Preparing Tomatoes For Your Favorite Recipes

Your garden is a success. Have you thought about preparing tomatoes?

Now you have more Tomatoes than time to eat them. You've got your family, friends and neighbors covered.

It's time to start preparing for some of your favorite recipes. You can't eat Tomato sandwiches and salads forever!

Start cooking that fresh tomato soup recipe or garden fresh tomato pasta sauce you've wanted to try.

Introducing Preparing Tomatoes 101. Pick a bunch of ripe tomatoes, wash them off and lets get going.

Plan ahead, there are a few important things to think about. If you have more tomatoes than you'll use this week, you have to decide how to store them.
You don't want to waste the fruit of your labors and let them rot. The two choices are canning or freezing.

I was involved in some big canning sessions when I was young. Mainly because the harvests were huge and in the 1960's Refrigerator / freezers didn't have the capacity for a huge load of tomatoes or anything else.

My homegrown crops aren't big enough to justify canning. So I freeze my excess tomatoes. The shelf life is a little shorter than canned tomatoes. But, with small crops freezing tomatoes works well.

I won't get into the canning process. Instead here's a very good link for those with the need or desire to can their tomatoes. preparing tomatoes for canning Both methods leave the tomato with a little less snap but the flavor remains.

Don't ever Refrigerate your Tomatoes! Even if you think it's only for a day or two. They will become flavorless mush.

The best way to store excess crop is to freeze "prepared" tomatoes such as soups, sauces and "Base" (whole or crushed) tomatoes.

Here's my easy guide to Freezing Tomatoes.

Base tomatoes are the results of preparing tomatoes and Peeling Tomatoes for your next fresh tomato soup recipe, tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes.

A Base can be created three different ways with different results. Unless you like tomato peels floating in your favorite recipes, try one or all of the following methods.

Blanching is a method used for locking in color for most vegetables. A quick 20 seconds - 1 minute (depending on tomato skin thickness) dunk in boiling water locks in the color as in other vegetables and loosens the skin to make tomatoes easy to peel. This method is best if you are looking for more of an uncooked tomato.

Roasting tomatoes in the oven for a short period will also render the skin peelable, plus give the tomato a richer flavor.

Finally, Charcoal Grill Roasting has the same skin peeling effect and adds a slightly rustic smokey flavor.

Peeling Tomatoes Using The Three Base Methods

Looking for great tomato Recipes? Check the Everything Tomatoes Recipe List

Freezing Tomatoes