Tomato Harvest Time

What happens when you are picking a grocery bag-full of tomatoes every day from your garden? 

Everyone who has a garden is in the same boat around this time of year and is looking for ways to preserve the tasty harvest.

I have tried canning, freezing, drying, saucing and everything in between over the years when the deluge starts. The following are two of my favorite methods of dealing with the onslaught of delicious Maryland tomatoes that we are blessed—or cursed—with in late summer.

Drying

My favorite way to preserve plum, or roma, tomatoes is to dry them. Drying concentrates the flavor in one small package of intense tomato flavor that is easy to use in recipes throughout the winter. Simply slice the plum tomatoes lengthwise into about three to four slices, lay them on the plastic drying trays of a food dehydrator and wait about 24 hours.

Food dehydrators are available for about $45 online or at local stores like Target. They are very simply designed with five clear plastic trays stacked on top of a small heating element. I plug my dehydrator in late July and continue drying the incoming harvest through August.

You can also dry tomato slices in your oven at a low temperature, but it would use a lot more energy and I don't want my oven on that long heating up the house.

After the slices are crispy, I stack them into tupperware containers and freeze them. Sundried tomatoes are quite expensive so you can save a lot of money drying your own.

Sauce

Making spaghetti sauce uses up many tomatoes in one fell swoop, so I make a lot of sauce.

To prepare the tomatoes, boil a large pot of water and throw clean tomatoes into the pot until it’s full.  Leave the tomatoes in the hot water for 2 minutes and then dump the whole thing in the sink, and run cold water over the tomatoes to cool them down and stop the cooking process.

This makes the skins peel off easily. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, core and peel them.

Then place the tomatoes into the same large pot and cook them on a low heat for four to six hours, stirring them once in a while to break them down. I add sauteed chopped onions and peppers, oregano and thyme sprigs, and a pinch of pepper, salt, and sugar to taste. I like my sauce thick so near the end of cooking, I add one small can of tomato paste and it is ready to ladle over pasta. Any leftovers, you can freeze or can for later. I never have to buy commercial spaghetti sauce.