Today, The Morning Thing celebrated the start of the 2023 Fredericktown Tomato Show. In honor of all those wonderful tomatoes from your garden, we shared some yummy recipes to try in your kitchen.

Click HERE to see 18 simple recipes from growjourney.com that will help you use up the tomatoes.

Here are some of our favorites:

Classic tomato salsa 

Ingredients:

*Makes a little over 2 cups of salsa, or four servings.

• 2 cups diced tomatoes (~1 lb)
• 1/2 cup diced red onions
• hot pepper to taste, diced 
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• juice from half of a lime
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander seed (or you can use fresh cilantro to taste)
• cumin to taste
• sea salt to taste
• Blend all ingredients until there’s an even consistency, then serve at room temperature. Or chill first, then serve if you prefer cold salsa.  

Greek-style tomato cucumber salad

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup cucumbers, sliced thin and into bite-sized pieces 
• 1/4 cup diced red onion 
• 1/2 cup feta cheese, freshly crumbled from block
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar 
• sea salt to taste

Instructions:

Combine ingredients. Chill or serve fresh at room temperature. Stores for ~12 hours in fridge before the tomatoes lose their fresh tomato texture.  

Savory tomato soup

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds fresh tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• 1 cup chicken or veggie stock 
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt to taste 

Instructions:

• Dice onions then saute in pan with olive oil until lightly browned. Put onions in blender with chopped tomatoes and blend until smooth. Keep the skins on your tomatoes – a little extra fiber is good for you!  
• Place onion-tomato blend in sauce pan and add stock. Bring to boil, stirring to make sure soup doesn’t stick. Then turn to low and let simmer until enough water has evaporated for soup to be desired thickness. (This will vary depending on the water content of the tomato varieties used.)

Fire-roasted (or oven-roasted) tomato sauce

Oven-roasting tomato sauce has a more nuanced flavor than tomato sauce that’s simply been cooked on a stovetop. And it uses a lot of tomatoes!

For this recipe you can either roast your tomatoes in a conventional oven or over a grill. 

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs fresh tomatoes
• 2 large yellow or white onions, diced
• 10 cloves garlic, diced
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 5 tablespoons fresh diced rosemary
• 5 tablespoons fresh diced thyme 
• 3 tablespoons fresh diced oregano 
• 3 tablespoons fresh diced basil 
• 1 tablespoon sea salt or to taste

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350F. (Or get your grill hot, if you’re going with fire-roasted tomatoes.) 
• Slice tomatoes in half then face them sliced-side up on a covered cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt. If using a grill, just place tomatoes face up on grate. 
• Bake until skins and tops have begun to brown/caramelize. Remove from oven then let cool. 
• In sauce pan, saute onion in olive oil until translucent, then add diced garlic (garlic cooks much more quickly than onions so don’t add at same time). Cook until slightly browned.
• Put garlic/onion mixture plus roasted tomatoes into blender and blend until smooth. Pour into saucepan and add diced herbs. 
• Bring to boil, then turn down to low and let simmer 30 minutes. Can or freeze extra.