Garden Fresh Tomatoes

As I've mentioned before, we grow our own tomatoes during the summer. I actually do not enjoy raw tomatoes at all, weird, right? But, I do love cooked tomatoes in all kinds of varieties. We've been loaded down with fresh tomatoes lately. Here's a way to savor summer's best tomatoes in a multi-use sauce.

Only use ripe tomatoes. If they are a little green at the top, that's fine. If they are too green, put them in a window for a couple of days and they should be perfect. Mine have splits in them because they are home grown. 

Peel the tomatoes and take out all of the seeds and extra liquid. This is a messy process and requires you to get your hands messy!  The seeds and a lot of the liquid are where you see the yellow-ish areas.

Here are my tomatoes with all the seeds removed. You want to take out the seeds because they hold a lot of liquid around them. Tomatoes already have tons of water and leaving in the seeds will just makes your sauce too soupy. From this point, slice the tomatoes up into big chunks. Usually, I cut each tomato into four parts unless one is really big.

Put the tomatoes in a pot with about 2 tbsp. of water. Bring to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

The juice will naturally start to come out and make a sauce.

 After it has simmered, stir the tomatoes gently. The tomatoes will start to fall apart. The longer you cook, the thinner your sauce will become. 

At this point, you have a few choices. You can add some oregano and basil and serve over pasta. You can put into jars and freeze to enjoy summer fresh tomatoes all year. 

 

What I did this time... add fresh okra and corn right off the cob.  It's a quick vegetable soup!

 Enjoy with some cornbread.

Happy Weekend!!