Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

If you have a garden, and if you planted tomatoes, then when August hits you know that you are in for a LOT of bounty all at once.  There will be more tomatoes than you will know what to do with; there might even be more tomatoes than you can give away to grateful or unsuspecting neighbors.

All this came out of my garden in...about 3 days.  See the monster
squash in the top left corner?  And see how big the tomatoes are?
Seriously.  Bigger than baseballs, only barely smaller than softballs.

I only planted three tomato plants: two "Early Bird" and one "Cherokee Purple" (heirloom) variety.  The Early Birds have lived up to their name: they started flowering almost as soon as I put them in the ground, and now for the past month or so they've gradually sped up production.  At first, it was one or two tomatoes a week.  But this weekend, I pulled 5-6 tomatoes off of one plant and left at least that many in varying states of orange behind (they should be ready soon!).

I ate tomato sandwiches, and I sliced tomatoes into wedges and ate caprese salads, and I made a small batch of homemade salsa.  And then I still had tomatoes left over.  Since I'm on my pediatrics outpatient month (and basically have a month of vacation), I thought I'd make tomato sauce.  Turns out, that's pretty damn easy and I would've been able to make it even if I weren't on an easy rotation.  Once it was done, I portioned the sauce into single-serve containers and froze it for an afternoon, then popped them out and kept all the blocks in a freezer bag (to free up the valuable tupperware containers).

Tomatoes: into the skillet they go!  Plus some salt.

Easy Tomato Sauce: makes 3 single-serving portions

Ingredients (all fresh is best):

-tomatoes

-garlic

-basil

-salt

Method:

1. Chop the tomatoes.  I used 3-4 large tomatoes from my garden.  They each probably weighed almost a pound...they were about the size of grapefruit!  If you have smaller tomatoes, I'd use 5-6.  The amount of tomatoes I used filled a 10 inch skillet basically to the brim

2. Throw all these tomatoes in the skillet over medium heat.  Using a wide skillet is actually helpful because it gives you a large surface area for evaporation; this makes the sauce reduce more quickly.  Add a few sprinkles of salt (I used about a good pinch per tomato) to help them release their juices.

Adding salt was the right idea.  See how juicy they got?

3. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, while the tomatoes start to break down.  Finely mince or grate some garlic into the cooking tomatoes.  I used two fat cloves of garlic for my panful of tomatoes, but you could use more or less to taste.

4. Next, chop the basil.  I usually chiffonade basil, then cut it cross-wise, to mince it easily.  Add this to the pot of tomatoes.  (They should be pretty juicy and watery now.  The liquid in my skillet went almost all the way to the top.)  You can also turn down the heat to medium-low at this point.

Garlic and basil have joined the party.

5. Keep watching the tomato sauce and stir it occasionally.  It needs to bubble gently (not boil rapidly or anything) and should be giving off plenty of steam, which means it's reducing.  The tomatoes will also gradually become less chunky and more like a thicker tomato sauce.  It's important to stir, too, because the thick tomato-paste-stuff will sink to the bottom while the tomato juice reduces on top, and you don't want the sauce to scorch.  Taste the sauce every now and then to make sure there's enough salt, or the basil flavor isn't too strong, or that there's enough garlic for your liking.

Now it's all reduced.  It's a little hard to tell, but it's much
thicker and more sauce-like than tomato juice-like.

6. In about 30 minutes, the sauce should be reduced enough to be finished.  The key here is to check for the consistency that you like, not to just time it.  Turn off the heat.  You can either puree the sauce and run it through a sieve to make it extra-smooth, or you can be like me and just pour it into containers.

Ready to freeze!  Now I'll have fresh tomato sauce stowed away
for the cold, bleak days of surgery rotation.  Or just winter in general.
Be sure to leave a little room for the sauce to expand when it freezes.

Tomato Sandwich

Ingredients:

-fresh tomato

-cheese (mozzarella or farmer's cheese or provolone would all work)

-basil

-mayonaise

-bread

Method:

1. Toast the bread.

2. In the meantime, slice the tomato.  I like my tomato slices about 3/8 inch thick (I know that's pretty exact, but it's more than a quarter inch but less than half an inch).

3. Slice up your cheese of choice.

4. Make sure your basil is ready to go (leaves picked off stems, chiffonaded if you prefer)

5. Spread mayo on your toast, thinly.  This protects the bread from tomato juice.

6. Assemble the sandwich: toast-mayo-cheese-basil-tomato-mayo-toast.  Oh, and you can throw some S&P on the tomato before you close it up.

7. EAT very messily and think "YUM THIS IS WHAT SUMMER TASTES LIKE!"

Enjoy the tomatoes while you can!  THIS is when they absolutely taste the best--forget fresh tomatoes in December, you don't even want to know how far they've traveled (you can taste it in their mealy texture).

Go!  Make sauce!  Or Bloody Marys! Or just eat them sliced and plain!