Monday, February 21, 2011

Yesterday's Tomatoes. . .

Before you ask. . . No, they are NOT from my garden but I did pick them up for a bargain!  $2 actually!!
 I remember my mother always bringing home reduced boxes of half rotten fruit and making us
Fruit Salad....I swore I would never do that to my children, but here I am, now buying bargain boxes from the throwout table at the fruit and veggie shop.
 Lets get Cooking . . .
One of my Christmas presents this year was a food dehydrator (purchased for myself from SANTA) so this is the first time I get to use it. Great device but it sounds like a hairdryer going for about 8 - 12 hours so I stuck it up in the shed for the night to do it's work, and work it did!
Mmmm . . . I call these "Dehydrated Semidried Tomatoes" bottled in extra virgin olive oil.
Then I made Tomato Relish, but I have to say this recipe is more like a Chutney 
What's the difference?  Apparently chutneys have a chunky spreadable consistency much like a preserve, where as relishes are hardly cooked, use less sugar if any, and are more crunchy to the bite. 
Tomato Chutney
1 1/2 kg tomatoes
500gm onions
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup salt
1 cup white vinegar
2 tabs cornflour
2 teas curry powder

Skin tomatoes and chop roughly
Peel onions and chop finely
Place in a large saucepan and add salt, sugar and vinegar and bring to the boil until tender and sauce reduces slightly, approx 1 1/2 hours
Blend cornflour and curry powder with a little vinegar to make a paste then add. 
Cook until mixture thickens, if mixture is too thin add a little more cornflour or if too thick add little extra vinegar.  Will also thicken when cool. Water bath to seal and store in dark cupboard until ready to use.
and then I was over it . . .
the rest of the tomatoes got blanched, peeled and frozen for adding to recipes at a later date. 

And thats what I did with yesterday's tomatoes TODAY...

9 comments:

  1. I'll be watching out for a box of cheap tomatoes now! Yummy. I really want to taste some of those semi-dried tomatoes:)

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  2. Wow - you have done extremely well to get all those tomatoes transformed so quickly. All looks great - well done. I can see that you're an efficient worker, I thank that would have taken me a week.

    BTW - thanks for dropping over to my blog. I'm sorry because I just realised I didn't get back to you after your comment. Thanks - enjoying your blog immensely. cheers Wendy

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  3. Fantastic! How many kilos did you get? I was playing with tomatoes yesterday too..much fun. Would love to try drying tomatoes and storing them in oil sometime. Chutneys and relishes always confuse me too. And jam! Where does Tomato Jam fit into it all?? :)

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  4. Hello! Thx for the visit! Lovely to meet you :)
    I giggled when I read about your tomato haul and your mum and fruit salad!
    I'd love a food dehydrator! What else will you dry?

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  5. Yes Mrs Moo, your the lucky one, I can bring some up to you this weekend!

    Wendy, I can also be quite a procrastinater, This has just been a very productive week...

    Hi Cristine, I didn't actually weigh them up but I would have had at least 5 kg. You know my chutney/relish could probably even be Jam, it's pretty sweet...nice on crackers with cheese...

    Mrs Bok, Lovely to meet you too...Dehydrating was very interesting...will try to pick up some cheap stonefruit from the shops if there is still any left around and perhaps do some apricots... or maybe apples, I will just have to keep my eye on that throwout table...

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  6. Nice to meet you. (via Kids and Canning Jars) A Italian lady advised me to us vegetable oil which would be cheaper than olive oil , adding a pinch of sugar into the jar as well. I made my first batch and it started to ferment, so asked someone in the know. Hope yours is OK.

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  7. Nice to meet you too Rina, and Welcome to Gooseberry Jam. Interesting comment you made... Much to my disappointment, when I opened and sampled my tomatoes yesterday, they were quite fermented!!! I did think that the oil plus refrigeration may have preserved them for at least a week! Looks like I may have to do a bit more research on this too. . . Did the sugar help?

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  8. Hi Gooseberry Jam,
    The bottle of Tomatoes I made about a month ago is still sitting in my fridge unopened. So can't report back on the results, expect it still looks good.

    I should really make a pizza or something with tomtoes on (soon). And yes I will do a post on some biscuits soon and if you like I can post you a copy of the booklet. Just send me a pm via D2E Daisysmum or rinaspostbox@live.com.au.
    see ya.Rina

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  9. Love your blog and what you are achieveing ,good one you and i love your recipes i definitely will be trying some.

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Karen

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