the last of the tomatoes

Two weekends ago I was the very happy recipient of 20+ lb of cherry and san marzano tomatoes in varying degrees of ripeness and blemishes.  I got to sorting them as soon as I got home from the farmers market- I reserved 10 lb for bbq sauce and 10 lb for some kicked up tomato jam/marmalade/chutney.
This is the base recipe I used for my jam, but I increased the spices, particularly the ginger, added crystalized ginger chunks, and added a gallon bag of sliced meyer lemon quarters I found in the back of the freezer.  It is super spicy, still a little runny, and so excellent with goat cheese, brie, with Carolina-style shrimp and grits, and even over cream cheese and crackers.  I made at least 12 half pints of this jam! 

You can see from the photo that there were a fair number of green tomatoes included in this batch- and they were mostly cherry tomatoes.  I pulsed them in the food processor until they were just roughly chopped and I am quite delighted with this super spicy multi-use condiment. 


We use a lot of bbq sauce in my house, so I reserved the second 10 lb of tomatoes for bbq sauce. I am not really sure where my original recipe came from, but this is the same one I use every year.  We go through at least a dozen pints every year.  This batch made about 10 half pints, so I will probably need to find a box of late tomatoes from the farmers market in the coming weeks (or sacrifice some of my whole peeled tomatoes for later sauce-making).  The key to this recipe is the addition of liquid smoke (there's a really interesting discussion of liquid smoke, and how it's made, here) at the very end.  It's not too sweet, not too hot, perfect for making shredded bbq sandwiches (I use poached chicken breast for my boys' bbq craving, and chopped mushrooms for my own).

 

As you can see, my recipe has seen a lot of bubbling and spills over the years!

What are your favorite end of season tomato recipes?