nikgregory
New member
This year apparently has been a banner year for tomatoes at the farm that grows our vegs and I found myself with more tomatoes than I know what to do with. With 10 pounds of the 'maters sitting on the counter I had the nutty idea to smoke roast them (rather than oven roasted - which I did to another 10 pounds of tomatoes).
Take your time and enjoy my trials, tribulations and eventual joy and success. This made about 3 quarts of sauce.
The start:
The middle:
The Finish:
Take the 8 pounds or tomatoes and lay cut side down on 1/2 sheet pan in a single layer. Get the bright idea that this just might not fit into the #2 (it doesn't).
Scramble around for smaller jelly roll pans and settle on 2 pyrex baking dishes and the metal tray from your toaster oven.
Note to self to get some 1/4 sheet jelly roll pans.
Sprinkle kosher salt over the tops of the tomatoes
Drizzle Olive oil over the tops
Into the smoker @ 250 for 2-2.5 hours
Take out mmm...mmm... smells good
Take a taste... Starts out nice but ends bitter... Over smoked.
So what to do!
I still had two pounds of tomatoes to deal with that had not been cooked.
So take everything from the smoker transfer into a large roasting pan
Add 2 pounds of halved and stemmed tomatoes mix and pop into a 350F oven for 1-1.5 hours.
Take out of the oven and scratch head. What is all this extra liquid? This does not happen when oven roasting. I suspect that the smoker retains a significantly larger amount of moisture than an over for two reasons 1) not as hot, 2) no real vent to emit moisture.
Now to the finish:
There is still some bitterness and gobs of tomato juice (and I use that term loosely) in the roasting pan so instead of whole roasted tomatoes, lets make a sauce.
Transfer all the contents of the roasting pan into a very large sauce pan.
Blend until smooth with an immersion blender.
Add the garlic, onion, rosemary and sage.
Simmer at low to medium heat till reduced by 1/4 to 1/2 stirring occasionally(about 1-2 hours).
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Lessons learned:
Take your time and enjoy my trials, tribulations and eventual joy and success. This made about 3 quarts of sauce.
The start:
- 8 pounds Roma tomatoes halved and stems removed
- 3 oz mequite chunks <-- this was too much prob 1.5 oz would be better
- kosher salt
- olive oil
The middle:
- 2 pounds halved tomatoes with stems removed
The Finish:
- 2 medium onions very finely diced
- 6 cloves of garlic very finely minced
- 1 tbls fresh sage finely chopped
- 1 tbls fresh rosemary finely chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
Take the 8 pounds or tomatoes and lay cut side down on 1/2 sheet pan in a single layer. Get the bright idea that this just might not fit into the #2 (it doesn't).
Scramble around for smaller jelly roll pans and settle on 2 pyrex baking dishes and the metal tray from your toaster oven.
Note to self to get some 1/4 sheet jelly roll pans.
Sprinkle kosher salt over the tops of the tomatoes
Drizzle Olive oil over the tops
Into the smoker @ 250 for 2-2.5 hours
Take out mmm...mmm... smells good
Take a taste... Starts out nice but ends bitter... Over smoked.
So what to do!
I still had two pounds of tomatoes to deal with that had not been cooked.
So take everything from the smoker transfer into a large roasting pan
Add 2 pounds of halved and stemmed tomatoes mix and pop into a 350F oven for 1-1.5 hours.
Take out of the oven and scratch head. What is all this extra liquid? This does not happen when oven roasting. I suspect that the smoker retains a significantly larger amount of moisture than an over for two reasons 1) not as hot, 2) no real vent to emit moisture.
Now to the finish:
There is still some bitterness and gobs of tomato juice (and I use that term loosely) in the roasting pan so instead of whole roasted tomatoes, lets make a sauce.
Transfer all the contents of the roasting pan into a very large sauce pan.
Blend until smooth with an immersion blender.
Add the garlic, onion, rosemary and sage.
Simmer at low to medium heat till reduced by 1/4 to 1/2 stirring occasionally(about 1-2 hours).
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Lessons learned:
- Too much smoke is bad don't try and eyeball wood chunk amounts.
- 1/2 Sheet pans don't fit into the #2
- Stuff does not dry out as much in the smoker (this should have been a duh!)
- Smoked/roasted marinara tastes really good.
). Love your idea on tomatoes! If you want to get them more "dried," get a James jerky dryer. It removes the moisture, which is great for drying veggies, jerky, sausage, or anything you want to pull the moisture out of!
