Harvesting Tomatoes

Posted by Angela England Aug 14, 2008

We love tomatoes at our house. My husband will sit and eat an entire plate of tomatoes topped with cottage cheese as a meal, or in-between-meals snack. We also enjoy them raw in salads, sliced on sandwiches, etc.

By the end of July, however, we are more than halfway through our tomato harvest and I'm getting a bit tired of them in the usual ways and fashions. So I've done a little bit of creative searching for ways to use the harvest we are being blessed with, without making myself sick on raw tomatoes.

One thing I did was make a giant pot of spaghetti sauce. I was afraid it would be tricky to make the spaghetti sauce but it really was much easier than I anticipated and it also allowed me to use both the garlic, and onions, I had harvested earlier in the spring.

I had to skin the cored tomatoes which is easy when you lightly score the skin (just barely cut the skin only with a knife) and then plunge the tomato into boiling water. The skin will begin to peel back off the flesh of the tomatoes. From there it is easy to follow whatever your favorite spaghetti sauce recipe is.

Freeze the main bulk of the sauce for winter use and try freezing the sauce in small bags so you can thaw one meal's worth at a time. Just don't forget to treat yourself to a nice, homemade spaghetti dinner that night in reward for your hard work!

See more information about growing heirloom tomatoes to find which tomato varieties work best for sauce, salsa, canning or eating fresh.