we’re up to our armpits in tomatoes – sun-dried tomato pesto

You’ll have to bear with me for a while. The posts lately have been heavy on the food side, not to mention heavy on tomatoes lately, but it is that time of year around here. Everything is ready at the same time in the garden. We can’t seem to give enough of it away and I feel like I shouldn’t let it go to waste, so there has been a lot of time spent in the kitchen. Ok, a lot is relative. There has been more time spent in the kitchen than usual with lots of summertime lounging around thrown in. I have brief periods of intense activity followed by something a lot less intense. Start slowly and taper off.

Maybe 40 or 50 tomato plants was too many. Some of those were volunteer plants, though. I didn’t think they would be so abundant. Our garden is starting to look a little like The Day of the Triffids. Some of those plants might soon grow legs and attempt to take over the planet.

Last night we wanted pizzas and I had been thinking of using the oven dried tomatoes in olive oil on them, but instead I decided to make a pesto and use it instead of the pizza sauce. It was great with cooked chicken, green pepper slices and ricotta cheese, definitely a keeper. I’ll be making more and freezing it for future pizzas. This is a bit of an un-recipe – these measurements are an approximation because I eyeballed the entire thing and kept going with the ingredients until it looked and tasted right. My pesto was thick because I wanted it for a pizza sauce, but it would be easily loosened up with some more olive oil. I used walnuts only because that is what I had on hand – you can use pine nuts, or toasted almonds or even roasted pumpkin seeds. If you want a vegan option, subsitute nutritional yeast for the parmesan cheese.

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto (or Pizza Sauce)

• 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of the oil the tomatoes were packed in (or olive oil, if they weren’t)
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/2  cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1  small bunch basil (or parsley)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• salt and pepper
• 1 small ripe tomato (optional)

Puree everything together in a food processor until smooth. I added in the tomato to give a bit more red colour to the pesto and I liked the consistancy it gave. You can leave it out, but the pesto will be a bit more green in colour.

This made enough for the pizza, with some leftover for pasta later in the week. Or maybe a pasta salad.

Linked to Frugally Sustainable, Gastronomical Sovereignty, Live Renewed, GNOWFGLINS, White Wolf Summit Farmgirl, A Pinch of Joy

what to do with an overkill of grape tomatoes – oven dried tomatoes

I am currently able to pick a colander of these grape tomatoes every day from our garden. As we did last year, I think we may have gone slightly overboard with the tomato plants. Last year we had more than 30 tomato plants, this year we have that many plus the volunteer plants that came up between the rows. So..

I wanted to try out oven drying some tomatoes. We use them all of the time as pizza toppings and I’ve used them occasionally on pasta, so it seemed reasonable to make them myself. And other than the time involved in the baking, it is just about the easiest thing you can possibly make. This batch (two full cookie sheets worth) made enough for some quick snacking straight out of the oven and I’ll keep the rest in the fridge for use on pizzas over the next week or two. Once my roma tomatoes are ripe, I’ll do this again several more times and put the results in the freezer to last through the winter.

And this is all that you do:

Sun Oven Dried Tomatoes

• tomatoes (I used grape, will try again with romas, but you can probably use any small, ripe tomato)
• salt and pepper
• chopped basil (optional)

Slice the tomatoes lengthwise and place cut side up on a baking sheet. You can use parchment paper or a silpat, but I didn’t with the tiny little tomatoes and they didn’t stick at all (larger tomatoes might). Sprinkle with salt and pepper and chopped basil (if you want) and pop into a 200F oven until they’ve reached a dried, fruit leathery stage. I’d read that small tomatoes should only take 2-3 hours, but mine took 5 hours with the convection fan on.  It will take even longer for larger tomatoes. Start early in the day and let them go all day long if you need to. Make lots, because you will immediately eat half of them right out of the oven. They really are that good.

Linked to I Did It Tuesday, A Pinch of Joy, Frugally Sustainable, This Chick Cooks, Simple Lives Thursday, A Pinch of Joy, A Delightful Home, Foy Update – Eat, Make, Grow, Gastronomical Sovereignty