From Garden to Table: 2 Tasty Ways to Use Your Tomato Bounty

🍅 Have you recently harvested an abundance of tomatoes and are wondering what to do with them? Look no further! In this video, I explore quick and easy recipes that will help you make the most of your fresh tomatoes. 🌿

First up, I’ll guide you through the process of making a delicious tomato soup with fresh croutons. This comforting dish is not only a family favorite but also a perfect way to enjoy the rich flavors of your homegrown tomatoes. 🥣✨

Next, I’ll whip up a simple yet tasty Pasta Pomodoro that highlights the natural sweetness of ripe tomatoes. This Italian classic is quick to prepare and makes for a delightful meal any day of the week. 🍝❤️

Join me in the kitchen as I share tips on how to maximize your tomato harvest with these two fantastic recipes! Don’t forget to grab your fresh herbs and spices to elevate the flavors even more. 🌱

If you find these recipes helpful, please give this video a thumbs up 👍, and subscribe for more culinary inspiration! What’s your favorite way to use tomatoes? Let me know in the comments below! 👇

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Ingredients:

Croutons for the tomato soup:
Whichever white bread you have or like: baguette, french bread, ciabatta etc.
Garlic, crushed
Salt to taste
Olive oil to coat

Tomato Soup – 2 servings:
2 lbs fresh ripe tomatoes
2 to 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 bunch of fresh basil
1/2 cup heavy cream or 1 to 2 tbs cold butter to make it creamy (optional)
1 small shallot, red onion or torpedo onion chopped medium fine
Salt to taste
2 tbs olive oil
Water or vegetable broth should the soup be too thick

Pasta Pomodoro – 2 servings:
160 / good 5oz dried chunky long pasta like Bucatini, square spaghetti, linguini or regular spaghetti
Plenty salt to cook the pasta

2 lbs fresh ripe tomatoes
2 to 4 cloves garlic
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 small red onion, shallot or torpedo onion chopped medium fine (optional)
1/2 bunch of basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Pecorino Romano ro Parmesan for serving (optional)

Method:
➡️ Cut the bread into cubes about an inch in size. Toss with the olive oil, crushed garlic and salt to coat thoroughly
➡️ Spread the croutons on a sheet or single layer in a air fryer and toast until golden brown and crunchy – about 10 minutes around 380 degrees
➡️ Set aside until needed

➡️ Chop the tomatoes into rough pieces. Medium dice the onion.
➡️ In a preheated pot, add olive oil, onion and crushed garlic (I like to add garlic before serving, but that’s a personal preference for stronger flavor)
➡️ Sautee for a few minutes, don’t let the garlic brown
➡️ Add the chopped tomatoes and a good pinch of salt. Cover and sautee for about 10 min until the tomatoes are soft.
➡️ Run the tomatoes thru a food mill or if you have a high powered blender that can handle the skins just blend it smooth
➡️ Return to the pot, add basil and let steep for a few minutes. Remove the basil
➡️ If you want the soup creamier, either add heavy cream or stir in cold butter until dissolved. If using butter, turn the heat off, do not cook the soup any more
➡️ Serve with the croutons, extra basil and a spritz of extra virgin olive oil
➡️ Alternative to croutons would be rice or any kind of bread you like

➡️ Start with cooking the pasta in salted boiling water
➡️ While the pasta is cooking, add olive oil to a preheated high walled pan or pot (large enough to hold it all)
➡️ Sautee the onions for a few minutes if using
➡️ add the tomatoes and the garlic
➡️ cover and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Squeeze some of the tomatoes flat during that time to thicken the sauce a little
➡️ Add basil and salt/pepper. Remove basil after a few minutes on low
➡️ Serve over the cooked pasta with the grated cheese if using
➡️
➡ Enjoy!

Tags:
#recipe #fromscratch #cookingfromscratch
#TomatoRecipes #HomeCooking #PastaPomodoro #TomatoSoup #HarvestSeason

I spent a few days on a camping trip and on my return I found a lot of my tomatoes had suddenly ripened. It’s been a warm few days and that always makes the tomatoes pop. As you can see, some of them split and the other one overripened and has a mushy spot. So, these are the kind of tomatoes you will not make a tomato sandwich with. That said, they’re perfectly good for other uses. I’m going to do two dishes today. The first one is going to be a tomato soup and the second one is going to be pasta pomodoro. I’ve already washed these nice ripe tomatoes. And I’m just cutting out the bad spots here. No need to do much else to them other than cutting them up into pieces because all this goes through a food mill later. A rough chop is all it takes. And you can leave the green spots on because your food mill is going to take this out. For the rest of the prep, I’m using an onion. This is a torpedo onion, which personally I prefer over the classic shellot. It’s a nice sweet onion, and it’s got this like reddish meat. We don’t need all that much. So, let’s use the little one here. You don’t need to chop this up all too fine because again, we’re going to run this through a food mill. There has to be garlic in it. No way around that. And then of course we need some basil. In principle, this is all the prep there is for the tomato soup. I however want some fresh croutons on it because that soup is just perfectly suited for fresh croutons. Here’s a freshly baked baguette. It’s actually still warm. This is from Trader Joe’s. If you have one, they have this French baguette that’s par baked and you just pop it into the oven for a few minutes. It’s excellent. Of course, a good crouton needs some garlic. What else? So, let’s squeeze in some garlic here. Two cloves will do. And then add some nice extra virgin olive oil. Don’t be too skimpy. You want these things to crisp up. Add a sprinkle of kosher salt. You want every crouton coated with the oil. There’s a few pieces that are not perfectly coated yet. Add a little more oil in that case. There, they’re looking good. Now, if you wanted to, you could add a little heat to this. I’m going to refrain from it, but a little bit of cayenne pepper or a little bit of smoked paprika would do nice on these. I prepared a sheet. [Music] Spread them out. Of course, if you have an air fryer, use the air fryer. That’s a good application for it. Again, I’m just going to pop this into my convection oven for, you know, 10 minutes until they’re crisp. Roughly 350 to 400. Just go check in between and make sure you don’t burn it. And while those croutons enjoy some heat, why don’t you give this video a like and subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss another episode. In a preheated pot, start with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Maybe like two or three tablespoons. Don’t get this too hot. Evo doesn’t like over 350°. Add your onions. Little dash of salt. Once your onions have sweated for a few minutes, add your tomatoes. Give those tomatoes a tiny dash of water. Maybe like another two or three tablespoons just to get them started with liquid. Set the temperature to medium. Put a lid on and let them simmer for a few minutes until the tomatoes start to break down. It’s been about 10 minutes and this is what it looks like now. All the tomatoes have broken down. So, it’s time to run this through a food mill. If you’ve never seen one, this is a food mill. Looks like this. It has a crank with an augur and it simply pushes whatever you put in through that sif in the bottom. I tend to spoon things in. Although this is an amount that you could probably just pour in. Of course, if you’re the proud owner of a highowered blender like a Vitamix, you can simply blend this up. In that case, you should remove the green stems when prepping the tomatoes. If you’re wondering, yes, I’m running this backwards every few turns just to scrape up all the skins that sit on that ze. I’m reusing the pot. At this point, we have a really nice soupy consistency. You could add some water if yours is very thick. This, for me, is a very good soup consistency. I’m now adding the garlic. You could do that earlier. I like it when the garlic is fairly fresh in the flavoring. And I’m tossing in some basil with stems and everything. We’ll fish them out in a little bit. Of course, it needs salt. Now, we let this steep on a medium low for another few minutes. And in the meantime, you can think about what to serve with it. We have our croutons that will provide a really nice crunch. Another few minutes have passed. Very nice. Remove the basil. Now, all it needs is a little bit of creaminess. You could add a dash of heavy cream to this, which would make it quite creamy and really nice looking. Or you can emulsify the soup with a good knob of cold butter. That’s what I’m going to do. Don’t be shy here. Do not let this cook or simmer anymore. Ideally, you just turn off your stove entirely and you stir until the butter has dissolved. This will emulsify the butter into the soup and give it a nice velvety consistency. This is actually a trick that works on pretty much any sauce you’re making. Plus, the butter aroma really helps. Croutons are done. It was about 12 minutes. Nice crunchy golden. That’s exactly what you want. [Music] The pasta pomodoro starts out exactly the same as the soup we just did. We have some nice super ripe tomatoes, basil, and garlic. Of course, we need some pasta, too. Traditionally, this recipe calls for cherry tomatoes. I don’t grow any cherry tomatoes. If you do, use cherry tomatoes. Regular tomatoes, like this Early Girl, work just the same. You only have to cut them into cherry tomato sized pieces. And in this case, since we’re not running it through a food mill, take out the green parts. [Music] I’ve already peeled some garlic. And again, we’re going to need some onion. I’m using the torpedo onion. Again, traditionally there’s no onion in pasta pomodoro, so you can omit that. Personally, I like the flavor of onion in it. So, I’m cutting some onion medium fine. And that’s already the prep work. These are, after all, really quick dishes that take you about 10 15 minutes each. First, we start cooking the pasta. Add a generous amount of salt to your boiling water and then add your pasta. I’m using bukatini here. That’s a thick hollow spaghetti. Use any kind of long chunky pasta here. You could use linguini. You could use the square spaghetti or just regular spaghetti. Let’s get started on the pasta sauce. Preheated pan. Add a generous amount of olive oil. Good extra virgin olive oil is what you want here because that’s contributing a lot to the flavor. probably two tablespoons per person. Squeeze in your garlic. And if you’re non-traditional as I am, add your onions. Be careful with the temperature. I’m going fairly low here because you don’t want to burn that garlic. You only want to like infuse the oil with the garlic. Don’t forget to stir your pasta. As you can see, I’m only making one portion here because I’m going to call that dinner. The garlic is just getting a little bit of color and that’s the signal to dump in your tomatoes. The tomatoes will instantly bring liquid to the party which means it cools down the oil and therefore the garlic will stop cooking. For the basil, I’m using the stems and just retain some of the leaves for later. That way we can preflavor the whole thing here. Pinch of salt. Cover. Go to medium heat and let this simmer for just a few minutes. While this is cooking and the tomatoes are getting soft, go in there with your spoon and squeeze the tomatoes a little bit. Our pasta is cooked and so is our sauce. Remove the basil. We’re going to put more fresh one in for serving. And now scoop over your pasta. I like to do this with tongs like this simply because it transfers a little bit of the pasta water but not all that much and you retain the pasta water should you need it. This is true for pretty much any pasta sauce. [Music] There we go. [Music] Now grate a little bit of parmesan over it. Pecorino would be ideal. And there’s dinner. [Music]