Hi folks, I just like to share a tip with anyone who grows lots of cherry tomatoes. You can enjoy those tomatoes all year long and use them in salads and sandwiches so grow lots of them and don't give them away!
Here the tip...
Freezing the Tomatoes.... Wash and bag your ripe cherry tomatoes in quart or gallon freezer bags. Then freeze them. For those large cherry tomatoes that are larger than 1.25 inches in diameter, you can cut them in half before freezing them.
For Salads... For salds, make your basic salad and at the last minute, grab a handful of frozen cherry tomatoes and run them under warm tap water to partially thaw them. Thaw them just to the point where they are cold and soft and add them to the salad. You have to eat them right away because if allowed to fully defrost, they become too mushy. However, when they are thawed just right, you get the flavor of a fresh picked tomato with a cool temperature and soft texture close to fresh picked. Not perfect, but still better than store bought tomatoes in the off season.
For Sandwiches.... For sandwiches, make your basic sandwich and then grab a handful of frozen cherry tomatoes and run them under warm tap water to partially thaw them. I hold them in both hands and kind of squeeze them until I feel they are getting soft and the skins are coming loose. Then I place a tomato on my cutting board near the edge of the board and use the broadest part of my chef's knife and the heel of my hand to compress the globe transforming it into
1 inch to 1.25 inch disk about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Careful because sometimes they go flying across the room . With a little practice you will learn to do it right. Repeat this on all the partially thawed tomatoes. Scoop up each tomato disk using the flat part of your chef's knife and transfer them to the sandwich. If you thawed them correctly they will hold their form and have a texture very close to fresh picked. Still, not perfect, but better than store bought tomatoes in the off season.PS: I'm in USA, New Jersey and in July of year following my harvest I'm still eating my frozen cherry tomatoes and anxiously waiting for the fresh ones to ripen. I use my frozen cherry tomatoes to make BLTs and Hoagies (Sub sandwiches) all year round in the off season. I never buy store bought tomatoes any more.
Enjoy!
---pete---