Blemished toms.

mommame

Is it safe to use toms that are blemished?,I want to make passata but a fair few of my toms have these little marks on them,I was going to make chutney as well as I have tons of tomatoes but as I said a lot of them are marked.
Thanks folkshttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/glenamoy558/DSC01638.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/glenamoy558/DSC01639.jpg

tanith

Nothing wrong at all in using blemished toms... as long as its not a black patch and just marks on the skin they are fine to use.. I'd probably discard any that have broken skins but if its just marks then its fine..

mommame

Thanks tanith I am over the moon now cos I will have loads of chutney and passata for my pantry this year and I can try out my new electric jam maker to do it all in as well whoo hoo!!!

mrbadexample

They look lovely to me. Don't forget the shops reject loads of perfectly good fruit because they don't look quite perfect.

Lotus-eater

tanith wrote: »

I'd probably discard any that have broken skins but if its just marks then its fine..

Why would you do that?

A load of mine outside have split their skins while they are still green, due to the excessive rain. A new skin is already growing over those patches and will be fine by the time they are ready.
If a skin splits when they are ripe, which normally happens, then you just use it as normal, maybe cut out the split area if you are paranoid, or it is a bit dirty for some reason.
I also use blossom end rot tomatoes (just cut out the bad bit), ones that have fallen on the floor, ones that have strange marks on them, any that an odd bird may have taken a few pecks out of. Basically all of them.
I think some of you might be too used to perfect supermarket fruit and veg as MBE says, nature doesn't work like that. One of the reasons you grow your own, is because you don't want the chemical cocktail which alot of commercial crops are sprayed with. Therefore you don't get perfect crops.

tanith

Lotus eater I would discard the split ones purely on hygiene grounds especially if birds,ants etc had been at them.. its purely a personal thing I'm sure they are probably fine to eat but if you have an OH as fussy as mine believe me its just easier to discard those that are open to the air...

wattapain

Hi - why not use them to make a pasta sauce - just cut off any damaged bits - but the over ripe ones are good in this as they have more flavour I think.
Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce

Cut lots of toms in half crossways, and place in a roasting tin cut side up. Good ripe (and over ripe ones are best for this)
Drizzle with olive oil, salt & pepper and a few herbs (fresh or dried - depends what you have) - thyme, marjoram, basil are all good.
then stick 'em in the oven and roast on a medium heat until they're starting to caramelise(burn :rotfl:) at the edges.
Then scrape them out into a pan, deglaze the pan adding a splash of wine/water and heat gently, gathering all the 'bits' left in the pan.
Add these to the pan - give it all a good stir and heat through.
You can serve it straightaway, or freeze it - keeps really well and is delish in the winter.

Terri

wssla00

Spose I'm not so fussy lol. Just picked one which a slug had been a munching on. Cut off the munched bit and popped it in my salad box! Oh well lol at least the slugs are sharing! I would use all of them, even if they are split. If you think something might have been munching, just cut off the munched bit and you are good again.

KatsMeow1980

I use spilt ones, ones with blossom end rot and all the blemished ones. If it's got slugs or insects in I'll chuck them but since we grow mostly cherry ones there isn't much tom left. I'm keeping green windfall for chutney. If they got blight I'd chuck them as they won't keep and might infect others.

mommame

Thanks everyone for your input,I asked as I read somewhere if the toms are marked etc they wont be good for preserving so thought you lot would know if this was just being overly cautious,I personaly eat all manner of strange shape size colour of veg that comes out of my pots but the toms I wanted to be sure of so as not to ruin 4 kilos worth of produce!!!.
Thanks again everyone xx

Lotus-eater

Depends what you mean by preserving I suppose, you are only supposed to keep the perfect veg and fruit from the garden to freeze etc, they say it should be as fresh and perfectly ripe/young as possible.
But when with tomatoes you usually chop and cook them up for a bit before bottling or freezing, I don't think it matters at all.