Growing Food: Post-Freeze Tomatoes

I suppose I should change the title of this to "Grown Food," as we are definitely in the past tense of anything growing in the garden. But I do still have that food grown in the garden in the house, mostly in the form of tomatoes.

Before the first hard freeze, I strip the tomato plants of all but the tiniest tomatoes and bring them in to ripen slowly in my kitchen.

I have read many tips on how to do this, ranging from wrapping them individually in newspaper to laying them out in single layers separated with cardboard to putting them in a paper bag with an apple to speed the ripening.

I do none of this. I put them all in a big wide box, dump the box in an out-of-the-way spot on my dining room floor, and let them do their thing. Every few days, I pick through the box and pull out the ones that are starting to get red. Those go in a big colander to finish ripening.

Green box and red colander. Christmas-y!

When the colander is full, that means it's time to roast the ripe ones. One colander equals two half-sheet pans of tomatoes. And when those are pureed, that's around four pints of pureed tomatoes. Those jars will fit in my larger cooking pot with water enough on top to water-bath can them. This is convenient, because then I don't have to haul out my big canner. 

Sometimes I'll add the garlic to roast on the pans and make a batch of roasted tomato sauce. That goes in the freezer, though.

So I just roast, puree, and freeze or can in these smaller increments until I don't have any tomatoes ripening anymore. 

I'm always surprised at how many of those totally green tomatoes will ripen. Most years, I don't end up with enough green tomatoes to do anything with. This year, given the slow start the plants had in ripening at all, I suspect I will have some. I made some green-tomato salsa already--not as good as red-tomato salsa, but it'll get used--and I got a recipe from the MiL for green-tomato mincemeat. I'll probably use any remaining green tomatoes for that.

But not until I'm sure that none of them are going to ripen. That probably won't be until around Thanksgiving, maybe later.

We shall see. But it's comforting to know that even in a bad year, the garden always provides some food.