With a steady supply of ripe tomatoes coming from the farm, I feel like I’m constantly surrounded by tomatoes of all colors and sizes; in the field, while driving my truck, and covering most surfaces in my house.
I’m eating a lot of tomato sandwiches, at least two a day but that doesn’t even put a dent in the supply. So I’ve been chopping them up into pico de gallo, roasting them in the oven, and making sauce to fill my freezer. There will come a time when there are no tasty local tomatoes for months at a time. So I’m doing my best to eat them fresh at every meal and then preserve what I can for enjoyment later.
For tomatoes my go-to preservation method is freezing. I like to roughly chop up tomatoes throw them in a pot with salt and cook them into a slightly thick sauce, then I run them through a food mill, pour them into quart size freezer bags and throw them in the freezer. As a farmer the late summer season is incredibly busy as everything needs to be harvested and taken to market. But you gotta make time to stock your pantry for the coming winter.