I returned home this weekend from a one-week trip to find my tomato plants had exploded – practically doubled in size, with blooms and li’l green babies everywhere. Sweet cherry tomatoes, Early Girls, and Big Boys, on the way. I’m so excited! They were so big, in fact, that I had to move my four little pepper plants to pots – the tomato plants were shading them from the sun in my itty-bitty city plot.
We-hell, I’m probably jinxing my heretofore piss-poor gardening luck, but I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m going to get lots and lots of tomatoes this summer. I’m hoping for lots of bell peppers, too. I’m expecting to share the wealth with friends, family and co-workers, but I’d also like to use 'em up in new and exciting ways. In the past I’ve used farmer’s market tomatoes for a lovely tomato-mozzarella-basil salad, bruschetta, and salsa. Does anybody have any other good recipes for fresh tomatoes and bell peppers? I’d love to find a good marinara sauce recipe that I could make and possibly jar, if I can figure out how to.
Gardening tips are also welcome, as I’m still a newbie at it and generally have a black thumb.
Gardening tips: Don’t over-fertilize the plants; they’ll just put the energy into new growth. They’re just big weeds, so leave them be and they’ll fruit up nicely. Over-watering also makes them grow a lot rather than fatten up their fruit. Hope you get a bumper crop of 'maters!
Recipe:
CORN SALAD
3 ears of corn
1 small bell pepper
2 medium tomatoes
3 green onions
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of wine vinegar
salt & pepper
Shuck and cook the ears of corn. Boiling or microwaving them are both fine, as is grilling them on the barbecue. Then cut all the kernels from the cobs. Finely dice the pepper, the tomatoes and the onions, and add them to the corn kernels in a big bowl. Add the oil and vinegar and toss, and then add the salt and pepper to taste.
This is a pretty, colorful and yummy salad that everybody devours avidly. It goes well with barbecue and picnic foods.
My absolute favorite tomato recipe–this makes a light but very flavorful sauce that’s just perfect for hot summer days. It is a bit time consuming–but if you’ve got extra tomatoes, it’s a great way to use them up.
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Take about a dozen large, fresh tomatoes. Peel, Deseed, and Chop–do NOT drain (this should yield you about 6 cups–adjust number of 'maters accordingly)
In a saucepan, sautee a couple minced cloves of garlic and a medium onion. When the onion turns clear–it’s done.
Dump in the tomatoes and a couple pinches of dried basil. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a barely-there simmer.
Wait. The longer the wait, the thicker the sauce–I usually give it at least four hours.
Finally–add a handful of chopped fresh basil. Simmer and stir for another five minutes or so and you’re good to go.
Actually, once it’s simmered it reduces quite a bit. Guesstimating, I’d say that the original 6 cups of tomatoes ends up being about three cups of sauce. I think you could freeze the extra, but you might need to add a little tomato sauce to “reconstitute” it a bit at thaw time. Let me know if it works, I’ve never been brave enough to try!
By overwatering, I mean make sure the soil is never soggy. If the soil is dry on top but getting dampish a couple of inches down, it’s perfect. Once a week watering should maintain this unless you’re having a very hot dry spell – maybe twice a week during a heat wave. If the tomatoes are in pots rather than the ground, then you may have to water even a little more often to maintain the dry on top/damp further down state.
My tomato sauce from last year froze fine in freezer ziploc bags. I reduced it down very thick so it wouldn’t take up unnecessary room in the freezer, then froze it in flat, stackable slabs. You can always add water back in when you thaw it out to bring it up to the thickness that you like. And I made the sauce absolutely plain without even salt added, because it was more versatile that way – I could season it up to taste when I used it. Unseasoned, it could be put into Mexican recipes or Italian or when I just needed a bit of plain tomato sauce in soup or stew.
Be warned that peppers take a lot longer than tomatoes, so a good season in one isn’t indicitive of the other. For that matter, the seasons might not even overlap. And whatever you do, don’t cook your tomatoes. It’ll work fine, but not nearly as well as raw. I’d hate to see a waste of good tomatoes. J
As for recipes, you can make a really good salad from sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and (optional) onions, with a dressing of sour cream, vinegar, and sugar. I can’t remember any of the proportions, but it’s the sort of thing that you just fiddle with 'till it’s right, anyway. Cucumbers, by the way, grow very well in the company of tomatoes.
Dice three or four good-sized tomatoes. Mix them in a bowl with a few cloves of minced garlic, basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar. Let sit for a few hours.
Boil some rotini or fusilli. When done, drain and put back into pot with a bit of the oil from the tomato mixture. Add about a cup of grated white cheese (cheddar, mozzarella) and stir quickly until evenly melted with the pasta. Toss in the tomato mixture, stir, and serve immediately with extra salt and romano or parmesan.
