It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over!
Roma tomatoes take a hot bath.
Despite what food bloggers, Instagram influencers and big box chain stores want you to believe; tomato season is far from over! I mean, WE are the tomato whisperers after all, not Walmart.
In the last three weeks alone, we’ve canned and cooked over 5,000 LBS of local tomato varieties: Romas, Yellow plums, tomatillos, cherries, Speckled Romans and green heirlooms. All by hand and with a kitchen operating at about 80% capacity right now since one of our main work-horses (that would be our 35G tilt-skillet braiser) broke down on us recently and our repair person is MIA. I don’t understand why exactly since we always pay the shyster.
I can tell you this; those days of dealing with them are ovah! What’s a small business to do besides try and make the most out of any unfortunate situation? And this situation we found ourselves in this summer wasn’t really great. Especially since we’re in the thick of tomato season. Thankfully, we are a resourceful people and have a great team behind us here at the Saucery ready to confront any situation head on.
Peeled Roma tomatoes in their own juice.
Also, we can rely on the sustainability of our supply chain coming through for us with many different tomato varieties! I’m picking up about 400 LBS of more yellow tomatoes tomorrow and getting another 2,000 LBS of local San Marzano tomatoes delivered to the Saucery within the next week alone. I don’t see it slowing down any time soon either. We have canned and cooked tomatoes well into November before and it could very well happen again this season. 2021, so far, is looking really really good. Is this a sign for better days ahead in general? I sure do hope so!
Gorgeous Green heirlooms from NYS.
Above are some beautiful green heirlooms we sourced from Upstate for pickling. Now you all know we only pickle heirlooms and never cook them into sauce since the water content is quite high but for pickling these beauties are ideal. Our Pickled Green Tomatoes are perfect for snacking or as apps for those holiday dinners coming up.
Here are some truly ugly yellow plum tomatoes we were able to get from the Hudson Valley. Not the usual yellow paste variety we prefer, but these guys impressed us with their juicy skins and meaty insides. We were able to make tomato water and juice, sauce and even can a few hundred pounds for you.
These canned yellows are perfect for cooking up bean soups, tossed fresh with grains in general or even a delicious al forno pasta dish.
We also roasted about 500 LBS of ugly Roma tomatoes from Pennsylvania recently. The deal with these guys was they were just too small to sell to stores (aka oddly shaped). Sucks for those shortsighted stores, great for us here at the Saucery!
And here we are filling up our yellow whole canned tomatoes with our special tomato water to give it that extra tom-ah-toe-ness for those cold days ahead when you’ll be wishing it were summer.
