I AM CULTIVATING PATIENCE, THANKS TO MY TROUBLED TOMATOES, learning to wait between sadly small outbursts of red fruit. Even my quick red sauce—normally made in hasty batches that overflow two spaghetti pots at a time—is an exercise in restraint, more meditation than mass production. Once a staple I never thought twice about, this year the tomato seems like treasure, and I am treating each little harvest as such: chopping finer (above), simmering longer, taking time to thicken each batch, filling the house with what precious tomato vapor the forces of nature allowed. Grateful for what there is, I’m savoring every drop—especially today for Tomato Week, the final installment of our cross-blog Summer Fest 2009.
Even though I followed the rules (started seed carefully, then tended the plants correctly) things went wrong, and then wronger. You remember; many of you have suffered alongside me. Happily, my Summer Fest collaborators (mostly in areas where the harvest’s been better than here) have tomato stories of their own:
Matt Armendariz of Mattbites does tomatoes 10 ways. Really.
Paige Orloff of The Sister Project with tomato-carrot soup.
Marilyn Naron of Simmer Till Done with upside-down tomato-basil bread.
Shauna Ahern of Gluten Free Girl with sliced tomatoes and smoked-tomato salsa.
Diane and Todd of White on Rice Couple with tomato jam recipes.
Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen on Caprese salad with basil vinaigrette.
This year’s crop proves that nobody’s perfect (though everybody’s beautiful in his own way; that’s me, front right, above). I’ve got every shape and misshape of tomato going, and they’re all going into the pot.
My basic sauce is really basic: Lots of whole sautéed garlic cloves in a puddle of olive oil, quartered plum tomatoes (or chopped if time allows, as it does this year) with skins and seeds and all, plus basil and parsley. Like I said, I usually really rush this. Simmer covered till the ingredients are thoroughly cooked, then remove the lid to let the sauce thicken while bubbling on low a little longer. A timer reminds me to stir every 15 minutes throughout.
Some years, after the desired 40 or so containers of sauce are in the freezer, there are still lots of tomatoes left (those tubs are from last year’s haul, above; I only have seven containers so far for 2009). My tactics for such past years of plenty (or for a glut of green tomatoes):
- Pickles and Mincemeat: Giving up and pulling your plants, green fruit and all? Pickle any unblemished ones with the same Refrigerator Pickles recipe I use for cucumbers (or peppers). Or turn them into Green Tomato Mincemeat for pies, also good as a chutney.
- All-Purpose Tomato Junk: Blessed with a bumper crop, and can’t cook them fast enough? Freeze them whole in freezer bags for saucing another time, or make Tomato Junk (and use it later as the base for soups or stews).
- Another Martha Memory: When the tomatoes are dead-ripe and the herbs are plentiful, why even cook anything but the spaghetti? One of Martha’s most charming (and literally handmade) recipes ever was the one she dubbed “Spaghetti No-Knife,” where you make a “sauce” of torn-up tomatoes, basil and oregano; smash a few garlic cloves, and toss it all (raw) in olive oil, with hot red-pepper flakes, salt and pepper. To serve, simply boil up spaghetti, toss with the tomato mixture, and tear off small pieces of fresh mozzarella as a final ingredient. The precise recipe is on Martha’s site here, but you get the idea. Finger food.
Happy harvest to you, for better or for worse.
___________
HOW YOU CAN JOIN IN SUMMER FEST:
So now it’s your turn: Have a recipe or tip that fits any of our weekly themes? Starting with our posts of Tuesday, July 28, for four Tuesdays through today, you can contribute in various ways, big or small. Contribute a whole post, or a comment—whatever you wish. It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious. The possibilities:
Simply leave your tip or recipe or favorite links in the comments below a Summer Fest post on my blog, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same.
The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits, and some pretty great dialog starts simmering.
Or think bigger: Publish entire posts of your own, if you wish, and grab the juicy Summer Fest 2009 tomato badge (illustrated by Matt of Mattbites).
THE 2009 SCHEDULE:
- Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all; I did parsley, and readers added everything else.
- Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise). My entry was a peach clafoutis.
- Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice). My entry was here.
- Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples?
And in case I forget what week it is, won’t somebody remind me on Twitter? Thanks. We’ll be talking it up there, too.
That’s how a Summer Fest works (and the way that Food Fest 2008 worked, too, remember?).
Sorry to hear that you didn’t have quite the same glut of tomatoes this year! But that sauce sounds great. It’s my first time growing tomatoes so really chuffed that they’ve actually produced fruit! Here’s this year’s final Summer Fest post from me… http://www.rosylipsandlavender.com/2009/08/summer-fest-tomatoes.html. Rosy
Having grown tomatoes for 40+ years, I’ve become a bit spoiled by the promise of my husband’s salsa every September evening as well as a well-stocked pantry of tomato treasures to raid on cold winter days. This year we were low on canned tomatoes so we started and planted 42 plants, about 1/4 of them (Biltmore) dedicated to canning, while the rest were to star in wonderful September lunches and dinners. However, we were hit by Late Blight and have lost our crop, having had to bag the plants to limit their air-borne dangers. Sort of like the economy, eh? People learning to live with less, treasure what we do have (loving those cukes), and–hopefully–cultivate gratitude for the bountiful harvests we’ve enjoyed in the past. And yes, hope for a better crop next year!
your’re lucky to have ripe one’s! mine are still in their infancy as of yet .i’m looking foward though to trying some of this week’s recipe’s. see picture’s at :http://thearmchairgardener.wordpress.com
Mmm, I love homemade tomato sauce. My favorite tomato recipe is sooooo simple. Slow-roasted tomatoes. Sometimes I add them to pesto, sometimes I eat them w/ mozzarella and drizzled with olive oil and basil. Other times I add them to pasta as a “sauce” because the flavor is so intense! I also bake them w/ zucchini. Happy Summer Fest!
http://www.thenaptimechef.com/2009/07/napping-with-vegetable-roasting-rules.html
http://www.thenaptimechef.com/2009/07/napping-with-edible-vineyard-sunday.html
Welcome, Vermont Laura. Yes, it is the year of the “hundred-year event” (economically, meteorologically, agriculturally). Ugh. One thing I have in mind is using winter squash as a pasta sauce on alternate occasions; I know that sounds weird, but it is great with macaroni (think of pumpkin ravioli, yum) and just olive oil and butter and sage. I plan to score some big ‘Blue Hubbard’ types at the farm market with that in mind. Alternate ways to eat macaroni: that’s my goal, as I parse out my little harvest. I am sorry to hear about your total loss, which is more the norm around here, too. I wonder if my raised beds that had just been renovated with lots of compost and other organics helped here a little with the hybrid plant at least? See you soon.
Welcome, Kelsey. So glad to have roasted tomato ideas; something I never do (though I roast everything else from the garden), and keep meaning to. See you soon again, I hope, and thank you.
Re your green tomatoes: Have you tried making Million Dollar Relish? Absolutely delicious and a real hit with friends and relatives as gifts.
thanks for all the tomato ideas! we have had some early luck here in texas with ours, but the heat finally did us all in. thanks for hosting summer fest this year, i really enjoyed participating! here’s my take on tomatoes:
http://thecosmiccowgirl.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/provencal-tomato-tart/
I may never make sauce, at the rate my poor tomatoes are (not) producing. What I pick, I eat (often in my special chilled tomato soup) at this rate, but I can hope that I’ll be able to freeze a few tastes of summer to get me through the depths of winter–in this, as in so many things, you are my inspiration!
Welcome, Sandy B. I will have to go look for a recipe for Million Dollar relish…thanks for the tip, and hope to see you soon again.
Report from North Jersey…woe is the tomato this summer…My roma tomatoes showed promise, but keep falling off… ‘Sweet 100′ in pots are doing okay, but look skinny. Good news: the ‘Carbon’ and ‘Mikado’ heirlooms I grew from seed look pretty happy- big but just not quite ripe yet – maybe another two days. Not enough heat and too much rain, and no breezes to circulate air. The local farmer’s market is Thursday so I hope they have had better luck!
Oh BTW, The only tomato in my entire yard that looks super healthy and has green nice fruit, no rot or fungus on it is…the hybrid one I bought at Lowes and hung upside down in the front yard in one of those tomato bags…unbelievable!
Ah, I can certainly relate to your tomato issues. It has become too hot here in Umbria and with little water our tomatoes are drying up on the vines. Luckily I can buy GREAT tomatoes inexpensively at our many local farmer’s markets.
My hands down favorite pasta sauce in the summer is this no cook one that when mixed with hot pasta just explodes with flavor. http://tinyurl.com/o4tafh
And we all love our salads in the summer especially when gorgeous tomatoes are everywhere! Here is my easy Heirloom Tomato Salad With Goat Cheese Crumbles at http://tinyurl.com/qj9nbb
Deb
Raw tomato sauce is heavenly on pasta! Here’s my entry for this week – my favorite ways to use raw tomatoes:
http://tnlocavore.typepad.com/tennessee_locavore/2009/08/my-name-is-kristina-and-i-have-a-problem.html
Oh, Margaret! I’m afraid to admit I cheated at this week’s topic, too: http://jekyllian.blogspot.com/2009/08/tradition-cheating.html
But on the upside, it’s a hand-me-down recipe from my mother, which I think might make up for it.
Here in Southern California, I grew most of my 50 tomato plants from seeds and I still got blight! Five or six plants I think it was. I couldnt stomach the thought of ripping out those plants as they were bearing fruit, so I do a LOT of pruning and trimming of those plants. They have finally come back and look very healthy. I know I was supposed to rip them out and burn them or whatever, but, well…. man these tomatoes are good! I also had end rot affecting 4 plants. No much I did there but trim them, prune them and make sure I do a better job of watering. I also cut back on the natural fertilizer too and have used very little since. I have 48 plants now, all giving me about 15 pounds of tomatoes a week! Im canning some, giving some to neighbors and plan to make some sundried tomatoes too. Ultimately, since the economy sucks, I will be giving tomato sauce to all as Christmas gifts. Never been a fan of the gift giving and this is a lot more personal and from the heart. ~Dave :)
Thank you so much for all the Summer Fest deliciousness! At The Kitchn we jumped in and did a roundup yesterday of 12 favorite tomato recipes here: http://tr.im/tomatoes
After a warm April, I hoped we might have enough warmth this summer to grow tomatoes. The garden has lots of plants, few blossoms and cooling temps make any harvest unlikely altho we have covered a few plants with a frost blanket. It was 41 yesterday morning and 37 a week ago. Daytime highs are still in the 80′s but I think this is cabbage country.
Oh! the tomatoes. We have lost a lot to rot and fungus but have been able to salvage enough by picking at the first hint of redness and then letting them ripen on the shaded deck.
This Tomato Pie from Simply Recipes is on my list for the weekend… “Think pizza meets cheesy bread and they make-out in a pie crust.” Oh. My. Yum.
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tomato_pie/
I’m so sorry that your tomato harvest isn’t as prolific this year. We in the southwest are lucky, as we’re having a banner year. Our local farmers markets and markets are over-flowing with tomatoes.
I wrote a final Summer Fest post, too. Kinda sad that this is the last one. Thank you for letting everyone participate in your fun.
http://penandfork.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/heirloom-tomato-napoleon/
Oh, I like “really basic” sauce – all that smashed garlic, the best kind. Also intriguing me is Green Tomato Mincemeat – I’d forgotten it could bake into pies. Tomatoes really are the gift that keeps on giving, aren’t they? Thanks, Margaret, for a whole summer of great Fest ideas.
We made a great pasta last week: homegrown tomatoes and basil, mozzarella. The post and recipe are here:
http://marriedwithdinner.com/2009/08/17/everything-new-is-old/
Thank you for all the wonderful advice!
Today I’m sharing my tip for getting tomatoes home from the farmers market with squishing them:
http://summertomato.com/farmers-market-update-how-to-transport-soft-fruits-and-vegetables/
Margaret, try a little – 1/4 cup white wine in your sauce. Adds a wonderful flavor, just cook it off.
My NJ beefsteaks were getting gorgeous, then blight the dust. There are new babies on the top, I wonder what the future has in store for them.
Suggestion, truffle oil, sel de mer and any fresh herb with sliced tomato.
Lastly, Margaret, you are the best! Crazy bout ya;-)
Welcome, Faith. I LOVE that The Kitchn joined us for Tomato Week with a dozen tomato ideas. Thank you. And thanks for sharing my parsley-storage post there recently as well. Much appreciated. See you soon again I hope.
Welcome, Lisabeth. Did you say 37 and 41? Oh, my. Scary business. Guess you need some Siberian tomatoes. Hope to see you soon again, cabbages and all. :)
Hi, Andrea. Thanks for the sweet words, and nice to see you. I usually put balsamic or red wine in my lentil soup (which is tomato-based) but will try some white in sauce.
Welcome, Darya, with your tricks of safe transport. I am heading over to have a look now…as soon as I say hello to…
Welcome, Anita. Sounds like my kind of recipe. What could go wrong with those ingredients? See you soon.
My favorite tomato recipe, courtesy of Gourmet and Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Heirloom-Tomatoes-with-Bacon-Blue-Cheese-and-Basil-108328
I normally only have about 8 tomato plants (Includes 2 cherry plants) but this year I ended up with 13 (Long story). BUT, in spite of the fact that my soil is perhaps the best it’s been in 48 years, and I have a scheduled watering and fertilizing schedule, I have yet to pick my first off the vine tomato – ????? It’s been a very strange year here in Great Falls, Montana – I cannot understand it. LOADS of tomatoes on the plants, but NOTHING is ripening. ???? A very strange year. No doubt any day now (Unless we get a very early freeze), I’ll be inundated with tomatoes. I have no explanation whatsoever as to the delay – ?????
Love your site! I have a recipe here for open-faced tomato and avocado sandwiches (http://nourishnetwork.com/2009/08/17/think-of-food-as-food/), along with a call to think of food as food. Cheers!
Welcome, Dave. That was the case here last year…lots of fruit, but very late crops. Of course it’s all the weather (when fruit was set, how temps and such and sunshine has been since…) but SO frustrating. Be ready with those protective old sheets and blankets, I guess, just in case. We usually get nipped and then have a couple of more good weeks if you cover stuff here.
Welcome, Lia. I am the queen of avocado…any meal, even breakfast…so this one’s perfect for me, thank you. And yes, food as food, exactly. See you soon again I hope.
Margaret, I soooo know the pain and loss of a cool summer. Here in the Pacific Northwest we’re enjoying an unusually hot summer so I’m trying to savor my tomato harvest – who knows where I’ll see another season like this! http://plantedathome.com/blog/2009/08/18/pacific-northwest-tomatoes/
We didn’t have much luck either with our tomatoes this year but at least there’s a farmers market down the street so if in doubt, buy them.
I made some homemade ketchups for the final installment so here goes,
http://thehealthyirishman.com/2009/08/homemade-tomato-ketchups/
I love tomato sauce, I make mine in the crockpot a day before I’ll want it so I don’t have to be so patient! I’m a week behind you guys for tomato posting, next week I’m posting slow roasted tomatoes and some delicious recipes to use them in like pastas and salads. But I do have some older yummy ones, like parmesan crusted tomato slices.
http://dianasaurdishes.com/05/how-to-boil-perfect-corn-on-the-cob-with-parmesan-tomato-slices/
Blight has finally caught up with my tomatoes, so I may not get past the eaten-fresh stage of tomato harvest this year, but hopefully I’ll have enough fruit to try new recipes with. Also started all mine from seeds and thought I was doing pretty well, but interestingly, the one totally healthy plant in my garden right now is one that seeded itself from last’s years fallen fruit. I wonder if there’s anything to that? Maybe I’ll try some direct seeding on purpose next year.
GAZPACHO SOUP….1 cup finely chopped peeled tomatoes,…1/2 cup finely chopped green peppers,…1/2 cup finely chopped celery,…1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber,…1/4 cup finely chopped onion,…1/2 teaspoon Worcestshire sauce,…2 teaspoons chopped parsley,…1/4 teaspoon ground pepper,…2 teaspoons chopped chives,…1 teaspoon salt,…2-3 tablespoons wine vinegar,…2 tablespoons oil, and 2 cups of tomato juice. COMBINE all ingredients in a bowl, chill at least 4 hours, or over night, and if you wish, serve with a dollop of sour cream. My next door neighbor is from Spain, and she said it is the best she has had in America. She said the Gazpacho is what the people in Spain feed “field hands” to cool them off, after working hard outdoors.
My grandmother’s recipe is still a favorite of mine – blackened tomatoes. Slice tomatoes and fry on high heat in butter until slightly blackened – eat with buttered bread. Heaven! I haven’t had a tremendous amount of fruit this year either -3 plants are Brandy boy and one Brandywine. I had a lot of cat faced tomatoes this year but they were still yummy!
i loooong for the day when i will have so many tomatoes that i will make sauce to last months!
this year, with tomato season being less than perfect, i think this is the recipe i’d like to submit for summerfest. it coaxes the best out of even less than perfect tomatoes with a little trick–a quick vinegar soak.
http://lesauce.typepad.com/le_sauce/2009/07/pickled-tomato-sauce-with-fried-basil.html
I would so happily sit and sup this tomato sauce with you. Any time you want.
What a great sight – stacks of frozen summery tomato sauce to take you through winter! Sadly I won’t have an enormous bumper crop.. but probably enough for a few batches of “Spaghetti No-Knife”!
I made a roasted cherry tomato clafoutis – http://tinyurl.com/q3jedo – but what I enjoyed even more was a roasted Roma tomato and goat cheese Tarte Tatin. Bliss! http://tinyurl.com/q7spcy
Welcome, Diane. That is a new one on me,a nd sounds wonderful. Thank you. And butter (like tomato) is one of my favorite foods. :) See you soon.
Though nearly all the leaves on my cherry tomatoes withered and died overnight, the plants are still popping out avalanches of fruit. No idea how.
I tried to addressed the deluge this week with a Caramelized Tomato Tart. Easy & highly recommended.
http://zested.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/caramelized-tomato-tart/
Welcome, Liz, and thank you for the idea of what to do with he cherries my own otherwise dead-looking plant is producing. What a year of oddities. Hope to see you soon again.
My Sweet 100′s cherry tomatoes, which have been abundant in years past, are pathetic this year. One at a time… really.
I was at our local farmers’ market this weekend and took pictures of all of the strange varieties of tomatoes. Here.
my 9 tomato plants went from the looking like tom wolfe’s x-ray women who lunch to some reasonable facsimile of tomato plants over the last three days of sun and heat…will start tasting soon and hope for the best
Your opening photo of those chopped tomatoes looks delicious.
Nice to read through the comments to also see what others are doing with tomato crops.
What a wonderful coincidence! I just finished a series of tomato salads on my blog so I can join in on the summer festivities! Here are my 3 favorite tomato salads:
http://80breakfasts.blogspot.com/2009/08/tomato-salad-1.html
http://80breakfasts.blogspot.com/2009/08/tomato-salad-2.html
http://80breakfasts.blogspot.com/2009/08/tomato-salad-3.html
Glad to celebrate tomatoes with you all! :) Love you tips for a bumper crop…and how I’d love to have all that homemade sauce in my freezer for future tomato meals!
Hi Margaret, your posting inspired me to share our tomato cooking with folks (http://macgardens.org/?p=1067). I wish I could share the tomatoes as well. No blight here, just an abundance of juicy tomatoes…
thank you so much for posting the photo of your tomatoes….makes me feel less sad. We’re having Tomato Communion at church this Sunday but I’m afraid my Mortgage Lifters and Brandywines are too embarrassed to participate.
Lived in Chicago for years so I’m quite used to saying, “Wait til next year”
Welcome, Joey. The salads look delicious, thank you. Sometimes you can buy “seconds” at the farmstand or green market in late summer and make up batches of sauce pretty economically, just cutting out any soft bits. It’s what I do when I don’t have a good apple crop: buy the “drops” from the nearby farm. Not perfect, but plenty good. See you soon again.
I’m having an inexplicably good tomato run this summer, considering I only have three plants. I just did a post on oven-roasted tomatoes with garlic and thyme that happened to coincide perfectly with Tomato Week: http://www.foodonthebrain.net/2009/08/18/oven-roasted-tomatoes/
I wish I had enough tomatoes to make sauce, but my property isn’t big or sunny enough, alas.
Thanks for the recipe! I try something very similar sometimes, but it hasn’t always turned out. It’s the little twists and turns along the way that seem to make all the difference (as with gardening). Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Well I’m late to the party. Here’s my recipe for a quick and delicious standard tomato sauce: http://jennahsgarden.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/csa-week-5-even-star-farms-tour/
I’ve since altered it to make it even better, though. Instead of just chopping them, cut off the tops and throw them in a pot of boiling water until the skin starts to peel. Then toss them in ice water. Squeeze the tomatoes out of the skin and puree. Then add the spices etc as in the post. Absolutely delicious and SO SO easy. One pot takes maybe 5-10 mins of prep work depending on the size (seriously!). I already have a ton frozen for dreary winter days.