By: Kelly O'Brien | October 04 2011
Posted in Eugene - Cook It - Eugene

Photo by: Kelly O'Brien

Fall has technically begun (though it seems no one's told the sunshine and 85-degree days), and while there is some excitement about impending stews, roasts, risottos and the like, some of us aren't quite ready to say goodbye to summer. Particularly, to our summer tomatoes.

With such a late season this year, many Eugene gardens are overrun with big, happy tomato plants, weighed down with ripe fruit. While we certainly encourage enjoying them fresh off the vine, we also know that there can, in fact, be such a thing as too many tomatoes—just ask Mike Haley, Professor and Department Head in the University of Oregon Department of Chemistry.

Beautiful Super Marzano tomatoes grown (and photographed) by Mike Haley.

Haley has earned a reputation in his department for his gardening skills, particularly when it comes to the patch of 6-to-8-foot tall tomato plants in his backyard, which have already produced over 50 pounds of fruit this season. But Haley is no newcomer to tomato overload, and he's developed a foolproof and delicious solution.

Every year, Haley takes the bounty of his tomato grove and roasts and freezes them for use throughout the rest of the year. (And if you're wondering, yes, you absolutely can get through 50+ pounds of tomatoes in a year.)

Haley grows roma-style tomatoes—he's a particular fan of the Super Marzano—and so this technique works best with these and other high-sugar, high-pectin varieties. He roasts them eight pounds at a time, and while time consuming, the approach is pretty straightforward:

Blanch, peel, seed and coarsely chop the tomatoes. Toss them with a chopped onion, some minced garlic, some chopped peppers (Haley uses gypsy peppers, but whatever you have on hand will do), and spread them on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with Italian seasonings, salt, and whatever other spices you like and roast in a 250-degree oven for 4-8 hours, stirring once, until they've lost the desired amount of liquid.

Simple stuff, but the end result is rich, roasted tomato concentrate that you'll be happy to pull out of the freezer all year long.

“I use this for anything that calls for tomatoes,” Haley says. “And it makes the best tomato sauce you've ever had in your life.”

Haley's cure for canned tomatoes got us thinking about other ways to ensure that a) your tomato bumper crop doesn't go to waste and b) you don't spend all winter pining fruitlessly (hee-hee) for from-the-garden goodness.

A close cousin to Haley's concoction, straight-up tomato sauce for pasta also freezes beautifully and beats the pants off of sauce-from-a-jar any day. If you've got the patience, and a dehydrator, homemade sun-dried tomatoes are also a snap. But if you really want that sweet juicy tomato flavor on hand at a moment's notice, TLD offers up this Provençal-inspired Tomato Jam.

Like Haley's approach, the jam is very straightforward—after all, it is about preserving that tomato taste—and also promises a transcendent tomato experience. Add this jam to your next grilled cheese sandwich and you'll never go back.

Discover more ways to enjoy end-of-summer tomatoes on The Local Dish.

Kelly O'Brien is a freelance writer based in Eugene, Oregon. There's little in this life she loves more than cooking, whether it's roasting a chicken for a family dinner, assembly-lining tamales with friends and margaritas, or improvising a solo lunch with whatever she has in the fridge.

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