With Maggie Mehaffey
With all the heat this summer, it's been a perfect year for tomatoes. Nothing tastes better than a perfectly ripe tomato when it's allowed to fully develop on the vine. At Mehaffey Farms, the first tomato treat of the season is always a large platter of thickly sliced ripened beauties layered with equally thick slices of fresh mozzarella, drizzled with a balsamic reduction and lots of sea salt and pepper.According to Maggie Mehaffey those first tomatoes are always satisfying, but when you grow so many tomatoes you have to have many choices to get you through the whole tomato season. Fresh tomato soup is another of the solutions. It does not take long to cook, and the taste of fresh grown onions and basil make for a perfect dish. One tip – do not add the cream when the soup is very hot. Take it off the burner first so that it will not curdle.
On the farm they grow a variety of both heirlooms and hybrids. Hybrids include the popular Beefsteak, Big Boy, and Early Girl tomatoes that are bred for their perfect round shape and bright red color. While these are perfectly delicious and fragrant when harvested at their peak, they personally prefer the heirlooms with their oddly shaped strange bulbous outgrowths, like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and German Striped. ”These far outshine the modern varieties for flavor. We are extra busy now in the kitchen preserving as much of our tomato harvest as we can to enjoy through the winter months,” says Maggie.
Preserving tomatoes couldn't be simpler and will allow you to enjoy the soup all winter long. Blanch them for about 1 minute in a big pot of boiling water. Immediately plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. This loosens the skins. Peel, and put them whole, or cut into quarters into gallon-sized bags and throw into the freezer. Even though it takes time and effort, it's well worth it. When the only available tomatoes at the supermarket taste like cardboard, we'll still be enjoying our heirloom varieties out of the freezer, and in sauces and salsas.
On the farm they are also focused on how to store their herbs. If you want your basil to remain fresh and flavorful, just put it into a jar, cover with a plastic bag and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. After you have used what you want, cover back up and put into the refrigerator again. It will stay fresh for about a week.
