Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with tomato

Mmm Soup!

SarahElizaP — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:17:50 -0800

Tomato Soup Recipes... I've looked through previous soup threads, but I would love to get your favorite tomato soup recipes. I'd prefer something more along the lines of a bisque, nothing too chunky.

Any fancy grilled cheese recipes would be appreciated as well! Thanks.

Tomato Wireless Bridge + forgetfulness = ???

xla76 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:15:58 -0800

Tomato Wireless Bridge + forgetfulness = ??? I have a linksys wrt54gl router with tomato firmware configured as a wireless bridge. This makes the router 'invisible' on the network. My problem - I have no recollection of the device ip address. It is still functioning correctly but I want to reconfigure.
In theory I should be able to connect via ethernet port and go to admin webpage but without knowing the ip - or even the subnet - I am stuck!
If anyone has a solution then I'm all ears.

Alternative to tomato for vegetarian stew base.

piratebowling — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:23:40 -0800

I have a loose vegetarian stew recipe that I have made up that is wonderful in the sense that it is flexible and quick. It does have one constant, in that it has a tomato base. What can I sub the tomato content with? The recipe usually involves sauteing up some garlic or onions, throwing in a can of chopped or crushed tomatoes (pre-seasoned, or unseasoned) adding in a couple cups of legumes (chickpeas or lentils usually) then whatever veggies I feel like (squash, broccoli, mushrooms, kale, spinach, whatever I have around or feel like). I then serve it over cous-cous or some other starch. I find it fairly no-fuss and filling. I also like that I can play around with veggie and spice combos. However, the constant of the tomato base is beginning to bore me. What else could I put in there to sauce it up a bit and tie all the veggies and legumes together into a nice stew goodness?

Can I salvage these tomatoes?

Orinda — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:15:45 -0800

While trying to cook a large quantity of tomatoes for sauce, I accidentally burned a few on the bottom of the pan. Now the burnt aroma pervades the entire (did I mention large) batch of tomatoes. Is there any way to salvage this project? I'm trying to make tomato sauce.

I started by cutting up raw tomatoes and chucking them into my biggest, deepest pot. Once there was a few-inches-deep layer of tomato chunks in the bottom of the pan, I turned the heat on high underneath and continued cutting and chucking tomato chunks. After a while, the chunks became difficult to stir around because the pan was so deep. I stupidly left the pan unstirred on top of high heat. Not long after I finished cutting up the tomatoes and adding them to the pan, my nose notified me that the bottom layer of tomatoes had burned. Uh oh.

A mild but noticeable burned smell seems to pervade the entire potful of tomato chunks, which are in varying states of cookedness. I pulled the rawest layer of tomato chunks off the top of the pan, thinking I might be able to salvage them, but that still leaves at least 20 lbs of tomatoes sitting in what is now a burnt-tomato-scented broth.

Advice? Do I have to throw out the whole lot? If I dig out the un-burnt tomatoes can I continue cooking them in a clean pan, or will the resultant sauce have that unpleasant burned flavor to it? Would it make a difference if I strained off the liquid and just cooked what's left of the un-burnt tomato flesh? Is it true that a peeled potato can "absorb the burnt taste"?

How would you store half a tomato?

Bleusman — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:32:07 -0800

How would you store half a tomato? Here's what I know about tomatoes: they aren't good in the refrigerator. Here's what I know about pathogens: they love exposed fruit flesh. So if I only want to slice half of a tomato, what do I do with the other half? Do I have to throw it out? That's what I always end up doing, and it just seems so wasteful. What am I supposed to do in this instance?

Tomatofilter: 2% chance I'm crazy; 98% chance something (good) is up with our country's tomatos.

jjjjjjjijjjjjjj — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:28:28 -0800

Tomato question: Did something happen late last Autumn that could have caused low-priced/budget tomatoes in (U.S.) fast-food restaurants and supermarkets to become radically better tasting? My perception of increased quality had a sudden onset, was not chain-specific, not geographically localized, and is shared by a handful of friends. (tl;drers, question is as stated above; the screed below is just the boring details. I suspect that help might come from food/soil/earth scientists, ag-economists, farmers, restaurant suppliers, or some other industry insider. Barring that, I suppose there's an outside chance that help might come in the form of two men in white coats dragging me to a rubber room.)

Last November a friend made a salad with sliced tomatoes that tasted amazing. I asked if she had sprung for some fancy brand or got them from a ritzy store; she said no, that they were the cheapest fresh type at the local chain supermarket. I didn't believe her but thought nothing of it at the time.

Within a few days I ordered a $2 burger at a fast food chain and was treated to a fucking amazing tomato there, as well. The floodgates then opened, and for, say, two weeks following, every tomato I ate (from whichever restaurant or grocery chain), tasted fantastic. At the time I chalked this up to some major regional (I live in St. Louis) supplier (Sysco?) stumbling onto a great shipment or something. Again, thought nothing further of it at the time.

At that point, and for the next 1.5 months, I traveled to: several New England states, Central Texas, and Northern California, eating at dives and fast-food joints for most every meal, and--I shit you not--in perhaps 70% of the meals I consumed was what I will call, for brevity "the SuperTomato".

I feel confident in the stark difference of the two; if you spend any amount of time eating tomatos, I'm betting that you'll agree that the difference between a "bad" and a "good" tomato is about as subtle as the difference between a whisper and a shout. The things I am describing taste like completely different things, it's not just a slight or stepwise increase in quality. I feel entirely confident that in a single-blind taste test I would correctly identify "SuperTomato" from "old-and-busted cheap tomato" 100 times out of 100.

My Question to food/soil/atmospheric scientists, agricultural economists, restaurant buyers and the like: Barring delusion on my part, what could be responsible for a flood of great tomatoes across the country at the bottom-end of the tomato pricing tier? This is either a real phenomenon, or the damndest case of my senses tricking me that I've ever seen.

Confirmation Bias? Maybe... hard to tell, obviously. But I've tried to screen for it at every step. I've asked, say, 8 friends and got 5 blank looks, 1 "yeah, now that you mention it", and 2 soul-piercing, thousand-yard stares of disbelief followed by a "You've noticed it, too?!"

I'm not a gastronome or a foodie or a "supertaster" or anything close. I'm just an average guy who eats average, cheap food. I have always eaten a normal amount of cheap store-bought tomatoes and until this happened, had uniformly normal reactions to them. I have no history of sensory hallucinations, no recent head-trauma, mental illness, or significant lifestyle changes. Please tell me what the fuck is up with my 'maters. Apologies for the length. Thanks.

I didn't know plants could shed!

EmpressCallipygos — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:52:09 -0800

I've got a couple cherry tomato plants on my windowsill that have been growing like gangbusters -- there's even one little tomato that's JUST starting to turn red. But -- they're also dropping stems off the main plants at an alarming rate. What's happening, and how can I stop it? Some of the stems that are dropping off look like they're drying up first, and some aren't -- it almost looks in a few cases like someone's come along and just broken the stems where they connect to the main plant, and then just left them there.

I checked online for common tomato diseases, and this description sounds closest to what is happening -- but still not quite accurate; that kind of wilt sounds like a more gradually-spreading thing, and with my plants, the stems are just breaking off spontaneously. I'm even seeing new growth in a couple places where old stems broke off. The fruits are also coming in fine, and don't seem to be affected.

I did see some bugs crawling around on the fruit a few days ago -- it looked like something had started spinning a web around it, and tiny flies were crawling around in the webbing, but I hit it all with a shot of some pyrethium-based pest spray and that killed 'em all. The fruit looks just fine, and went on its merry way turning red again. I didn't recognize the bugs - they were the same size and shape as whiteflies, but...they were black instead of white.

Might those bugs be the cause? Or might this be over- or under-watering? Too small a pot? (I have three plants in a biggish tub -- I re-used the tub from a 20-pound tub of kitty litter, so it's about 2 feet tall, and 18x10 in length and width -- but because there's three of them in there I'm wondering if they're a little crowded.) Is the fact that there's new growth and the tomatoes are fine a good sign, and maybe this was just a temporary thing? Is my cat maybe poking around in there and snapping things?

All advice welcome. Thanks.

Fresh Tomato Marinara Recipe?

jabberjaw — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:51:30 -0800

I have fresh tomatoes & basil from my garden, and would like to make some spicy marinara out of it. I'm a novice to making sauces from fresh ingredients. Any suggested, and preferably simple, recipes? I'll settle for any good fresh tomato pasta sauce, not necessarily a marinara.

Previously: (1, 2)

Out of the frying pan into the fire

mkb — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:19:47 -0800

I am in the process of switching from Comcast cable to Verizon DSL. I am trying to figure out the wireless situation in my house. So Verizon is offering a free netbook to new DSL subscribers, and I don't have any particular affinity for Comcast, so I decided to try it out.

With Comcast (which is actually still running), I have the following setup:
- Motorola cable modem
- Linksys WRT54g v 2.2 running Tomato and boosted output power

I have this unit set to forward BitTorrent, SSH, and icecast ports to one machine at home.

Verizon unexpectedly sent me a modem for my new service that also functions as a wireless access point and a router. It's a Westell 7500. It seems to be almost as configurable as my Linksys, and it looks like there is no need to boost the output power in order to get up to my office. The only missing feature appears to be DynDNS.com updating; the new router uses TSIG authentication which is only available on paid accounts, and I can just punt this to one of my computers.

So, is there anything I am missing that would be worth me keeping the Linksys around? Does this router have any hidden gotchas?

Tomato or... not tomato? That's out of the question.

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:25:16 -0800

Help us use our abundant home-grown tomatoes, even though our tomato tastes disagree! So my boyfriend and I have a nice harvest of tomatoes for the first time ever, and will continue to collect them for some time yet.

I need ideas for ways to use them that satisfy my desire to not cook all the fresh flavor out of them, and his dislike for straight, raw tomato. He does like bruschetta, margherita pizza and greek salad, though he often donates some or all of his salad tomatoes to me. He loves salsa, of course.

Can you help me think of other creative semi-raw or appealingly paired tomato applications that someone who likes those foods would enjoy? I'm pretty happy eating them sliced with salt, but there are just too many for that, and I can't bear to let their lovely sunkissed perfection go to waste in tomato soup or something.

Vegetarian friendly recipes, please. No BLTs. *sniff, sniff.*

Please don't let these tomates go!

silsurf — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:50:41 -0800

Tomato Plants showing some mold (SoCal) Last year our tomato plants were a complete bust. They all molded away from the marine layer that invades our area come June (gloom). I live in Venice, CA about 1/2 mile from the ocean.

This year we did things right, built amazing four foot deep raised beds filled with all organic soil and compost from a gardener who was moving out of town. Many pictures of the boxes, the dirt moving and the voluptuous growth can be seen on this photo gallery Dimmy and Dewick Garden. We started our plants from seed and all along the way everything did great!

We got plants growing out of our ears and everything is vibrant and healthy. That is until about 10 days ago when we started noticing some mold on the tomato plants. Yes, this coincided with a fair amount of over cast June gloom weather, so now I am reaching out to the hive mind on what to do about it, if anything?

I trimmed back the damaged leaves and branches, but somehow I don't think that is going to take care of the issue, I know a bumper crop is out there and I feel very hopeful about this year, but I want to do what I can to make these lovely plants fruit.

In case you do not want to visit the entire garden photo gallery, here are a few shots of the issue at hand.

Healthy plant

Moldy leaves

Let me know if these links are an issue, it is my first time trying "little snapper"

Henry

identifying tomato plants

cvilleluke — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:02:01 -0800

can anyone tell me if there's a way to tell the difference between a determinate vs an indeterminate tomato plant as a seedling? my 3 year old pulled out all of my markers before the seeds had sprouted. i don't want to prune the determinate plants by accident!

Tomato Plant Identification

jabberjaw — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:24:22 -0800

I found some tomato plants growing wild in my back yard in February. I transplanted them to a safer location, and now one of them is about five feet tall (and going). Help me identify the tomato variety? I'm pretty sure it's a tomato plant, because it looks and smells like one. The tomato plant is not bushy at all. It grows in a single stalk going straight up, with leaf-branches coming off every six inches or so, and it has about three flower clusters. Here's a picture (it's rising above a beefsteak tomato bush I unwittingly planted too close to it). This tomato plant seems a little unusual, because most all other tomato plants I've seen grow kind of haphazardly, with branches and stalks kind of sprouting everywhere. The mystery plant one is a single, symmetric, organized stalk.

I first noticed the 'wild' tomato plants when they were about as tall as my finger, and almost mistook them for weeds. I've grown emotionally attached to them, and I'm very curious as to what kind of tomatoes this thing will sprout (if any; it has not begun making any fruit). Any help identifying them would be awesome. Thanks!

How can I grow tomatoes in the desert?

a22lamia — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:49:57 -0800

I'm looking for advice on container gardening (tomatoes mainly) with limited water resources. We live in a remote location in the Mojave Desert and have pretty limited water resources. Until recently I've lived in the Northeast where fresh fruits and vegetables were plentiful and I had my pick of CSAs and I am really missing fresh, flavorful vegetables.

I'd love to hear about what tomato varieties have worked best in your container garden. We tend to really like the heirloom varieties (Brandywine, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple) - do any of these work well in containers? i know tomatoes are pretty water intensive - can anyone give me an estimate of how much water a typical tomato plant needs in a week? Is there anything I can do to decrease the amount of water I need to give the plants without sacrificing quality?

In addition, once I have the tomatoes going, I'd love to grow greens, herbs, onions, etc - any recommendations on varieties that do well in containers with limited water?

Ketchup monoculture

ryanrs — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:31:23 -0800

Why so few varieties of ketchup? Tomato-based condiments seem particularly prone to speciation. My grocer carries many varieties of salsa, pasta sauce, barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and steak sauce. Probably ten varieties of each. There are many brands, and each brand sells several variations.

But not ketchup. I rarely see more than three or four varieties. Usually it's just Heinz, Hunt's, and the generic store brand. Maybe a feeble low salt / low sugar variant. This makes no sense. Ketchup is one of the highest selling condiments in the US. Why doesn't the market support more variety?

My grocery store sells twelve types of salt. Why only a couple types of ketchup?

Join me in the Quest for the Mexican Salad Dressing!

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:30:16 -0800

Help me recreate an awesome Mexican salad dressing! So I just had one of those pre-packaged salad kits, and it came with an awesome dressing. It was a Mexican chicken salad, and the dressing was a tangy, sort-of tomato-ey sort-of corn-y delight with quite a bit of a bite (but no apparent capsaicin heat). I think it or something similar would work brilliantly as a home-made dressing or cold sauce. The ingredients as listed on the packaging:

Water
Soya oil
Tomato purée
Vinegar
Sugar
Dextrose
Herbs and spices
Onion
Modified corn starch
Salt

I'll spare you the food acids and other additives, but suffice to say that, big surprise, MSG was in there (but none of its cousins in the E620-E630 range).

I believe the tomato purée refers to the concentrated kind; it definitely tasted like it (although Dutch tomatoes I feel are generally quite watery so I'm somewhat easily impressed with the concentrated and processed stuff). In fact, the overall taste held the middle between concentrated tomatoes and something corn-like, strongly reminiscent of tortilla chips (the non-cheese kind). Add a faint vinegary tang, and you're pretty much there.

It had about the consistency of common chili sauce (but as I said, no heat). It was very different from any salsa I've eaten, and completely smooth; without any onion or tomato chunks like in salsa or adobo.

Has anyone ever made anything like this? Any pointers? Thanks in advance, guys!

Modem router combi device supported by dd-wrt

forwebsites — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:49:21 -0800

Which Linksys (or D-Link ) modem+router two-in-one device should I buy if I want to install DD-WRT or Tomato (or any similar linux firmware) ? I'd like to buy a new single modem+router combination device that can support DD-WRT or Tomato. I came across Linksys WAG54G2* that is such a device and available in local stores here, but it doesn't show up in DD-WRT supported devices list? I don't think WAG54G2 is same as WAG54GP2 listed in that list, which by the way is supported, but tell me if I am wrong.

So is there any such device or should I just go with my ISP's modem and WRT54GL?

Thanks.
*as an aside: I can't seem to find any tech specs for WAG54G2, like chipset brand, ram, flash memory size etc.

Calling Boris and Natasha....

potsmokinghippieoverlord — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:39:25 -0800

Squirrel! Crazy squirrel is eating my tomatoes! What can I do besides offering it napkins? OK. As part of my ongoing War On Nature (tm), a squirrel has decided that the home-grown tomatoes we have in tubs in the back patio are just damned delicious!

The problem is that I agree, and that I'd like to have a chance to enjoy one or two myself. The cheerful little critter (grr) has taken to biting even the green tomatoes.

I put a bowl of water out, because it was mentioned on another board that squirrels tend to eat tomatoes during droughts. So far, it's been happy nicking tomatoes.

I wouldn't mind if I had, say, 30 or so tomatoes growing. But I only have five, and I don't hold out much hope of seeing them ripen unmolested by grabby little rodent hands.

So -- what works as a squirrel deterrent? Couldn't find blood meal, which was recommended. I was thinking of trying to find some fine mesh to wrap the plants in.

Suggestions? Commiserations?

High-acidity Tomato Variety Wanted

sluglicker — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:21:07 -0800

Tomato grower expertise needed. I planted a variety around the 1st of June (maybe late?) called "Big Beef" and live in upstate New York. It hasn't been a hot or sunny summer. My plants have 15-20 tomatoes, 5-8 oz. each, but only about a third are ripening and the season is almost over. The few I've harvested so far are bland. I'm pretty sure this variety is a hybrid and it is indeterminate. What are the pros and cons of going with an heirloom? I'm looking for a high acid variety because I prefer the taste and because I want to can. Is the acidity due to the variety or the soil conditions, or other factors? Should I prune the plants? Remove late/small tomatoes and blossoms that have no chance of ripening? Any advise or pointers to online info is greatly appreciated.

Please help me with my poor tomato plant!

farfaraway — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:28:58 -0800

How do I nurse a very sick tomato plant back to health? I gave it far too much tomato feed by mistake, and a day later the leaves are horribly droopy/wilted (but still green), though my tomatoes are still looking like they're ripening. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to recover it? It's an indoor variety, grown in a foil pouch if that helps.

Is this it for this year's tomato crop?

crinklebat — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:09:06 -0800

What is wrong with my tomatoes? I'm growing Early Girls in a pot with some manner of enriched soil on my front porch in Palo Alto, CA. They get sun probably 8 hours of the day and are watered both by sprinklers and also by me, watering from a can. I have not been as consistent as I could have been with watering and because the sprinklers come on at 1am, I'm not certain how thoroughly this plant gets watered. However, it's a huge plant.

A couple of weeks ago I started noticing small yellow spots on the leaves but didn't think much of it, because I was getting dozens of green tomatoes and was too excited to worry.

We got one ripe tomato last week, which was delicious. Today I picked our second ripe tomato...which is worrisome.

It's not like any pictures I can find online. Basically, the blossom end has a bunch of faint black or brown specks, and it didn't ripen. So I have a red tomato with a green and black/brown bottom. I cut it open and it smelled a little off, but I have an overactive imagination so who knows how accurate that is; it's green on the inside corresponding to the green bottom on the outside. I haven't tasted it...yet.

The spots look like the pictures I've found online of bacterial speck, but I haven't seen anything that says bacterial speck can be confined to only the very tip of the tomato, nor that it would inhibit ripening there. What would make sense to be on the blossom end is blossom end rot, but this looks nothing like pictures I can find of blossom end rot. On inspecting the plant it looks like a lot of the green tomatoes have various degrees of the same speckling. I'm wondering if I need to pull these tomatoes off or if this is something I can correct with watering or fertilizers.

If you think you might be able to help if you had a picture, let me know and I'll find a place to put one, or email one to you.

Fix tomato sauce indigestion.

zeek321 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:12:25 -0800

Cooking puzzle: Help me nullify the acidity of tomato sauce (and heartburn) in this recipe I've concocted. 1. 2lb browned ground bison
2. bag of frozen blueberries
3. 2 3/4 cups of no-salt tomato sauce
4. 1/2 cup of flax seed
5. Mix all the above together.
(6. topped with a bunch of stuff)
7. Bake on low heat.

The above has slowly started giving me uncomfortable burping-up and heartburn. I took out the tomato sauce and the symptoms went away immediately and completely. However, the tomato sauce makes it taste even better (heh) and it kind of holds everything together. And it's really nutritious.

I'm allergic to eggs, wheat, dairy, and corn.

*Is there anything binding and nutritious that I could replace the tomato sauce with?

*I'd like to get my tomato sauce in a can or something super-easy, but google says there are ways to prepare tomato sauce that are less acidic. Personal experiences and/or store-buyable suggestions?

****Even better, mega bonus points, does anyone have ideas for basic/alkaline ingredients to nullify the acid and add even more nutrition to my crazy recipe? The ingredients should start out basic and should probably stay net basic after they're metabolized. I'm a terrible cook, so I don't know where to start, beyond that.

Besides the indigestion, this recipe really, really works for my body, so thank you!

Tomatoes and Salmonella

josher71 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:23:19 -0800

Just sitting here a moment ago in my Brooklyn apartment my girlfriend said "We should throw away our tomatoes since they might have salmonella." How worried should we really be about this possibility? I just bought some tomatoes yesterday and I don't want to throw away perfectly good produce.

Help me not bake my tomatoes!

SpecialK — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:16:03 -0800

I live in south/central (not coastal, not hill country) Texas. What time of day should I water my tomato plants? I'm watering them with a soak hose, in an effort to use less water. They're planted in good dirt in a raised bed and the dirt is covered with a light colored (cypress) wood mulch, which should reduce the albedo. They aren't in direct sun (I know this is against the planting recommendations, but even "sun loving" annual or perrenial plants like snapdragons and mondo grass will wilt under the full power of the sun here.)

I'm afraid that if I water them in the morning using the soak hose, the water will get trapped under the surface of the cypress mulch and steam-bake the roots. But if I water them in the evening, aren't I introducing the possibility for mold?

The soak hose is RIGHT below the surface of the mulch, to the point where it actually wets the very thin layer of mulch covering it.

V8 agrees with me almost too much

yorick — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:34:12 -0800

My lifestyle is pretty healthy overall, but I always feel extra-good after drinking V8. I'm trying to figure out why this particular beverage agrees with me so much when included in a diet that's already pretty good to begin with. This mystery V8-variable makes me feel pretty good. I wanna identify it so I can be more savvy with my feeling good pursuits.

Some extra data to help formulate theories:
- It's regular V8, never tried the low sodium or other varieties.
- Regular tomato juice doesn't do the trick, although it hints at it.
- Simply eating vegetables never has this effect.
- 2nd place in my "feel awesome"foods is Quinoa, albeit a distant second.
- Diagnosed with Celiac a year ago & maintain a gluten free diet.
- Even with a high-fiber low-sugar diet, I easily succumb to "food comas", although to a lesser extent post-gluten.
- My metabolism is super-fast, to the point that the only way I can GAIN weight is via exercise (which I do religiously)