5 Things To Do With All Those Tomatoes!

The end of summer is the perfect time to stock up on tomatoes from the farmers market. Farmers are happy to sell you a half-bushel of tomatoes. There are so many delicious ways to use tomatoes – both to eat today and to freeze for future meals. Here are 5 things you can with those delicious locally grown tomatoes.

Make Homemade Salsa: There are many different salsa recipes out there to try. An easy recipe is to chop and mix together 2-3 tomatoes, 1 small white onion, 1 bunch cilantro ( ¼ to ½ cup), 1 small jalapeno (remove seeds) and juice of 1 lime.
Make tomato sauce and freeze for future meals: Make a double batch of your favorite tomato sauce and after cooled, divide into meal-size portions and place in freezer storage bags. Tomato sauce will keep for 6 months in your freezer. Here is a basic Tomato Sauce Recipe from Allrecipes.com.
Stuff those tomatoes: There are many options on how to stuff your tomatoes. You can keep the recipe simple by filling the tomatoes with rice and cheese or choose a more complex version. Search the internet for “stuffed tomatoes” and you will find many great recipes. This is a delicious Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe from Emeril Lagasse found at foodnetwork.com.
Grill them: Grilling tomatoes is easy and yields a delicious side dish. Slice the tomato in half, gently remove the pulp, season with olive oil, salt and pepper and grill over medium heat. Try this Grilled Tomato Recipe from simplyrecipes.com.
Freeze tomatoes for use in the winter: Freezing tomatoes is an easy way to save your tomatoes to use in future recipes (refer to the YouTube video in the link for directions). You only need Ziploc bags and room in your freezer. They can be raw – you don’t even have to blanch them. Just wash, core, bag them and freeze them.

For more information on the Park Ridge Farmers Market visit www.parkridgefarmersmarket.com. Also follow us on Facebook (Park Ridge Farmers Market), Instagram (@parkridgefarmersmarket) and Twitter (@prfmkt).