I planted 26 different large-fruited (beefsteak, heart, and slicer) varieties this spring because I wanted to taste them all and find my favorites. Now I have them coming in faster than I can eat or give away. What should I do with them? I generally just eat them with fork and knife or sliced for sandwiches. They're too "wet" to dehydrate or make salsa with. What's the best thing to do with them?

I put mine whole, ripe, unaltered straight into the freezer. I froze maybe 30 pounds or so this season down from 60 or more pounds last season. Sixty pounds was too much for us to use in the offseason.

What does one do with frozen slicers? So, as one might imagine, the texture becomes disintegrated once the tomatoes are thawed. The skin easily peels away from the flesh. Some of the liquid inside of the tomato separates from the flesh.

With most of my frozen then thawed slicers I make a pasta sauce. I take out about 4 or 5 pounds or so for a decent amount of sauce for two or three people. After at least partially thawing, peel away the skins away and discard. Cut or pull away the stem scar. If I see a heap of seeds I might discard those. Generally the beefsteak types I grow aren’t particularly seedy. I might pour off some of the clear and delicious tomato flavored liquid. It should be saved for something, but I rarely do save it.

A little olive oil, a little fresh minced garlic, maybe an onion or shallot, sweat those, in go the tomatoes, possibly some red pepper flakes, Italian herbs, a little wine if you like. Season. Reduce to desired consistency, add in fresh basil if desired. Toss with pasta or use this sauce in eggplant Parmesan.

I’ve also made pizza sauce with these frozen tomatoes. One of these days I’ll make Ketchup with them.

Any recipe that has canned crushed tomatoes I generally substitute my frozen stash tomatoes in.

I make sauce. I drain off the extra liquid with a baster, put it in a smaller pot and cook that down to add back in when the rest reaches a thick consistency. I do the same with frozen tomatoes so no liquid is wasted!

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/geo ... ce-2773716

The Tomato Slice. What to do with the tomato water.

Most years we freeze the tomatoes we can't eat fresh...until we have frozen enough to last the winter for soups, stews and sauces. Then we take any extras to our village Post Office to share with anyone who wants them. All extra produce goes to share. Other are beginning to do the same, but the word is that the most popular are the "weird shaped and colored tomatoes that taste the best of anything dropped off".

This year I took my excess harvest to a local restaurant to use. It was fun for both of us!

karstopography wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 10:13 am https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/geo ... ce-2773716

The Tomato Slice. What to do with the tomato water.

Now I have found another use for Balsamic Vinegar besides killing fruit flies and making Thunder and Lighting. I'll go for it although in my younger days I would have been half ripped waiting for the balsamic/agave concoction to thicken, probably wouldn't have had much vodka left.

FatBeeFarm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 6:09 am I planted 26 different large-fruited (beefsteak, heart, and slicer) varieties this spring because I wanted to taste them all and find my favorites. Now I have them coming in faster than I can eat or give away. What should I do with them? I generally just eat them with fork and knife or sliced for sandwiches. They're too "wet" to dehydrate or make salsa with. What's the best thing to do with them?

Big wet slicers dehydrate as well as other tomatoes, in my experience.

However, what we usually do with the surplus is stew and can it, for sauce and such. If the sauce ends up too thin as a pasta sauce, try soaking the pasta in the sauce for 30 to 40 minutes before eating (this helps them to absorb the excess moisture). Also, pasta type can matter; rotini is a good shape to hold lots of sauce, for instance.

You could try making salsa, BBQ sauce, and ketchup, too.

Also, you can eat them fresh on burritos and similar, if they're not too wet for you for that. They're pretty good with store-bought frozen burritos, too if you cut up the tomatoes on them after you cook them (and cut up the burritos, too). I do prefer more acidic salad-sized tomatoes in that context, though, but the big ones aren't bad.

I freeze them whole and then take them out as I need them or I put them in my food processor, grind them and then pour them into a bag to freeze them. This way I don't need to heat up the house in the summer by reducing them to make sauce or chili. I can just take them out of the freezer in the winter and make them for whatever dish I am preparing.

@MissS Perfect! We don't have AC so I'm always trying to minimize cooking in side during the summer. Lot's of good ideas here, But running them through the Vitamix and freezing the liquid for later maybe one of the best option for me. Then I can process them further when it cools off in the fall.

I freeze mine whole too for the winter, and of course avoid cooking on a hot day!
There's another method for making sauce which doesn't require standing over the stove:
Chop the tomatoes into chunks; toss them with a bit of evoo salt pepper and herbs (dried basil and oregano works great)
Spread them into a pyrex dish and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave them in there overnight. Much of the liquid evaporates in the process. The following day you can run it through the processor for smooth or serve chunky.

karstopography wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:05 am I put mine whole, ripe, unaltered straight into the freezer.
With most of my frozen then thawed slicers I make a pasta sauce. I take out about 4 or 5 pounds or so for a decent amount of sauce for two or three people. After at least partially thawing, peel away the skins away and discard. Cut or pull away the stem scar. If I see a heap of seeds I might discard those. Generally the beefsteak types I grow aren’t particularly seedy. I might pour off some of the clear and delicious tomato flavored liquid. It should be saved for something, but I rarely do save it.

I’ve also made pizza sauce with these frozen tomatoes. One of these days I’ll make Ketchup with them.

Never thought about Ketchup. I think my mother used to core them and put them in a plastic container before she froze them.

In good seasons excess slicer's are turned into juice and jarred. I won't preserve mediocre fruit as jars and lids are too valuable to waste.


In meh seasons they are fed to the hogs or chickens.

MissS wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2024 11:43 pm I freeze them whole and then take them out as I need them or I put them in my food processor, grind them and then pour them into a bag to freeze them. This way I don't need to heat up the house in the summer by reducing them to make sauce or chili. I can just take them out of the freezer in the winter and make them for whatever dish I am preparing.

Just told @karstopography that I had not thought about Ketchup, and now you have an even better way. I am in desperate need of space in our outside freezer. We kind of got roped into buying a side of beef earlier this year. And I don't really like beef. Have tried one T-Bone, good but I had rather have Venison or Pork. I assume fresh tomatoes in the food processor and then into the freezer bag. If so, that will save me a bunch of room.

Thank you@FatBeeFarm for clueing me in on this little trick. I did have to go back and read it again because I had already forgotten how it worked.

bower wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 7:18 pm I freeze mine whole too for the winter, and of course avoid cooking on a hot day!
There's another method for making sauce which doesn't require standing over the stove:
Chop the tomatoes into chunks; toss them with a bit of evoo salt pepper and herbs (dried basil and oregano works great)
Spread them into a pyrex dish and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave them in there overnight. Much of the liquid evaporates in the process. The following day you can run it through the processor for smooth or serve chunky.

That's what I do as well with juicy tomatoes. Roast them in the oven for 45 minutes and then let them stand.

And also - I don't usually mind if the sauce is a bit less thick. Because during the winter when it's nice and cool in the house I can always boil that sauce a bit to make it thicker.