Which tomatoes to junk and which for sauce?

[gunslingor]

Hey, just making some sauce and wanted second opinions. I think I can remove the gross parts from these tomatoes and still use them right? Or is it dangerous? Just trying to get a better feel for when to toss...

Here is my current harvest, pain they ripen not all at once... guess I should cook half and wait a week on the rest?

 

[Anniekay]

Yes, just cut that off and use what's good. I make sauce with mine this way every year. Then I freeze the excess.

 

[Ruderunner]

Nice haul.

Freezing sauce works but we prefer canning. Jars and shelf space are cheaper than buying yet another freezer.

 

[nao57]

I like it! Keep up the good work. That is a nice haul; I agree with Ruderunner on this.

So on those pictures.... I would try to cut off the bad parts on everything and try to save what you can. You should do this. Its also reasonable and normal. People do that all the time. Probably your grandmothers did this way back when also. And we have stuff like this very common; especially the one where the top cracked open by the stem and then healed up; we get those looking just like that all the time. We always save what we can and get rid of the bad parts.

You'll feel good about knowing what to do in this situation now also, now that you know what to do.

But you can also smell the insides of the tomato after cutting off bad parts. If it doesn't smell good still you can toss it. The only one that is really questionable is that 2nd picture from the top going down doesn't look real great and will probably be edible but be low water content; and that means it won't taste good.

Also... one thing you can do is if you know that some of them got eaten by bugs or there's too much damage to save much on that tomato... if its from a good strong plant then you can use that stuff to take seeds from to use for next year. So this way you still can use them somehow! And that will save you money!

 

[gunslingor]

I like it! Keep up the good work. That is a nice haul; I agree with Ruderunner on this.

So on those pictures.... I would try to cut off the bad parts on everything and try to save what you can. You should do this. Its also reasonable and normal. People do that all the time. Probably your grandmothers did this way back when also. And we have stuff like this very common; especially the one where the top cracked open by the stem and then healed up; we get those looking just like that all the time. We always save what we can and get rid of the bad parts.

You'll feel good about knowing what to do in this situation now also, now that you know what to do.

But you can also smell the insides of the tomato after cutting off bad parts. If it doesn't smell good still you can toss it. The only one that is really questionable is that 2nd picture from the top going down doesn't look real great and will probably be edible but be low water content; and that means it won't taste good.

Also... one thing you can do is if you know that some of them got eaten by bugs or there's too much damage to save much on that tomato... if its from a good strong plant then you can use that stuff to take seeds from to use for next year. So this way you still can use them somehow! And that will save you money!

Yeah, I tossed that one. Cut into it and black was deep.

I have my sauce ready... and still twice as many tomatoes as I had before , maybe my romas are finally slowing down, might plant more. I'm gonna sun dry a lot of these I think... definitely removing the white inner parts first, those parts got real tough when I dried in the dehydrator last year.

Plant porn

Survivors of the deer attack, with war scares

dieing melon nightmares

 

[smitty55]

All I grow are heirloom tomatoes that are very flavourful and super meaty so I never grow paste tomatoes for sauce, they just can't compare. When you open a jar of sauce or salsa the first thing you smell are those tomatoes. I have folks tell my my salsa is the best they've ever had and it's all because of the tomatoes. I even tried San Marzano one season as an experiment and while they were better than Romas still no comparison.
What I don't understand in your case is why you picked all those under ripe Romas, even if they do ripen further the flavour profile still suffers compared to ripening on the plant.
Cheers

 

[gunslingor]

What I don't understand in your case is why you picked all those under ripe Romas, even if they do ripen further the flavour profile still suffers compared to ripening on the plant.
Cheers

Seems like a highly subjective, unproven and potentially incorrect assertion. All testing seems to indicate its untrue, once they reach the breaker stage they are cut off from the main stem. That being said, food is most certainly just as much an art as it is a science, and this could certainly still be a truth... but even if it is a truth, there are many other factors at play. Disease, animals, sunscald, etc... all can affect the end result... some things tend to like ripe fruit more. All that being said, I picked this time mostly because I wanted to get it done, lol... Tell you what, batch 4 which will hopefully be the last batch of romas (lol) I will wait till they are all red, we'll see if there is a difference.

Hey, give me that salsa recipe canning instructions and all plzzzz... will have many heirlooms coming in soon... brandy wine, mortgage lifter, pink fang, prairie fire, pink fire, pink jjaz, pink tiger... I think that's it... should have grown a yellow... our yeah, and blush tiger that we decapitated by a dear and has grown back medusa style.

 

[smitty55]

Pretty well every comment here agrees that for best flavour tomatoes are best left on the plant to ripen and all the gardeners that I know feel the same way. I've been growing my Greeks for 30 years now and they always stay on the plant until completely ripe to the point where I can put a dent in the tomato with light pressure. They can be all red but if I can't put that dent in them they will still have some white flesh inside. I couldn't care less what anyone else says, I prove it every time I have a toasted tomato sandwich or BLT with these plant ripened fruit, they are the best tasting tomatoes I've ever had in my life and that has been tested against several other heirlooms over the years including brandy wine which don't even come close in comparison. This year I'm trying some German Pink for the first time as I swapped some seeds with a organic heirloom supplier. So far in direct comparison their growth rate is falling well behind my Greeks but they're supposed to have real good flavour from what I've read so we'll see in a month or so.
As for the salsa, it's not necessarily the recipe that makes it so much as it's the tomatoes that make the difference.

 

[gunslingor]

All good... legally speaking, in the USA, unfortunately the term vine-ripenned is defined as being picked when color breaks. Our government is so underfunded and corrupted. Ill let the rest sit... not a fan of raw tomatoes so might not notice any difference. Will see theoughout the year.