Personally, I don't care for fried green tomatoes, unless we're talking about the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes". Here's a red fried tomatoes recipe I came up with.
Mix together the 5 tsp. of olive oil, basil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Spread mixture on cut side of each tomato half.
Heat remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in small skillet over medium low heat. Place tomatoes, mixture side down, in the skillet and cover. Simmer for 3 minutes, turn over and sprinkle each half with 1 heaping tsp. of the cheese. Cover and simmer 2 more minutes.
Serve immediately but tasty at room temperature, too.
By Deeli
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If you've ever tried my Pasta Alla Checca recipe and liked it, you're really going to love this variation!
When cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes begin to ripen in the garden, they do so at an amazingly fast pace. As an alternative to just adding these tomatoes to a salad, I cook them and serve them as a side dish.
I haven't tried it yet but I'll venture to bet these would be awesome tasting grilled too.
I have a fantastically easy way to use up lots of ripe tomatoes. After peeling and coring, cut up tomatoes in medium chunks and place in a large, non-reactive dutch oven (avoid tall pans like stock pots).
Tomatoes are in season and the prices are good. Here is a family favorite with fresh tomatoes. I simply call it Tomato Pasta. This is a great and yummy meal to prepare and serve quickly.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I have lost my mother's recipe for Tomato preserves, that is sweet enough for using on toast. Does anyone have a recipe you would like to share? Tomato preserves ranks at the top of my list, but I have not found a commercial one to buy. Thanks a bunch.
By eileen from Big Bear Lake, CA
This was my Grandmothers recipes. Simple but very good. I remember the days when I was young and loved this.
Tomato Jam
Wash, drain & cut in halves 4 Qt. of yellow (red) tomatoes
i would pick as many as i could, wash them and throw them in freezer bags and freeze. then they wont go to waste while u figure out how to use them. oh and my hubby thinks they really arent ripe yet and that u r picking them too soon. good luck
If your tomatoes are tart from too much acid, you can add a bit of baking soda to whatever recipe you are using them in. I make tomato sauce with all my tomatoes, including the cherries, and if I am not canning it but using it right away, I will add baking soda. (I don't add it to the stuff I am canning, as the acid is needed to kill any bacteria.) The soda is a base, and it reacts with the acid in the tomato. There is foaming up as you stir, and this shows that a chemical reaction is taking place. I start with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, stir it in, and then taste it to see if I need to add more. I add a pinch or two at a time until it has the flavor and sweetness that I desire. Just a little note though, cherry tomatoes do not give the same flavor sauce that regular tomatoes do--I think it is more astringent.
Roast them! Cut the tomatoes in half, and lay them, cut side up, in a roasting dish. Drizzle them with a bit of olive oil, then sprinkle them with some salt, pepper, sugar (to counteract the tartness), dried oregano or any other herbs of choice (garlic salt instead of plain salt is good). Roast in a pre-heated oven on a low setting for about an hour or so. These are good served hot or cold. To serve, drizzle with more virgin olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar if you wish.
Sorry - was too hasty and didn't read the post properly. As they are cherry tomatoes, they would be too small to cut in half. You can roast them just the same, but reduce the time to about 30 mins. (They will be done when the skins start to wrinkle and split.)
Original poster here...
Thanks for the input thus far! I didn't know that baking soda could sweeten acidic tomatoes, but it makes sense! I will try that, I think. I am not accustomed to making sauce with cherry tomatoes, but I might as well try since I have so many to spare. If I don't get around to making the sauce, I think I will do as katklaw suggested and freeze them. I want to add here that I know they are ripe... I have left some on the vine longer because I worried at first that perhaps they weren't as ripe as they could be, and those (although they got so ripe that they began to split) were no better than the others.
This is one tomato variety that I am not going to plant again. The growth habit and yield was fantastic, but the flavor... it just sets my teeth on edge. Again, thanks for the advice!
I also put my extra tomatoes into freezer bags and freeze them. They look like marbles! These ones are great in chili! Just toss them in while still frozen. They cook up well.
I would freeze them as other posters have described, and then put spaghetti sauce in a blender with a few thawed yellow tomatoes. They will really freshen up the flavor. Try adding some rosemary when you cook them for other things, it will help balance the acidy taste.
I find cherry tomatoes to be simply too acidic in flavor for most recipes using other tomatoes (e.g. Romas), even though you can find lots of recipes on the Internet which use cherry tomatoes essentially as other tomatoes.
There are several possibilities for very tart cherry tomatoes. Of course, one can use them in "fresh" salsas, where their acidity can be reduced with other ingredients. They also work well in canned salsas, if you reduce the amount of vinegar in the recipe to compensate for the excess acidity of the tomatoes. I've found that reducing the vinegar by half in such recipes is close to right, though it's worth making a small batch and tasting some right away to make sure this adjustment is right for your acidic tomatoes. Generally, any recipe with tomatoes which calls for vinegar is a possibility for using tart cherry tomatoes. If you're canning the tomato recipe, don't eliminate ALL the vinegar, since the acidity helps retard bacterial growth.
Another possibility is to buy a tomato press. This allows you to remove peels and seeds quickly (which I find objectionable), and not spend hours doing it, and just use the pulp and juice. In salsa, mixed with other, less acidic, tomatoes this is another good way to use them.
Next year see if they have the, same kind in low acid. If they do not plant 2-3 plants anyways, and try this. Add epson salts to the hole and cover with soil, plant like norm.Side dress with more epson salts and water.(after blooming).Epson salts adds sweetness to tomato, peppers.and corn.Old but good one.
This page contains pasta alla checca recipes. A wonderful sauce to use fresh tomatoes from the garden. A traditional uncooked Italian pasta sauce made with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella.
This page contains tomato pie recipes. Tomatoes are a very versatile vegetable and can even be used to make a delicious savory pie.
Whether you roast them over an open fire or bake in the oven, roasted tomatoes flavored with oil and your favorite spices makes a delicious side dish. The baked tomatoes can be added to soups, stews or casseroles and could be cooked down to make tomato sauce for pasta.
