Tomatoes

We were blessed with Roma tomatoes (and plenty of regulars as well) this year! I froze 23 pounds of chopped ones. I made 14 pints of salsa. I had already made pasta sauce with the regulars, so what to do with what was left?

My oven has a drying feature, so I dried a few.





I love the bright red color!


This is the end result: 1/2 pint layered with a little salt, basil and oregano, soaking in olive oil. I'm not sure it was worth the effort, but time will tell.

Also made a big pot of tomato soup. I used this recipe.

2 cups chopped carrots

2 cups chopped celery

3 cups diced onions

6 cloves garlic, minced

12 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 cups water or chicken stock

2 Tbsp kosher salt

2 tsp. sugar

Rough chop all the vegetables. It doesn't matter what they look like because the soup will be blended later, but make sure the carrots, onions and celery are all about the same size so they cook at the same rate.

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add in the carrots, celery and onions and cook until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook another 5 minutes, but don't let the vegetables brown. Add in the tomatoes and water or chicken stock. Allow to simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down and the carrots are soft.

Turn off the heat and allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Puree the soup, either with a stick blender or in batches in a conventional blender.

Once the soup is all pureed, push it through a sieve. The point is that you want to get out the tomato skins and seeds, but push through the rest of the vegetables. If you use too fine a mesh strainer, you will just end up with tomato juice.

Option #1: If you can skin and seed your tomatoes before making the soup you don't have to strain it. But this is time consuming and I found it just easier to strain.

Option #2: Leave it "as is", chunky.

Put all the strained soup back in the pot and add the salt and sugar. Even though my

tomatoes were very ripe and sweet, I almost always add a couple of teaspoons of sugar to tomato soup or sauce because it helps balance out the acidity of the tomatoes and bring out the natural sweetness.

To serve, reheat the soup. I like to garnish it with a dollop of homemade pesto.

Other garnish options include a bit of milk or cream to make a "bisque", chopped

tomatoes to make a chunky tomato soup, fresh grilled garden vegetables (corn, zucchini, yellow squash, etc), or even tiny meatballs. The possibilities are endless. Use your imagination! Yields 12 cups.

My changes to the recipe were minimal. I left out the sugar, added 2 tbs dried basil and since I didn't have enough onion I probably only put in one cup instead of three.  After using my stick blender, I followed Option 2 and left it chunky as in I didn't strain it. It had a few noticeable tomato peels, but it wasn't annoying. 

Amy & I did like it pretty well.  DH wasn't here to try it.  I had three 28 oz jars of leftovers, so I made another dent my the tomato population.  :)