Friday, September 4, 2009

Tomato Time

The tomatoes are finally ripening despite ongoing cool weather. They seem to be taking their time. That may be a plus-- they are coming in at a rate we can easily handle now. We have picked a few of the delicious big heritage tomatoes, Brandywine, Purple Cherokee and Gold Medal but many more are still very green. These two weighed in at just shy of 2 lb. and 2 lb. 2 oz --even larger ones are still on the vine.
I am gearing up to try my first canning, but first I decided to try Rog's Mom's favorite tomato preservation technique. She slices the tomatoes in half and sets them face down on a baking sheet, then roasts them just until they collapse in on themselves.

After roasting, I cooled the tomatoes, froze to solidity in plastic containers, then removed from the containers and vacuum packed in freezer bags. After roasting this first batch on Tuesday I invested in some baking sheets with edges--there was a lot of tomato juice that made quite a mess on the floor of the oven.
Some tomatoes were so picture-perfect I could not bear to roast them. Perhaps they will go to the Farmers Market.

2 comments:

farmer said...

sounds like an easier way to do my tomatoes rather than canning. what temperature do you set the oven?

suzyQ said...

I think I set it at 375 F because I wasn't sure whether to set it for 350 or 400.