preserving cherry tomatoes

i have been fortunate to find myself overrun with cherry tomatoes this year. i planted three varieties: sungold, matt's wild, and yellow pear. i also received one peacevine plant from our csa farm. between multiple plants of each of those varieties, we've had quite the bounty this year and no matter how delicious these babies are to just pop in our mouths each trip through the kitchen, we couldn't keep up.

not wanting to let them go the way of the composter, i decided to slow roast and freeze them last week. you can also freeze cherry (or full-sized) tomatoes whole and raw, but i decided to go the slow roasting route. i just halved them and spread them on a baking sheet. i drizzled the tomatoes with olive oil, salt, thyme, and oregano (you can use any seasonings you like). i cooked them at 300 degrees for 2 hours. once cooked, they cooled pretty quickly and i packed them into jars. i didn't measure how many i had to begin with, but i ended up with 3 half-pint jars for the freezer. i know these will come in handy to throw in soups, stews, lasagnas, sauces, or more over the winter. keep in mind, you can do the same with full sized tomatoes.

i got this idea from this post from food in jars. marisa has some other great ideas there for preserving small tomatoes.

how have you been preserving your harvest these days?

cherry tomatoes

when planning our garden this year, we knew that we only needed one type of cherry tomato, matt's wild. it is a sprawling, unruly tomato that's so prolific it's almost ridiculous. the tomatoes are tiny but flavorful, and the plant is a little more resistant to blight and other tomato diseases than most.

we've had two frost warnings so far this autumn but neither really amounted to anything, so the matt's wild cherry tomatoes keep coming. this is not a bad thing.



last summer i was obsessed with local kitchen's cherry tomato confit. i made the recipe numerous times over the course of the summer and the fall of 2010. this year, however, i had not made it once. this past weekend i set out to remedy that.



i had plenty of tomatoes so i doubled the recipe.




our italian parsley is still going strong, sprawling everywhere in fact, so i was happy to snip a large bunch for this recipe. as for the other herbs in the recipe, i substituted our own dried oregano for the basil.



you need to set aside time for this recipe as the tomatoes are cooked at a low temperature for around two hours. my husband and i were getting hungry so i pulled mine out a little on the early side.



as i'm a southern girl, i spooned the cherry tomato confit on top of grits and added plenty of cracked pepper. i also love the confit spread onto a slice of warm homemade bread or as a filling in a grilled cheese sandwich. this time, i threw the leftover confit into a broccoli and cheddar quiche. also amazing. so many uses!

thanks local kitchen!

sungolds

so let's talk cherry tomatoes shall we.

or should i say cherry tomato. because in my book there really is only one.

don't get me wrong i do love other varieties like "matt's wild cherry", "sweet olive" and "black cherry". they really are very tasty and beautiful too.

but when i spy that first orange "sungold" on the vine and pop the sun warmed fruit into my mouth, i remember why i love summer so much.

my girls think they taste like candy and i couldn't agree more. once i pop one into my mouth i just can't stop.

they hardly make their way into a salad or salsa before the basket is emptied.

but i don't mind. for once it's nice to say to the girls "go ahead, eat as much candy as you like!"