What to do ...

[Terry Coombs]

When you're overrun with tomatoes ? Make Salsa ! Freeze some too , but I'm only freezing the Roma's . Here's my recipe , made it up after looking at a bunch of different ones online . I like it ...

Snag's Salsa

3 1/2 c tomatoes - I scalded & peeled them , then simmered them for about 5-6 minutes 1 medium onion , chopped fine 4 cloves garlic , also chopped fine 2 medium jalapenos , I scorched them over the stove burner and scraped the skin off then - you guessed it -chopped them up fine . 3-4 sprigs cilantro , chopped fine 1 tbsp lime juice 1/2 tbsp salt

Add everything to the hot tomatoes , stir it all up and chill . Makes about a quart .

This first batch is a little runny , I used slicers for most of the tomatoes because we haven't been able to eat them all before they spoil . Next batch will be all roma , they make a much thicker sauce . Feel free to tweak and let us/me know how that goes . This salsa is medium-hot , some might use a milder pepper or less .

[Drew Lawson]

I'm tempted to make salsa, but that would just lead to eating more chips, which I really should not do. (Suddenly, I have a craving.)

My plan/hope is more pasta sauce. I got 10 quarts canned a couple weekends ago. (Must be a couple weeks, the burns are all healed.) I'm hoping for a second round. The vines are looking good, but most of the fruit is still green.

The first batch started as about 5.5 gallons of tomatoes, down to about 18-19 quarts in the pots. The result was sauce with meat. I'm hoping the next batch will yield enough for a meat portion (for lasagna) and a non-meat portion (for pizza).

[Steve Peek]

I do a roasted tomato marinara using romas: Scald, peal, 1/2 and seed. arrange on a baking pan and sprinkle olive oil, finely chopped garlic, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper and salt. bake until tender, then run through food mill and freeze.

You can make the sauce thicker by baking longer, vary spices to taste, etc... I used to try to make sauce on top of the stove and often scorched it. This method with low heat is almost fool-proof.

Steve

[Terry Coombs]

I have 6 quart bags with 2-2 1/2 cups of romas in the freezer . I use them in my spaghetti sauce , pizza sauce , etc . Got a couple that are mixed , roma , beefsteak , and cherry tomato . I have like 6 cherry tomato plants , and this really puzzles me because they came out of the same seed package as the beefsteaks ... somebody oOopsed somewhere ! That salsa is even better today , if a bit hotter . Musta taken a while to leach the capsaicin outta those jalapenos .

[Ecnerwal]

Make chips you can feel good about eating! I'm the odd man out in that I generally don't much like tomato sauce (I don't put it on pasta, I don't mind it on pizza, but I don't miss it on pizza either.)

When tomatoes overrun us (not this year) I run a dehydrator like a mad man - and when apples over-run us, likewise. The tomatoes usually get eaten straight, sometimes soaked in a bit of balsamic vinegar for some uses.

Our command decision to stick with only cherry tomatoes (after a "try all types" survey experiment) is partly based on easy of processing for dehydrating (clean, slice in half, put skin-side down) - tomatoes that are big enough to need to go in slices stick to the trays more aggressively and also dry down to almost nothing in the middle slices. Cherrys are also easier for us to get to harvest without defects (splits, rot, etc.) and if one is affected, you can toss it and move to a good one, rather than feeling the need to cut out the bad part and salvage the rest of the large tomato (which is time-consuming when time is short.)

"Sun-drying" is a nice idea for some other climate - here, you can pretty much bet on mold and generally unsuitable weather, so we don't even bother to try.

[Drew Lawson]

That wasn't a "processed food is bad" shouldn't. It was a "I don't need the carbs" shouldn't.

I could sneak some moderation in there if we entertained more, but we don't. If the gym membership starts to get used more, I may have an excuse for salsa next year.

That is on the list of things to try. Pasta sauce has priority, but drying some has appeal.

I'd have to protect them from critters large and small to do sun drying. Not even the house cats bother the cheap dehydrator I have (only used for spices as yet).

[Ecnerwal]

That wasn't a make your own (potato/corn) chips suggestions - it was a make chips that _are_ tomatoes suggestion - though perhaps I separated the "dry tomatoes" a bit too far for that to be obvious.

[Drew Lawson]

Ah, I understand now. I should probably try to get more sleep at night.

[Fran Farmer]

I just run excess tomatoes through the machine that takes off the skin and pips and chucks it all off to one side and which leaves a slightly thickened juice/pulp which comes out the other side. This I preserve by bottling (canning in USian). It can then be used for a thousand an one things (including cooking down to a pulp at some later stage) but our favourite is to use it to make tomato soup in winter.

[Terry Coombs]

I've been scalding/skinning everything we can't eat and freezing them 2 cups per baggie for sauces etc this winter . I might just try using some of those cherry tomatoes for a batch of wine ... we were really surprised to see them , because as I said , the package I got those seeds from is the same one the beefsteaks came from . And for that matter , I'm not so sure the bigger ones are actually beefsteak , they haven't exactly been as big as I expected . We won't be getting either seeds or sets from Walmart again , that's for sure !

[David Hare-Scott]

What is this machine called and who makes it?

[Bloke Down The Pub]

This is also my question. I would grow more if the processing was easier.

Mike

[Fran Farmer]

I've had this thing for maybe 25 years and the shabby box it's in says on it"spremipomodoro San Marzano" (sic).

I did a search on that info and this one is the same as mine is:

It works a treat. You might find it in some Italian type grocers in somewhere like Newcastle.

[Fran Farmer]

This thing is bloody brilliant but an old fashioned mouli is almost as good if you just want to chuck whole toms in a boiler and then shove them through the Mouli once cooked. The Mouli works very well but is much harder work thatn the spemi thingo.

I've owned a number of Moulis over the years and they can be bought in good kitchenware shops in Aus.

[songbird]

sounds like a version of a food mill to me. or even a juicer would do similar.

songbird

[Gil]

Check Leevalley. Works well, and we've had ours for years.

[George Shirley]

22 years ago I bought a $16.00 American dehydrator at a Walmart. Bought six more trays for it a year later, still got the thing and use it a good bit to dehydrate the herbs and vegetables we grow. Nothing automatic about it, just have to learn when to turn it off and to rotate the trays periodically. Sure makes the house smell nice.

We never get enough tomatoes at this new home to dehydrate any. Generally either the birds or the stink bugs get them first.

George

[George Shirley]

I've had a tomato screen for our food sieve for years, never have got to use it. See other post in regard to critters. Maybe, one day, sometime, it will happen. In the meantime lots of blackberries, pears, etc. have gone through the food mill.

George

[George Shirley]

I've had an El Cheapo "Back to Basics" Food Strainer and sauce maker for years. Ran upon an extended set of strainers at a local junk shop, still in the box and paid two bucks for all of them. If you get one throw away the pewter nut that hold the handle on and get a steel nut that fits, works much better that way. Recently I built a short extension for the bolt that turns the mill and use a battery powered hand drill to turn the thing. Saves a lot of cranking.

Lehman's also stocks various mills and strainers here in the U.S. of A. I've even got a meat grinder for my Kitchen Aid mixer but can't find the proper screens for that one or it would be my favorite.

Do I have to many kitchen gadgets? Naw, there's never enough of that sort of thing.

George

[Fran Farmer]

It's not a food mill as such. It's more specific thatn that anme implies - it's quite specifically for tomatoes. All of the Italo-Australians I know have ones that are similar.

The Mouli (which is a food mill) doesn't do as good a job on tomatoes as the specific gizmo I've got and nor does anything else. It really is quite brilliant.