Heather says:
I’m not a gardener, but I’m lucky enough to have family that is into that sort of thing. Produce is rolling into my mother’s garden faster than she and my stepfather can eat it. We are the lucky recipients of the excess. This weekend I had planned on preparing three tomato pies for the freezer, but time got away from me. ::shakes fist at time::
So, rather than mess with pie crusts and stirring and all that work, I slow roasted three trays of tomatoes. These tomatoes have been flash frozen and are now waiting peacefully in the freezer to become a mid-winter addition to soups, stews, or sauces.
How do you slow roast a tomato? It’s easy as much easier than pie.
Slow Roasted Tomatoes
Take a ripe tomato. Core it. Coring is simply cutting out the tough area around the stem. I use a metal teaspoon and scoop it right out.
Slice the tomato into 1/4″ slices. They need to be fairly uniform.
Preheat the oven to 225F. Gather all of your baking sheets and line them with parchment paper.
Pastry brushes work very well for this.
Brush the tomato slices with olive oil on both sides.
Sprinkle both sides with kosher salt. I find it easier, since my kosher salt is in a box, to pour some salt in a bowl and pinch and sprinkle from there. Then I can toss the excess back into the bowl if I grab too much.
Stack the trays in the oven. I only have two oven racks, so I used a metal rack for my pizza stone to separate my trays, but any wire rack will do.
*Tip* If you have a convection oven, it will yield slightly better results.
Let those tomatoes roast for 3 hours. When they are done, cool on the baking sheets, on wire racks.
Try not to snack on too many while the cool. (I certainly didn’t eat any on an everything bagel with cream cheese)
Flash freeze, by placing in the freezer on the baking sheet until frozen. Peel the tomatoes from the sheet and pop into a freezer or vacuum storage bag.
If you get this done, you’ll feel free to look derisively at hot house tomatoes in mid December.
Random Posts
Loading…
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Those sound really good. I just don’t think too many of them would make it to the freezer.
I like collecting the produce after it has been stored. My husbands Grandma makes salsa and marinara sauce with her garden vegetables and I kindly accept canned hand outs.
Unfortunately I’m the hander outer in my circle. Do you hear this world? I am always a happy recipient to those bearing food type gifts.
Those tomatoes look wonderful! I never know what to do with all my tomatoes and feel guilty when I waste any of them so now I have an idea!!
I really need to try your tomato pie recipe as well
You have tomatoes ALREADY! Wow!
I was just feeling proud that I discovered wee little green baby tomatoes on my grape tomato plants. . .
I love the way you stack the baking sheets – I’m going to have to figure out some way to do that this year. Last year, I only did two trays of roasted tomatoes, which wasn’t NEARLY enough! Thanks, Heather.
Exactly. I made them last year with only two trays and after snacking there was hardly anything to store.
re stacking: i just saw an episode of “Good Eats’ and Alton Brown used crumpled balls of foil (one in each corner) to separate trays. I’ll try that when I roast tomatoes! yummmmmmm