we eat lots of tomatoes. cooked tomatoes most of the year because the fresh ones available in stores aren't good raw. we like to grow them. we enjoy fresh, vine-ripe tomatoes for about 4 months, so we make sauce and freeze it for the rest of the year. we also cut some tomatoes into quarters, freeze them on a cookie sheet, and put them in freezer bags. we do the same with whole golden cherry tomatoes.
the ingredients: early girls, romas, and beefsteaks. the onion is store bought. the garlic is ours.
two workstations: i stepped back to take the picture we rinse them in cold water and cut them meticulously into exactly equal pieces.
ready to simmer: the garlic will be put through a press. it looks better whole for a picture.
the summer kitchen: who wants simmering pot going all day in the house when it's 90 degrees? that is a sears campstove, maybe 50 years old. i found a nifty conversion thing so it runs on propane instead of liquid fuel. the sauce will reduce to about a third its beginning volume 5 or 6 hours. then we let it cool for a while and transfer it to a smaller pot and cool it overnight in the refrigerator.
Looks fabulous! Do you put any sugar in your sauce to balance the acidity of the tomatoes? Your camp stove idea is brilliant -- no need to be heating up that house!
ReplyDeleteSuch a bounty of tomatoes. I should come up and make you my tomato tarte. Perhaps this coming week.....
the sauce is surprisingly sweet just as is.
DeleteTry a tomato, caramelized onion tart! Here's a good one: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-surreal-gourmet/tomato-caramelized-onion-and-stilton-pizza-recipe/index.html
DeleteI've done that but this year our tomatoes have been slow to ripen; so not enough yet. I got smart though and didn't plant cherry tomatoes which aren't my favorites for making into sauces. That quartering sounds like a good idea.
ReplyDeleteWe ended up with way too many string beans and both of us have not found we can eat a lot without gas this year. Plotting out a garden is a talent to get what you really can use-- assuming the weather cooperates.
it's a new challenge every year.
DeleteWow, nice haull! Remember that song "Homegrown Tomatoes" that KPIG used to play? Loving our golden cherry tomatoes this year! Now that we have a gas grill thanks to grateful guests, I can cook stocks and sauces outside on it's auxiliary burners. Mo bettah, brah!
ReplyDelete"homegrown tomatoes and true love" an outside kitchen is great.
ReplyDeleteSummer produce is such a wonderful time. The taste of picking sun ripened tomatoes off the vine and eating them like apples is ecstatic.
ReplyDeleteoh it is indeed. when the rain starts we pick the green ones and bring them in to ripen. the golden cherries are my fave for eating right there in the garden. very sweet.
DeleteFried green Tomatoes are soooo good!
DeleteI love the idea of an outside kitchen and I have just the place for it. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHome grown anything beats the stew out of anything the conglomerates can produce.
i like the aroma of simmering sauce wafting around outside.
DeleteOur tomato harvest this year was abysmal; our record-wet June ended up stunting all of the tomatoes and killed most of my Roma plants outright--they just gave up the ghost and withered away, probably due to a fungus. Fortunately, our CSA had a surfeit of tomatoes, so we're still pretty well stocked up for the coming winter months.
ReplyDeleteStill hot there, huh? We've "tipped over" in autumn (thank goodness) and now our daytime temperatures are only in the upper 70s and low 80s.
farming is risky. good thing you had a backup. we're expecting a high today (sept 8) of 90.
DeleteLove the kitchen shots as well as the campstove with tomatoes simmering in a pot in the company of tools. The fresh tomatoes and sauce smell good (-:
ReplyDeletewow. that smell does waft afar.
DeleteOh, yum! We didn't grow any tomatoes this year, so we aren't eating tomatoes. Why bother with the grocery store variety when they have no taste? Yours are an inspiration. Maybe next year.
ReplyDeleteexactly. give it a go. tomatoes are pretty easy.
DeleteSounds delicious. In Florida, settlers built cabins with a separate cookhouse for that very same reason.
ReplyDeletei have seen drawings of screened in summer kitchens with plumbing. i did fret a bit about insects drowning in sauce, but saw none. QED
ReplyDeleteYum! Looking good! We are overrun with tomatoes now. Would love to be doing a bunch up for this winter, but my nomadic ways will soon have me on the road, so just cooking up tomatoes in everything. I cook outdoors on a propane camp stove set up inside a utility trailer out in the garden. love cooking outdoors!
ReplyDeletebon voyage!
DeleteWe are going through the same saucing. 125 tomato plants. In addition to freezing sauces we dry a large amount of the tomatoes, very tasty and a great addition to any stir fry.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried Sungold tomatoes? Awesome.
A wonderful pasta dish for Summer: Anglehair pasta tossed with fresh Basil, Olive oil and Parmesan and topped with fresh garden Cherry or chopped tomatoes. mmmm
Deletewe will check out sungold. i like imagining a yellow sauce.
DeleteThe weather did a number on the local tomatoes but we are fortunate to have a local market that gets them from a nearby county with better weather. I could live on fresh tomatoes and corn. Great idea to use the camp stove.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah... corn. sometimes i eat it fresh and raw right there in the garden.
Deletekarmanot..... fine recipe. we do that sometimes with feta.
ReplyDeleteThis is making me so hungry! There isn't much I like better than taking a big bite of a nice juicy home grown tomato.
ReplyDelete