A very generous client dropped off a huge amount of tomatoes from her garden on Thursday, and they unfortunately sat in their box and paper bag until I brought them home this evening (we weren't there to receive them Thursday, and I wasn't told about them until late today).

I've washed and sorted them into various collanders, and I estimate that I have 2-3 quarts of beautiful, firm Roma tomatoes, and about the same of large round, over-ripe, soft tomatoes. I hope they will hold up until tomorrow morning, when I can actually do something with them.

I'm thinking some sauce, and some oven-dried tomatoes. I want stuff that I can possibly stow in the freezer to use at my leisure.

Can anyone share some recipes or guidance? Is there such a thing as a recipe for tomato sauce that doesn't require peeling first? (I have Fibromyalgia, and don't know how long I can peel tomatoes before I fall over in a heap on the floor.)

I'm determined to do my best for these red beauties, and will appreciate any and all advice. I am a total novice in this area, so I guess I need "Tomato Recipes for Dummies."

Porcupine, would you mind sharing your sauce and confit recipes--by PM if not on this thread? Anyone else?

Thanks in advance for any and all input.

I am going to a tomato-themed dinner on Sunday. I will let you know how it turns out....

I usually drop than in a pot of boiling water for one minute, then dunk in cool water, then when they are cool enough to handle, cut them in half, and squeeze them right out of their skin into ziplocks. I like this method if I'm going to be using the tomatoes in something light, a simple tomato sauce with basil or onion and butter.


If you want to use your oven, cut them in half and put them cut side down on an olive-oiled cookie sheet. Roast them, and when they cool after you've taken them out, you can usually peel the skins right off with your fingers. I like this for heavier sauces, Bolognese, etc.

I did three bushels of tomatoes last Sunday.

The sauce couldn't be easier. Slice your washed Romas in half lengthwise, place in a large pot (no more than 2 deep - use several pots or work in batches if necessary), all by themselves, cover, and heat for about ten minutes, or until they're somewhat softened. Place them in a food mill fitted with a fine disk and crank away - the seeds and skin will be left behind.

Place the puree in a pot with some butter, salt, a pinch of sugar, and halved onions. Cook uncovered until reduced to desired consistency, but don't overdo it - it will always be a somewhat thin sauce. Discard the onion.

Marcella Hazan's recipe calls for one medium onion and 1/4 pound butter for every two pounds of tomatoes. That seems like an obscene amount of butter to me. I used three onions and a pound and a half of butter for about 28 pounds of tomatoes and thought it almost too rich.

I think with confit you're supposed to cover the tomatoes completely in oil, which I didn't do. I cored them, and cut them into quarters, sixths, or eigths depending on size, squeezed out the seeds, doused them generously in good olive oil, spread them out in the pans as much as I could, and put in a 225 convection oven until they were nicely reduced but not leathery. Shake the pans and/or turn the wedges every once in awhile. Again, depending on size, this took anywhere from two to six hours. It was a mistake to hurry one batch by roasting at 250 - they were browning significantly before losing much of the water.

Have fun!

I've made some progres with my tomatoes. I estimate that I had around 10-11 lbs, about 2/3 Romas and 1/3 large round types. Some were already too far gone to salvage--mainly those at the bottom of the box and bag, which had cracks in them (is that from the drought?). I think I tossed about 10%, which isn't bad.

I slow-roasted about 4 lbs of the Romas yesterday, and they are now in bags lying flat in my freezer. Now I have another 1-1.5 lbs in the oven to make "charred tomatoes" for a pesto recipe I ran across on StephenCooks.com. We've eaten a few of the larger ones as salad. A couple are earmarked for recipes this week, and I hope to try a tomato marmalade that I also found on StephenCooks.com.

Tomato ideas from the NYT

Peeling tomatoes is a concept perpetuated by snooty chefs and cookbook authors who believe that cooking should be eighty billion times the amount of work it needs to be. This dissuades would-be home cooks from going beyond Krap Cheese & Macaroni (on whose payroll said chefs and authors are).

Sauce those tomatoes. Sauce those tomatoes like Boris Yeltsin at Vodka Vorld. Sauce them like a frat boy trapped in a lauter tun. Sauce them like Lindsay Lohan on a Tuesday at 10AM.

Then freeze the sauce.

If you MUST make something without the skins, try some "tomato water." You'll have to buy Michel Richard's "Happy in the Kitchen" to get the recipe, though

You can use a food mill and make it an easy task.

My grandparents used an electric one that we used to make hundreds of quart bottles of sauce every fall. No skin and no fuss.

even rachel ray peels her tomatoes when she's cooking them on the air, doesn't she? otherwise, the skin rolls up into little hard shards that are highly undesirable. surely her mother taught her this much.

i must not have a very good food mill, but pushing through 10 pounds of tomatoes that have broken down over low heat for three or four hours is work, but eventually soup. (start with shallots softened in butter.) if you don't want soup, i suppose you could cook this down into a sauce, though deborah madison in her big book has good basic recipes that are easy. marcella hazan can be better, but she's more difficult.

alice waters has the best tomato compote recipe in her vegetable book. peeled tomatoes, salted and peppered, rest on a bed of lettuce and the olive oil comes half way up them in a pyrex bowl or gratin dish. you can smash them down a bit so there is barely any space between them, and use less oil. start them off at 375 degrees for half an hour, then turn the oven down to 325/350 and cook an additional one and a half/two hours or so, until the tops carmelize. keep them in the dish and they freeze well.

OR maybe it's one of the many details that chefs do with food that distinguish the great ones from the merely average? It's really not hard to do and only takes a few minutes to do pounds of them. Worth every second to get rid of the chewy skin to some of us, I guess.

I made this Tomato Pie recipe from Leite's Culinaria last night. It's really easy to put together. A couple modifications on my part: used fresh mozzarella instead of cheddar cheese and did not peel the tomatoes.

You could make a tomato-zucchini tart and kill two birds at once:
http://www.journal-news.net/living/article...articleID=11578

i don't know why it says a bed of lettuce above, because that's what I wrote i suppose, but it really should be basil.