What to do with an Abundance of Summer Garden Tomatoes
Fresh garden tomatoes are great for making homemade marinara sauce for pastas and other Italian recipes come fall. At the end of every growing season, it seems there is inevitably some vegetable planted that produces so much that you don’t know what to do with it all. It’s hard to know what will take off and what won’t. You know, that year I decided to use half my raised beds for kale? Not my best gardening decision. That became the summer I realized we didn’t quite love kale to the abundance of which my garden gave us.
But fresh garden tomatoes in the summer are a go-to choice of almost any home gardener. And I’m no exception. Here, in Denver, I’ve had summers where my tomato plants have done great and others where they’ve hardly produced at all. So naturally, for our household of two, I decide to plant 2-3 tomato plants each year in hopes that one or two will take off. This year, all three took off! So when August came around, I was up to my ears in tomatoes.
During the summer months, what we can’t eat raw and in salads, I love using to make fresh salsas. But once September rolls around, our Denver nights get cooler and it halts the ripening of the fruit on the plant. This leaves many mature green tomatoes on my plants lingering through the final days of summer. There is no real hope of them turning red before the first frost of fall.
Before you get too down thinking of the tragic fate of these poor tomatoes, they get saved! Yes! Every year in late September just before the weather forecast potentially dips below 40 degrees, I pluck every last one of the green tomatoes from my plants. I gather them into a cardboard box to ripen up indoors. This is when I know that the start of homemade marinara sauce making season is right around the corner! And so is the potential for amazing home cooked dinners!
It seems to take 2-3 weeks for most of the tomatoes to ripen up. I just keep them completely covered in the cardboard box (with a lid) in normal room temperature. Every few days I check the box to pull out the most ripe tomatoes and once I have about 20 – 30 ripe ones, it’s time to make homemade pasta sauce!
Preparing Tomatoes for the Pasta Sauce
Many times I start the homemade marinara sauce process by just quartering the tomatoes whole (skins and all) and tossing them in a large pot. This year, I decided to first remove the skins quickly and easily by roasting in the oven. It’s so simple. You just preheat the oven to 475° and roast for 35 minutes or until the skins start to shrivel and brown. Then you set them out until they are cool enough to handle and the skins just pull right off.
Cooking the Marinara Sauce Recipe
Once all the skins are separated from the tomatoes, put the rest of the pulp including seeds (I think they add great texture once blended into the pasta sauce) into a large pot. Add garlic and white onion. I actually used a quartered onion this time for the flavor, but typically I dice the white onion right in with the tomatoes to become part of the marinara. I also like to add a carrot. It adds some sweetness to the acidity of the tomato sauce.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer this uncovered for 1 – 2 hours until you get the desired consistency. Many times, I’ve found the cook time depends on how juicy the tomatoes are. You want to cook the liquid out of the tomatoes (hence, the reason for the leaving the pot uncovered) until it’s a sauce-like consistency.
I add any fresh Italian herbs I have on hand during the last 10 minutes of cooking. This time, I still had fresh parsley from my garden that I diced and added to the pot. But oregano or basil is great, too. Get out your spoon at this point and start sampling to see what you need to add — garlic powder, onion powder, sun dried tomatoes can all add great flavor!
Adding the Final Ingredients
After your fresh herbs simmer for 10 minutes or so, now is the time to blend the simmering tomatoes into the liquid. I love using an immersion blender for this. Seriously, you need one of these! An immersion blender makes such quick work of finishing homemade marinara sauces or soups. You can take the immersion blender right into the hot pot in which it was cooking and blend all of the goodness together.
Once blended, it’s either time for canning or, like I’m doing on this particular day, I’m just putting it into a jar to refrigerate and use within the next week. I love canning homemade marinara sauces when I have time, but let’s be real. Sometimes you don’t have time for that extra step and just need to get 30 tomatoes processed quickly before they go bad. There is something so satisfying about seeing your homegrown tomatoes turn into a homemade pasta sauce. It’s looking like spaghetti will be on the dinner menu this week!
RECIPE FOR HOMEMADE MARINARA SAUCE
1 head of small garlic (cloves peeled)
20 – 30 homegrown garden tomatoes halved and oven roasted
1 carrot
1/2 white onion diced (or quartered for flavor and pulled out before blending)
1/4 cup of fresh Italian parsley (and/or other fresh Italian herbs)
kosher salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
Half garden tomatoes and roast in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the skins wilt and start to brown. Let tomatoes cool enough to handle and separate skins from the tomatoes. After the skins are removed, place the tomatoes into a large stock pot with whole garlic cloves and carrot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer mixture uncovered on low heat for 1 to 2 hours until some of the tomato liquid has evaporated and it looks like more of a sauce consistency.
During the last 10 minutes, add any fresh herbs and let simmer into the mixture. Turn off heat. Use an immersion blender to blend the mixture into the marinara sauce. Use a hot water bath canning method for longer storing or simply jar and refrigerate for use within a week.
