Winter light for winter food. In 2020 Oregon was hit with devastating fires like never seen before. I had dozens of tomato plants that were ravaged by high temperatures, smoke and ash, and single digit humidity. Needless to say most plants didn’t make it to harvest. I saved what I could and decided to try and ripen what remained in my garage once temps were too cold to leave them outside in the ground.
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Ripening inside means taking them off the vine and placing them in cardboard and paper bags spread out in a cool dark place. About 75% had imperfections like scratches, dents, bruises. None of those made it as mold got to them. The remaining 25% of the tomatoes ripened. This was still A LOT of tomatoes.
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@alisoneroman put out a great recipe for roasting a tomato bumper crop that I could freeze and then use later. For making sauce, for topping onto toast, for cooking chicken, for spooning over roasted veggies or steak. So many ideas.
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After washing and removing stems and any intense cores, large tomatoes are quartered, mediums ones halved, small ones left whole. I added a few peeled quartered shallots, small wedges of red and white onion, lots of smashed garlic, and several dried Chiles de Arbol, to bring the heat. Season with salt and add A LOT of olive oil. I used a full cup for 2 giant batches. Then roast in a Dutch (or in my case French) oven at 300F for like 2 hours with the lid on, and another hour with the lid off. I then let them cool and packed them into large containers to freeze.
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Alison said they would last about 6 months but let me tell you that about 14 months later I cooked these down with some garlic basically from frozen, with a a full can of anchovies for umami goodness, a pound of
@impossible_foods “ground beef” (plant based “meat”), and added papardelle at the end for one of the most delicious pastas I have ever had. Sprinkled with cracked pepper and a generous grating of Romano and called it a Saturday lunch (but made enough to feed me for like 5-6 meals.)
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Highly recommend for all of you gardeners out there! Her recipe can be found online on her newsletter. The post is titled “#13 save the tomatoes”
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#alisonroman #savethetomatoes
