The last few weeks have had one very particular theme at our house: tomatoes. As our scales climb ever closer to the 300 pounds of produce mark I am finding more and more ways to preserve our harvest to use later next year. The easiest most efficient way I have found so far is to roast them in the oven, four pans at a time. Then I pour the whole pan into freezer bags and away we go. Who's ready for a photo tour?
First, I washed our tomatoes, cut them in half and seeded them. I used our melon baller for this. In fact, I have never actually used it to ball melon, only to seed tomatoes and core strawberries.
After what seemed like forever, or at least 20 pounds of tomatoes I had four roasting pans that looked like this. Sorry the light is off. The kitchen lighting is weird. That's just how it is.
I drizzled a little olive oil on top, threw in some chopped garlic and after about 3.5 hours in the oven at 275* I had four pans that looked like this:
By this time it was totally dark outside and there is no way to not stand in the light and cast a weird shadow. But you can see how the tomatoes are shrunken, roasted, and starting to caramelize. Next I labeled 4 freezer bags and poured each pan into one bag.
I push out the air and lay it flat to freeze. Then when they are all nice and frozen I sit them up for easier storage.
And that is how I have spent the last two Saturdays. Anyone else sweating it out in the kitchen in preparation for summer harvest being over soon?
