Easy Garden Fresh Tomato Paste

Are you enjoying the difficulty of not knowing what to do with all the tomatoes that are being harvested from your garden? Try making this easy tomato paste. We use just the plain paste for our garden chili (recipe to come soon for that). However, you can add garlic or herbs to the paste for more flavors and pizzaz!

Recipe:

First, clean off 17-20 tomatoes. You can use any variety, I happened to use Health Kick Plum tomatoes.

Now to easily take the skin off the tomatoes you will need to bring a pot of water to a boil, drop tomatoes in there and let sit in the boiling water for a minute. Then place tomatoes in a bowl of ice water.

When cool enough to touch, cut the top of the tomato and take skin off. It should easily be taken off. If not, you can always slice it.

Squeeze out seeds into bowl and place skinless tomatoes in blender.

Blend until smooth. There should be no chunks.

I don't mind any remnant seeds in my paste, but you can run paste through a colander to catch last of the seeds and chunks. Pour paste in jar and save in refrigerator for your next recipe!

It makes about 14 ounces, but you may have more or less depending on size of tomatoes.

If you want to make the paste thicker, simply cook it in a pot until the paste reaches your desired thickness.

The first thing I noticed about the paste was the color. It wasn't that bright red you find at stores, rather a fresh, soft red. Makes you think about all the chemicals they add to sauces to create the color!

Hope you enjoy the simple recipe!

Nancy Jane

Tomato Thoughts

Every time I pick tomatoes there is always one out of reach! All my efforts are put towards this tomato. When the long sought after fruit is finally plucked, I look up to find that there were just as many beautiful tomatoes all around me. Alas, my thoughts were only honed in toward that particular item.

How often do we do this in our daily lives? Our focus is toward a singular emotion or entity, never noticing what is around us. It could be distress causing one to only look at the miserable part of life. It could be a job we are after, forgetting all the family we love. Or, it could be someone thinking about what they are missing out on in life rather than seeing what they already have.

As human beings we are quick to forget what we are blessed with. We have this magical capability to only zone in on the bad aspects of life. We put all our focus on what God hasn't given us, while in reality we are given far more than what we deserve.

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Count Your Blessings, Johnson Oatman, Jr.    

So what is the tomato in your life? How can you look past it?

A way to start is to always remember the Lord is faithful and consistently good to us.

Nancy Jane

Let's Talk Tomatoes

Image via http://www.preservingyourharvest.com/TomatoJarLabels.html

Tomato, tomato

     By any other name is not the same----so many varieties

Let's talk tomatoes.

 Seasoned tomato growers have their favorite.

Mr. Moore formerly of Moores Roses in Visalia grew Ace tomatoes---and gave a plant away for each rose purchased, encouraging all to grow and eat Ace tomatoes.

Some gardeners are partial to big Beefsteak tomatoes, we lean toward tomatoes with a bit more acid, plus none of us want to wait that long to eat, and so many times the big tomato gets just right for picking….and a bird beat us to it...

 Through the many years of growing tomatoes our choices are clear and unanimous---well almost, my husband still has a prejudice towards cherry tomatoes, but he is coming around.

Our favorites and highly recommended tomatoes.

• Cherry Tomatoes

I don’t really have a name of a favorite, as long as they are round…an inch to two inches in size and red. No mini, oval, or grape shaped, or any other color than red.

These are great to pop in your mouth in the garden, or carry in a plastic sack for travel snacks, and take to the movies (although my husband will vehemently disagree with this movie snack).

You have to pop the whole tomato in your mouth, or it will squirt juice and seeds----kids think this is funny, and be sure if you have them for a movie snack to pop the whole tomato in you mouth, or just imagine where the seeds will end up.   Mother Judith does not especially like it when the seeds end up on ceiling.

Cherry Tomato Lore at Gray’s Farms can continue for pages, but time to move on.

•  VF Hybrid Tomatoes from Burpee.

Early producers, large crop, perfect meat and acid balance, medium size.  Sentimental at Gray’s Farms, the first tomato my husband & I grew together decades ago.  For years we could not find seeds, since they are hybrids seeds cannot be saved, but this year, well I keep checking the mail for a fresh packet.

• Health Kicks from Burpee

A wonderful plum-like shaped tomato with a good balance ---for both cooked sauces and eating fresh.   According to Burpee, these are healthier for you, packed with 50% more lycopene---we like them because they are delicious.    Small growing bush with lots of production--- some years the company runs out of these seeds, while we can have a huge bounty of other tomatoes and my husband will lament how he misses Health Kicks…..I understand his pain, never, ever having a tomato season without cherry tomatoes, it would be a great loss for me, but for sure not a great loss for my husband.

 

• Brandy Wine Heirloom (widely available)

We could easily get on the heirloom garden wagon with this variety.  The best fresh and canned tomato we have ever grown.  I do not have the talent to describe how a canned Brandy Wine Tomato not only tastes , but reminiscent of summer gardens. 

But lets not discount the pure pleasure of eating a fresh Brandy Wine tomato, the flavor, the texture,  the aroma is an entire experience it is like eating a slice of summer.

As many heirlooms, be advised they do not have constancy of as modern hybrid tomatoes.   One year we will have a bumper crop and the next pickings can be very slim.   Shapes will vary, we think this is part of the character of the Brandy Wine----part of the fun of growing them-----even with the gliches that can occur, Brandy Wine tomatoes are always on our tomato planning list.

Theses are our top four tomatoes, but each year one of us usually will try something new, usually an Early Girl due to the early harvest, maybe a Beef Steak or Ace----but that is the fun of gardens each year, enjoying the old standard must haves, and trying something new.

The most important part of any harvest at our house is our family working together, aside from my husbands unnatural adversity to Cherry Tomatoes. We have fun prepping the ground, confirming we have the correct varieties, planning the planting, weed control and water-----watching the plants grow, checking for production and problems, the traditional first tomato of the year (after the cherries, again he does not count these),  eating produce for breakfast, lunch and dinner----using our annual recipes, I can go on and on how our garden  cultivates family activity….not to mention a great opportunity to just Praise and Thank God for the bounties of this Planet.

Mother Judith