbytofu's profile

Three glorious letters: BLT

posted by libbyhunt on September 4th 2009 at 11:28am
view libbyhunt's profile

Hahaha... I have probably eaten every kind of tomato sandwich/salad there is!

Preserveing:
Canning sauce
Freezing soup
Making oven-dried tomatoes
Ketchup
paste

posted by Tara blogs about everything on September 4th 2009 at 11:38am
view Tara blogs about everything's profile

Aaaand I cant type apparently. Ugh.

posted by Tara blogs about everything on September 4th 2009 at 11:38am
view Tara blogs about everything's profile

we are in chicago, and last year we still had green tomatoes on the vines when the first frost hit. here's what we did:

1. picked entirely green ones, pickled and canned them. spicy pickled green tomatoes are excellent in place of salsa, in tofu scramble or stir-fry, or homemade macaroni and cheese.

2. for larger tomatoes, especially ones with a hint of color, we pulled up the entire vines, shook off the dirt, and hung them in a sunny, dry place. they ripened naturally on the vine within a few days, and the flavor was much much better than if we had picked them and set them on a sunny windowsill to ripen.

posted by pedalpowered on September 4th 2009 at 11:54am
view pedalpowered's profile

I'm like you--can't grow tomatoes in our small apartment and they're too expensive to get large crops of. But I've recently been gifted a ton by friends with gardens, so I've been living it up tomato style with:
-simple Seville style gazpacho in the blender
-cut into chunks and added with every other veggie imaginable to make simple Indian veggie dishes
-chunked for panzanella
-plopped into the food processor with a can of cannelloni beans, some kalamata olives, and fresh parsley and thyme, lemon and olive oil for awesome dip

posted by lotusmoss on September 4th 2009 at 12:30pm
view lotusmoss's profile

Time to jar tomato sauce! Just put up a recipe here using "Dirty Girl" dry farmed tomatoes, they're fantastic!

http://www.paintedpeach.blogspot.com

posted by Elissa-D on September 4th 2009 at 1:14pm
view Elissa-D's profile

I've been making panzanella, bruschetta, and plain old salads. I think the two heirlooms I got from the CSA this week were the last for us--they lost most of the non-heirlooms to blight.

posted by katef on September 4th 2009 at 5:28pm
view katef's profile

I just got about 15 big tomatoes at the Farmers Market today for $5. I'm going to make pasta sauce and freeze it. Next weekend, I'll go get more and do the same.

Also, tomatoes and cottage cheese is my favorite.

posted by Kassie on September 5th 2009 at 7:07pm
view Kassie's profile

kls987, you must be well north of us in Minneapolis!

Our tomatoes (and our friends' & neighbors') have been going gangbusters and it's been panzanella every other night for us for at least the last 3 weeks. And the cherry/grape/plum varieties have been going for even longer than that.

btw, some friends gave us some indian poona kheera cucumbers they grew and they were the most sensational cukes I've ever tasted. The panzanella we made with them was out of control. Now we're making do with lebanese cukes and it's good but not quite the same.

posted by Slow Lorus on September 6th 2009 at 12:39pm
view Slow Lorus's profile

We've had a late growing season, so I still have lots of tomatoes. I made green tomato cake with the green ones, sun-dried tomatoes with the cherry ones and salsa with the romas.

I am sad the growing season will be coming to an end!

posted by lakegirl16 on September 6th 2009 at 7:40pm
view lakegirl16's profile

They're still coming in here in Wisconsin too. Honestly, if a tomato makes it into the house, I must have just finished a good meal. If it makes it into some sort of dish? That almost never happens. We eat them just as they are, and for my larger varietals they are few and far between. It's been a tough growing season, especially as many local sources have had problems with tomato blight:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/53813477.html

Also, speaking of Tomatoes - if anyone's in Milwaukee this weekend, check out our version of a Tomatina!!:

http://www.bayviewnow.com/userstoriessubmitted/57708087.html

posted by MaryWynn on September 8th 2009 at 5:35pm
view MaryWynn's profile