Tomatoes in October
Tomatoes weighing a pound to and ounce fill the basket. Makings for the last garden fresh ratatouille and gazpacho are in this basket.
October 2017 tomato, pepper and eggplant harvest is the biggest all year. Everyday from now on is borrowed time. Green tomatoes just a few days from ripening can be picked just before that first frost warning.
The dehydrator is filled with tomatoes. Some will be made into tomato powder. It will thicken and enrich soups and sauces. Plus, this dehydrated bounty takes up very little room. A good thing since the pantry and freezer are loaded.
All the tomatoes and peppers that the family will eat from now till next summer, are canned, dried or frozen. I bought some of the produce at the farmers market, including onions, corn and green beans. I know where this food came from and how it is grown.
True homesteading isn’t possible in our case. But eating locally grown, tomatoes all year is possible. That includes fresh tomatoes for 5 or 6 months, plus, all the salsa, pasta sauce, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato soup we will eat for one year.
The canned, dried or frozen tomatoes will go into, chili, soups, stew, enchiladas, and casseroles. It’s comforting to know that we won’t have to buy any tasteless mass market tomatoes or imported peppers all year.
Tomato soup made fresh from scratch.
Whole paste tomatoes are frozen. On a cold snowy day the full bag will simmer on the stove top into something “tomatoey”. Maybe a dark, thick tomato sauce simmered low and slow, or vegetable soup.
These fresh picked heirloom tomatoes will be savored fresh as insalata Caprese, ratatouille, gazpacho and in salads.
There are a few more tomatoes, peppers, eggplant. The only other produce left in the garden are herbs and sweet potatoes. Butternut squash is curing on the covered porch.
