Tomato Tips

Whether you grow your own tomatoes or buy a bushel at a farm market, you’ll appreciate these tips from fellow readers:

Fresh tomatoes sliced vertically rather than horizontally will stay firmer in your salad and help keep the dressing from getting watery. —Ruby W., Bogalusa, Louisiana

Put extra garden tomatoes in a plastic freezer bag and store in your freezer. To use in soup, stew or sauce, just hold the frozen tomatoes under warm water, and the skins will slip right off. Drop the whole skinless tomatoes into the pot—they’ll break up during cooking, which also saves time chopping. —Elaine T., Palmetto, Florida

When our garden is producing a bountiful harvest of tomatoes, I make tomato "muffins." I ladle peeled and cored tomatoes into muffin pans and pop them in the freezer. When they’re solid, I take the tomatoes out of the pans and slip them into plastic bags, so they’re ready to add to soups, chili and other recipes. —Barbara Kynock, Centreville, Nova Scotia

At the end of the growing season, we always have a lot of green tomatoes left. Last year, we shredded some and I used them in place of zucchini in my zucchini bread recipe. It was moist and yummy. —Linda B., Overland, Missouri

To quickly use a huge supply of garden tomatoes, I wash and core them, then puree in the blender with lemon juice, onion and celery to taste. This makes a great vegetable juice. I simmer several batches until slightly thickened for spaghetti sauce or until very thick for pizza sauce. I store it in the freezer. —Marion W., Greenfield, Wisconsin

A quick way to core tomatoes is to slice off the end and use a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the core. —Nancy Johnson, Lombard, Illinois

To ripen green garden tomatoes, put them in brown paper bags. Don’t stack too many in one bag, or they might get bruised. Check them every few days and remove the ripe ones. —Delia Kennedy, Deer Park, Washington