Wash tomatoes when the come in from the garden. When there are a dozen or more, bring water to a boil in a large saucepan (or soup pot, if you have more tomatoes). We used setting 8 on our induction stove.
Place tomatoes into boiling water – one at a time, or few enough that they are not touching each other. Let boil for a minute at most, or until you see skin split or wrinkle. Place in a boil of ice, until cool enough to peel away the skin.
After peeled you can use them in a sauce, but you can open them in a sieve, placed over a bowl, and gently scrap away the seeds and cut out any hard core. The tomato water will drain into the bowl below. Save and use for a tomato drink. See Tomato Martíni recipe. The seeds will be collected in the sieve while you place the meat in a separate bowl, or into sauce. Discard the seeds into a compost bin, but consider saving some from the best tomatoes for next year’s planting.
Variety and what we want next year:
In addition to plum or paste tomatoes, we grow cherry and slicers. Brad’s Atomic, small, grape-like with wild colors, fruits first as deep purple, streaked with green, and lightens to red – still striped – when ripe. They are slow to ripen, so I am in search of a quick cherry tomato. These are large, however, sweet, sturdy and great roasted. This year we have an abundance of small Lemon Drop cherry tomatoes that are very sweet when roasted with a thin skin that often splits.
We grow a Black (Russian/Krim) for sweet slicing, and the red/orange tomato for a more tart alternative. Will save this years called: Todd’s Black and Tie Dye, respectively.
This year’s plum tomatoes were plentiful (hot summer?) But were not the paste tomato we most like, which is called Opalka – Polish – and has thick, distinct meat that was easy to separate from the seed pockets. Seeds were few and skin easily removed. Not sure what our current variation is (something saved last year) and so it’s time to start with a new packet.