Fall Line Farms and Local Roots

TOO MANY TOMATOES? WANT TO SAVE SOME SUMMER FOR WINTER?

We can help with this simple, delicious, freezable recipe!
All you need are tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil, and sea salt. You’ll also need a rimmed baking sheet and, if you want to peel the tomatoes, a set of kitchen tongs.

Any kind of tomatoes will work--even the little teeny ones. You can follow this method all the way to the end, or you stop at simply roasting them, and then packing them plain into a plastic container to freeze for use later. (Don’t skip the salt, though.) Or you can fancy them up a little with roasted garlic and wilted basil, as we’re doing here.

GET ROASTIN’!

Wash your tomatoes.

Drizzle a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil.

If the tomatoes are large, slice them in half and arrange them on the baking sheet with the cut side down (peeling up). If they’re cherry tomatoes, you can just throw them on the cookie sheet in wild abandon.

Place the tomatoes in a 450 degree oven. Roast them until they begin to collapse a little. Begin checking them at about 10 minutes.

While the tomatoes are roasting, slice several large cloves of garlic. You can add as little or as much as you like. I usually slice about 3 large cloves per baking sheet of tomatoes.

TO PEEL OR NOT TO PEEL?

If you don’t like the peels on your tomatoes, then once they’re hot and the peels are loose, pull the sheet out of the oven and set it on top of the stove. At this point, you can easily remove the peels with a set of kitchen tongs and throw them in the compost. They’ll just lift right off of the tomatoes. If the peels aren’t loose yet, just put them back in the oven for a few minutes and check again.

Here’s an admission. If they are little tomatoes, I often just leave the peels in the mix. They don’t hurt anything. But you do you!

At this point, you should sprinkle sea salt over the tomatoes, to your taste. You can add some pepper, too. Then sprinkle the garlic slices over the tomatoes drizzle again with olive oil.

Roast until the tomatoes are jammy, caramelized, and not so liquidy. While they’re roasting, prepare your basil for wilting over top of them when you pull them out.

BASIL MAKES IT BETTER

I usually chiffonade the basil leaves (stack them on top of each other and then roll them into a cylinder, then cut so that the pieces come out in long strips). You can also just chop the basil or tear it and sprinkle it over the hot tomatoes, then stir to combine them.

Let the whole thing cool, then pack into freezer bags or freezer containers. When I’m using a freezer container, I usually put a thin layer of olive oil over the top just to create an additional air barrier. Be sure to mark the container with the date and the ingredients.

SAVOR LATER!

If you don’t like basil, feel free to substitute with any herb that suits your fancy. Oregano comes to mind as a great choice for tomatoes. Or use minced onion instead of garlic.

These tomatoes will bring August to your plate in February. Impress your company (and yourself) by warming them up and serving them with grated parmesan cheese over pasta or a cooked chicken breast. Add crusty bread and a fabulous salad for a wonderfully simple meal. read more...

The Center for Rural Culture's Fall Line Farms and Local Roots is Richmond Virginia's non-profit online farmers market.

Order what you want. Shop by the item with no minimum order.
Order when you want. Shop as often or as little as you like.
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Thank you for supporting our local producers! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us. read more...

Each week our producers post the products they have available, setting their own prices, uploading their own descriptions and photos. You can read about their farming practices and contact them directly with questions.

Using our Buying Pages, you shop online with us any time between Friday at noon to Monday at midnight. You pay for your order online and then pick it up on the following Thursday afternoon at one of our Richmond area pickup locations.

Orders are delivered fresh, straight from the farms on Thursdays. Our producers share in the delivery process and we rely on volunteers to sort the orders at the pickup locations. This cooperative system allows us to keep delivery costs down to a minimum meaning more money goes back to the producers. read more...

Fall Line Farms and Local Roots opened in the fall of 2008 with one goal in mind, to help small farms through the challenging season ahead. Since then, we have grown and developed but never wavered from this basic focus.

Our program allows small farms to sell their products as they come available at a competitive fair price that is set by them.

There is no minimum supply required for them to sell, allowing very small start up farms to grow and expand into a larger marketplace. We like to think of ourselves as an incubator for small sustainable farms.

Because our producers share in the delivery, we are able to keep our costs low. That means more money goes back to the farms. We are not a reseller. When you order you are buying directly from the producers in our market. read more...