Things to do with extra tomatoes
It’s overflow tomato season, and we need to do something with our useful excess. If allowed to, healthy tomato vines might overbear for any gardener. I have great respect for folks who plant 150 tomato plants and spend August and September into October nonstop finding ways to put their prodigious harvest to good use. I keep my crop to 20 plants or fewer and still have plenty extra.
Tomatoes have taught gardeners and chefs of the world what it is like to be versatile even beyond culinary applications. For example, let’s say a large ripe tomato lands on your head (how’d that happen?!?) and splatters all over. Not a problem. Spread the pulp through your hair and massage it in, wrap your head with your T-shirt, and voila! … a natural hair conditioner. You should spray it off after a half hour to reveal your lustrous tresses. I wonder who was the first person to use tomatoes for hair care?
Maybe the same person who decided to mash a fat ripe tomato together with a fat ripe avocado and smear the results all over her face. That’s right… the acid in tomato juice neutralizes oils and the avocado hydrates your skin. Remember to rinse your face before you go to Walmart.
And now let’s take our loads of extra tomatoes to the kitchen. Anybody can make a personal version of ketchup if we want to. Recipes suggest including white vinegar and sugar but it’s your ketchup and you get to choose. Mix in onions, garlic cloves, black pepper, mustard seeds – whatever you prefer. Maybe ketchup with a hint of holy basil. Regardless of your recipe, ketchup needs to slow cook for a long time to get thick and ketchup-like. Make a manageable amount and refrigerate in a handy jar. If you make a larger dose, you can freeze some in freezer bags.
Speaking of freezing, an easy way to keep extra tomatoes is to slice them with impeccable intent, pop into blender and puree like you’re Ginger Baker on a drum solo. Pour into a date-labeled freezer bag and you’re done. Easy. Saturday, I used frozen tomatoes from last November. Cooked the bagful with basil, garlic and a bunch of stuff, even added fresh tomato slices because, you know, there are plenty, and topped a plateful of pasta. Easy.
I’m out of my element with this suggestion, but some folks keep vodka around for a drink with a dreadful name. I figure clever vodka folks with earnest ambition can fabricate tomato juice in a blender for a similar tasty beverage I would call an Enlightened Maria. Just suggesting.
Tomatoes of all sizes can be dehydrated and stored for months. Small varieties need to be sliced in half and larger fruit must be sliced into pieces no thicker than a quarter inch. If you have a food dehydrator, spread out your pieces and proceed. You can even dry tomatoes on a tray in the oven. I use a solar dehydrator called the dashboard of my pickup on a sunny day. It is useful to flip the pieces periodically. Each method needs its own amount of time to produce pliable dried tomato pieces which can be stored in a jar or airtight plastic bag. Keep an eye on them for a while to make sure they dried completely. Stored correctly, they might last for a year. Yum!
Tomatoes also lend themselves to soup, salsa, sauce and juice. The first choice, by the way, is to eat them right off the vine. They are full of antioxidants plus lycopene for heart health and cancer prevention.
The farm crew here at Sassafras United encourage you to donate your excess produce to food banks and agencies who help others: the Senior Center in Berryville, for example, or the Flint Street Food Bank, Cup of Love, or Answering the Call in Eureka Springs.