...our plants are going nuts, and assuming that they don't all rot on the vines before they go red, we'll be over-run with tomatoes. Does anyone have any recipes for preserving/bottling the wee red buggers?

Here's one thing to do with them: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/17282

Cooked salsa? HERESY! Burn the witch!

dry them out in your oven. (sundried tomatoes)

if they are big cut them in quarters, (small in halve) then put them on baking paper on baking trays. season quite heavily with sea salt, and coarse pepper. pop in a whole head of garlic chopped in halve around the circumference and oil it on the cloves.

put on about 55 degrees in your oven overnight, (if they still look a bit wet once that is done leave them for the day also).

then you just sterilize some jars. stuff the garlic cloves and the tomatoes in the jars and top up with oil. like rice bran oil. make sure the oil covers them all!

mint and keeps for ages.

We've done a few different things with our tomatoes this year. Made paste, soup and cooked them so they are like you get in a can. All have been preserved in agee jars.
We gently cooked up about 4 onions, added 4 sticks of celery and 8 cloves garlic, then the tomatoes. About 2 kg, half we chopped and half we put in a food processor and made into liquid. Cooked till turned nice red colour, added lots of oragano, thyme and tarragon. This was then put into agee jars.
The paste recipe is from the latest cuisine mag, which has other tomato recipes in it as well:
Slow-Cooked Tomato, Garlic & Onion Paste
2/3/2009
Fiona Smith

Slowly cooking down the onions, garlic and tomatoes results in a rich but very smooth-tasting paste – perfect in soups, stews, pasta dishes and as the base sauce for pizza. It is best preserved in small jars as you only need a little at a time. Once opened, store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 onions, sliced
8 cloves garlic, peeled
3kg tomatoes, cored and chopped
½ cup raw sugar
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon salt


Heat the olive oil in a large, wide, heavy-based saucepan over a low heat. Add the onions and garlic, and fry very gently for 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. After about 40 minutes the onions will start sticking a little so stir them more often to prevent them browning.

Add the tomatoes, bring to the boil and simmer a further 1½ hours, stirring occasionally. Be very careful towards the end of the cooking time as the thick paste has a habit of exploding when stirred. I keep it covered as much as possible with a splatter guard. Remove from the heat and set aside until it’s cool enough to handle.

Place the mixture in a food processor and blend to a paste. Return to the pan with the sugar, vinegar and salt and bring to the boil then spoon into hot, sterilised jars and seal immediately.
Makes 750ml.

Hope this gives you some ideas, pm me if you need more or have q's.

Dont waste your time preserving your own tomatoes when you can buy the super duper size of canned tomatoes from
Countdown for $1.89 !!!

Tomato Soup
- olive oil & butter
- 2-3 Onions
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 1kg tomatoes, chopped
- water
- salt & pepper
- Other bits to taste (chilli, bay leaves etc)

Roux
- 1tblsp butter
- 1 tblsp flour
Melt butter and stir in flour, on heat to cook the flour, for about 5 mins. Add a half cup of water and a half cup of cooking tomatoes and simmer for 5 mins, stirring well.

Cook the onions and garlic in the butter and oil, for 8 - 10 mins on med-low heat, stirring well. Add the chopped tomatoes (and any other bits) and cook for 20 mins stirring occasionally. Add the roux and more water if needed. Stick blend the beejesus out of it and serve with fresh chopped parsley.


Tomato Relish
- 12 large tomatoes
- 6 medium onions
- 600 mls vinegar
- 1 tblsp salt
- 1 cup sugar

Cut tomatoes and onions. Add all ingredients into a large pot. Bring to the boil and then simmer for approx an hour, uncovered, stirring frequently. Thicken at the end by adding 1 tblsp of cornflour. Stand and cool for about an hour, bottling while still warm.
NB: this recipe can be varied with the addition of grated carrot, chopped celery or a combination of your favourite herbs.


Homemade Tomato Sauce
- 1.5 kgs tomatoes
- 2 onions
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 300mls vinegar
- 1 tblsp salt
- 1 tblsp allspice
- 3 bay leaves
- fresh basil and dill

Add all ingredients together in a big pot, adding herbs to taste. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 1 hour. Stick blend until relatively smooth and turn up the heat, boiling hard for a further 5 mins. Bottle straight away.

Ya can freeze the blighters.

Blanch to remove the skin, place on tray in freezer until rockhard, bag for freeflow storage until needed.

Mushyish in thawing but fine for cooking into food and stuff.

I heard a malicious rumor that the goop around the seeds doesn't freeze in a normal freezer?

Don't let them go red!!!! Pick them green and make green tomato chuntney. Yum yum.

I made a yum salsa - 4 large tomatoes, 2 large red onions, 1 green capiscum, in a blender, sorted.
I've got a little hand held kitchen whizz thingee which cuts stuff up real small, but doesn't seem to pulp it, so it's still a chunky salsa.

YUM.

My recipe is as such

1. Start a petition stating Tomatoes are endangered
2. Find a political group to align yourself with
3. Hopeful an old grumpy fucker will like tomatoes and barrage the government with emails and telephone calls
4. If the ruling government likes the tomato then the chances the tomato will be preserved is greater.

Its political Jono. Good Luck.

Maybe Harlan's Dad could help you

michael wrote:I heard a malicious rumor that the goop around the seeds doesn't freeze in a normal freezer?

Hell yeah it does. They are great fun frozen. Hard as rocks.

I ended doing the semi-dried tomatoes thing: cut tomatoes in half/quarter, sprinkle salt and pepper across the top, along with a bit of balsamic vinegar and some oil, and then roast on a low temp for about 5 hours. 4 kilos of tomatoes shrunk back to about a jar full, which I then covered with olive oil.

They keep for about 2 months in the fridge, so we've been having very intense tomatoes on our cheese on toast, in pasta and on pizzas. Yum yum...

I paid $9 for 200grams of semi dried tomatoes last week, so your approach = win.