It’s tomato season here, and between our CSA share, our community garden patch, and our neighbors moving away and telling us that we are welcome to their garden plot as well, we are currently up to our eyeballs in tomatoes. So far I’ve canned 7 quarts of sauce, but we also have a ton of cherry tomatoes, and I’m certainly not going to peel them!
What are some favorite recipes for cherry tomatoes? Anything that can be canned or otherwise preserved would be especially handy, as we have far too many to eat right now before they go bad. (Preferably canning or anything that doesn’t require a ton of freezer space, which is currently at a premium.)
Heh, smart. I once had an abundance of cherry tomatoes and decided to make salsa out of them. After blanching, peeling, and seeding 7+ pounds of cherry tomatoes, I pretty decided I was totally nuts.
I’d be looking into drying them, myself. Or these slow roasted and preserved tomatoes look pretty good. Looking around the interwebs, a good number of people seem to freeze them whole as well.
That looks delicious - maybe I’ll give it a try. Freezer space is kind of at a premium, what with the other CSA and summer produce that we’ve frozen (blueberries, chard, kale, etc.) Maybe I will defrost the whole chicken to cook in a couple of days, and we will have some more space…
I’m another who hauls out the dehydrator when I have a surfeit of cherry tomatoes. Makes them easy to store and you can throw them into almost any recipe later that has a tomato base. (No need to peel!)
Here’s a favorite recipe for fresh ones that will help you get through at least some. It’s delicious and uses up goodish numbers at a time:
Sherry Cherry Tomatoes
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
[ul]
[li]4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil[/li][li]6 large cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced[/li][li]2 small onions, finely chopped [/li][li]2 pints cherry tomatoes [/li][li]4 tablespoons dry sherry wine [/li][li]2 teaspoons sugar [/li][li]1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste[/li][li]Salt to taste[/li][/ul]
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Preheat a skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, garlic and onions. Sweat them out 2 to 3 minutes then add cherry tomatoes. Turn tomatoes to coat in oil. Add sherry, sugar, pepper flakes and salt. Toss to coat tomatoes and roast for 18 to 20 minutes.
Halved cherry tomatoes are great throw-ins for a lot of “kitchen sink” recipes, such as jambalaya and chili. I’d think they’d work in biryani and paella, as well.
Salsa and/or pico de gallo might be an option, too.
I don’t have any great recipe suggestions, but I do want to chime in that the “hack” you can find online, putting a bunch of cherry tomatoes between two plates or two storage container lids and then cutting them all horizontally at once? Totally works for a rough cut halving. It’s not picture perfect, but it works for most purposes. http://www.thekitchn.com/the-easiest-way-to-cut-a-bunch-of-cherry-tomatoes-195991
I serve them often as a straight-up side dish, but I’ve also put them over pasta or even more often, polenta. They’re fantastic! Hope you enjoy them, too.
As has already been said, cheery tomatoes make a great hors d’oeuvre, like just hollow them out at the top and fill with dip. And my mother will toss them with larger tomatoes into sauce that she cans.
Urm … however … uh …
Urm … what, that seems like a non sequitur to me. But … um … maybe you … Oh God, you don’t have one of these – tomato sauce makers - Google Search ?
That’s how you prepare bushels and bushels of tomatoes for sauce. Peel and seeds just spits out the side, juice and minced pulp falls into the saucepan. They come in many sizes, or belt driven motorized, or the kids in tech school motorized that one their mom carried in their luggage from Italy. Hand seeding and peeling … fugedaboutit … did you see that happening in The Godfather or in Goodfellas? No, you didn’t.
So the first batch of slow-roasted cherry tomatoes (with garlic, thyme, and basil) is now cooling in the fridge - I think once it cools down, we will freeze it in Ziploc bags. There are 3 more full-sheet pans in the oven with slow-roasting plum tomatoes: one with garlic thyme, and basil; one with garlic and herbes de Provence; and one with garlic and rosemary.
Tomorrow I think we will be canning some caponata, and some chunky basil pasta sauce if I don’t run out of steam. (We also have a bunch of garden eggplants.)
But keep the ideas coming, guys - there will be lots more tomatoes to come! The cherry tomatoes have been insanely prolific this year.
I do this a lot, too. The only problem is that salt refuses to stick to the outside of a cherry tomato, and I love my August tomatoes with salt. I suppose I could lick them first. Or dip in vodka.
What I PARTICULARLY like to do, though, is roast the little boogers in olive oil with thinly sliced onions and chopped ham or bacon*. Then stir it all into a bowl of cooked pasta for an easy fresh Al’Amatriciana. Pass the pecorino at the table.
Use guanciale or other imported salsiccia if you have it.
Also, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella balls, basil, balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper, serve with crusty bread= one of my favorite summer dinners.
Half them and toss with a chunky diced cucumber, black olives, pepperoncini, thinly sliced red onion, feta & torn parsley and dress with good olive oil and lemon juice (S&P to taste) for a delicious peasant salad.
Ok… I wasn’t aware that this board was ready for such advanced culinary techniques, but here goes. Take a very sharp knife… slice the cherry tomato in half vertically… sprinkle a pinch of salt in the two halves. I’ve found that salt from a shaker or a grinder, or a pinch from a bowl doesn’t really change the end result. Place tomato half between two (or three) fingers and place in mouth… chew… repeat.
Licking or Vodka could probably work as well… I’ll have to try them tomorrow. I’ve tried about 20 tonight sans salt and they were pretty good.
I know this isn’t really a master chef board, but I could tell you about a complex recipe that involves dipping the cherry tomato into ranch dressing, but I’m not sure people here are ready for such an advanced technique.
Definitely a summer favorite. Thanks for the reminder.
Please post a link to the recipe. I have tried something similar, with bleu cheese dressing, but I might be ready to try the ranch technique.
I make this at least once a week every June and into July, until we get tired of it, but I think I’ll make it tomorrow now that I’m thinking of it. Works with raw corn but roasting it changes the whole flavor.
GRILLED CORN, AVOCADO AND TOMATO SALAD
1 pint cherry tomatoes (I use 2)
1 ripe avocado (again, I use 2)
2 ears of fresh sweet corn
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
HONEY LIME DRESSING
Juice of 1 lime
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp honey
Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
Dash of cayenne pepper
DIRECTIONS
Remove husks from corn and grill over medium heat for 10 minutes. The corn should have some brown spots and be tender and not mushy. Cut the corn off the cob then scrape the cob with the back of your knife to get the juices. Set aside and let cool. Slice the tomatoes in half. Dice the avocado and chop the cilantro.
HONEY LIME DRESSING
Add all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
Combine the sliced tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and grilled corn and honey lime dressing and mix gently so everything is evenly coated. Be careful not to mash the avocados. Let the salad sit for 10-15 minutes to let flavors mingle. Enjoy.
