(c) 2013 Martha McLemore
In early September, on the warning advice of a neighbor that there was to be a killing frost that evening, I picked every tomato on the plants at the Neas House. Our buildings and grounds maintenance man had told me to take as many tomatoes as I wanted from the four vines he put in. He wasn't going to harvest anymore of them.
Don't know where my mind was that day, but as I left work that (very hot) afternoon, I remembered the neighbor's warning. I stripped the vines bare. No frost that evening, nor for any evening since. Dumb move.
Must have picked close to a bushel of them, the majority of them still green. Over the next few days, a few of the less green ones ripened, and were promptly eaten. Very good flavor, juicy; a welcome treat from those cardboard things in the grocery stores. Then, for some reason, the ripening slowed to a trickle...finally stopped.
I left the tomatoes in my car, which gets warm during the day. Thought the heat might spur the ripening again. Well, it did - or, something did. A fortnight ago, a half dozen ripened, seemingly overnight. A couple of days later, had even more; then fifteen or so the next morning. I brought the basket of fruit inside last Sunday, hoping the lack of sunlight might stop the process. Didn't happen. I knew I couldn't eat that many tomatoes before they went bad, and Daughter was tomatoed-out. What shall I do?!
My favorite bakery/café/coffee-shop makes these delicious breakfast pastries they call egg soufflés. Their newest one has roasted tomatoes with feta cheese filling. Ever-ripening tomato quandary solved. I roasted the suckers! In the photo above are a few of the remaining tomatoes not destined for the oven (about three times that are sliced and roasting even as I'm typing this.) The platter holds the first batches (boy, they cook down a lot!), what's left after I sampled them. Oh, they are so good on toast with yogurt cream cheese, let me tell you!
The green leafy stuff is Greek columnar basil. I'll add that to some of the roasted tomatoes for a fresh marinara. Minced Greek-style black olives might be a nice addition.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to try my hand at the tomato-feta soufflé for breakfast. If it's any good, might have another for lunch; then supper, too.
But next year, I'll wait until late October to pick the green ones.
15 comments:
Did the same in the midst of my tomato tsunami, then froze what I got roasted. Will make lovely chili this winter.
And there are more on the plants, a few. I keep bringing them in, then having to compost them when they go mushy.
Tomato tsunami! That's it, exactly - a continual wave of ripening fruit. If I have enough roasted left, I'll freeze it. Your chili idea sounds pretty good.
Try roasting the green ones. I'm going to do that with the few unripe ones I have. If I add minced garlic and a chili pepper, might have salsa verde. Might not, too, but it might be good.
Whenever I have green tomatoes, I have fried green tomatoes! I love 'em.
That said, sometimes I have more ripe ones than I can eat. It never occurred to me to try roasting them. Yours looks good! From the picture it looks like you left the skin on which I think is also a good idea. I'm thinking they would turn to mush otherwise. Did you roast them whole and then slice?
Hello, David:
I sliced them before roasting them; and, yes, left the skins on.
I like the flavor of roasted tomatoes, but these stewed more than roasted. I think next time I'll use either roma/plum tomatoes, or I'll remove the seeds first - or both. Also, the first batches were sliced across the tomato; the second, from the stem end down, which held up better.
These were roasted at 425F for about 20 minutes. The heat might have been too high, because the edges of some scorched. The goal was to have drier slices than how mine turned out, so I have to try something different next time.
They taste great, though, so I'm encouraged to try again.
Looks delicious! Pretty good for something that once was at the heart of a attempted presidential assassination.
Did you make any pasta sauce with them?
Thanks Martha. I won't have any extra tomatoes until next year but I'm going to remember and try roasting them at 350.
I'm glad you avoided the most obvious solution - converting that bushel (I'm interested in how you were able to recognise that unit of measurement) into tomato ketchup. VR embarked on that while we were living in Pittsburgh. It was quite a long, and certainly messy, procedure but it came out OK in the end. Perfect ketchup. Trouble was you couldn't distnguish it from what came in the bottle. A first and last for us.
I do wonder where some of these 'helpful' people get their information from. I have discovered that here in France, forget about what the weather forecasters say, just watch the farmers! They know.
(O)
^ thoughts of a tomato
:)
Hello, all: Tax time at the office - again. Sorry it took so long to answer your comments.
Mike: I made a simple sauce of thinly sliced garlic, quickly cooked in hot olive oil (off the stove), to which I added a few torn leaves of basil, coarsely ground black pepper, red pepper flakes and some chopped walnuts. Added about a cup of the tomatoes, let everything cool a moment, then tossed the sauce with angel hair, grated hard fontina and a little white basalmic vinegar.
Pretty good, but I think I won't use the vinegar next time.
David: let me know if the cooler temp does a better job.
Robbie: I grew up on farms, in between times in towns and cities. I recognize peck, half-bushel and bushel loads from those experiences. I tip my hat to VR for making ketchup. I tried once and scorched my batch. Had either too much sugar or the heat was too high - or both, probably.
Tom: I should have known better than to take weather or gardening advice from someone who didn't have a garden. Besides, I know from having lived here in Pennsylvania for more than 40 years that we don't have killing frosts that early. Lesson learned!
Fresca: You should have heard their screams when the knife sliced through their plump red bodies. Tomato blood everywhere! Oh, the horror of it all!
:-])
I can imagine!
[This is Fresca (signed in in google as Frex]
I just came across this "What to DO with Green Tomatoes" article with recipes.
Too late for this year, I guess, but still fun:
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2013/10/21/after-frost-delicious-ideas-green-tomatoes
Now, I'm needing me a mess of fried green tomatoes, and we all know my need will go unmet for another nine months. Surely, I am doomed.
It is always good to read about gluts and productive solutions to them. One of my favourite films is Fried Green Tomatoes (it a.longer title than that, but that is the essence) I one tried to prepare some from a glut, and they were good, I sliced the tomatoes and cooked them in batter.
Mmm. tomato feta anything sounds good to me!
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