Special Note # 3- Peeling, Seeding and Juicing Tomatoes

Peeled tomatoes are slippery suckers. This is my second attempt at this process. It's a bitch. It makes me love canned tomatoes even more than I already do. Since I nearly became thumbless tonight, I have a new appreciation for them.



Blanching and peeling is easy. It's fun, actually. Slicing and mushing, not so much. Especially when you have a stinking hang nail on your middle finger. Tonight's dish called for diced tomatoes, which you do a little differently than making pulp. You are supposed to have a device called a potato baller - sounds dirty - I didn't have one, so I cut them in half crosswise and used a knife to scoop the ribs out of the inside. Then you turn them over and slice and dice. It's like they were alive and avoiding the knife. Not easy. I need practice, which I expect I'll be getting a lot of this summer.

The good news is I've perfected the estimate for medium tomatoes to tomato pulp ratio - 2:1.
I used three tomatoes and came out with exactly 1 1/2 cups of diced tomatoes. Write it your cookbooks now - before you forget. Or better yet, check your pantry for a beautiful can.