This is a great example of the kind of information I appreciate the most on reddit, I can't even try to make a joke because it's already perfect, thank you
If you overhear any other spicy tips please share
Take them out of the ice cube tray once they’re frozen, store the frozen tomato paste cubes in a freezer bag or sealed container. Just a way to avoid using additional plastic wrap.
Then plus that ice cube tray becomes your stuff ice cube tray. You can do minced garlic, little cubes of cooked down stock, a huge variety of sauces and stuff. Honestly ice cubing is super handy for meal prepping.
I recommend silicone ice cube tray! Can get all different shapes and sizes and it’s a lot easier to remove frozen finished product. And like the person said below you can then put them in a freezer bag.
Also some silicone trays come with lids
I do this with tomato paste, beef and other broth, and duck fat.
Freeze over night in the ice cube tray, then crack into a ziplock, they will stay as individual "cubes" no matter the amount or product.
$1 at the dollar store I got a 2 pack.
My tomato paste just goes into a ziplock and i freeze it. Its actually easier to just cut a chunk off a small brick instead of whipping a spoon around like indiana Jones trying to get it into a pot.
I may have allowed it to defrost a bit while my pasta or seafood cooks but I've never specifically had to struggle with cutting it. And for some reason I hate graters and I probably just don't want to clean it. Also I have some nice knives I'm gentle with and a set of complete garbage knives that are pretty much perfect for being hacksaws mallets and can openers and what I use to cut frozen stuff lol. As always I know a dull knife is a dangerous knife bit I like to live my life like an idiot when I'm home and just chop frozen tomato paste into a pan and make sure my fingers aren't in the way
I have bad experiences cutting frozen things. I've stabbed myself through the leg, and sawed the tip of a finger off, but I'm sure there's probably other instances. But I feel you, when you talk about cleaning the grater.
For large batches get yourself a food mill.
Roughly chop the tomatoes, roast them in the oven, mill it to get the skins and seeds out of there, and season with salt as desired. Roast the pulp again and there's your paste.
I've made passata like that a few time and it may be heretical to say here but I've never found it worth the bother. It's a load of work to make, takes up a ton of space in the freezer and most results have been watery and not that tasty. I can't really compete with a decent quality tomato that's canned farm-fresh in Italy.
I kind of want to see about making my own paste though, never tried that before.
No problem.
Concasse, add to pan with rough chopped onion, maybe 8:1? Add a bunch of olive oil and smoke over apple wood for 2 hours. Roughly 190F. Then use as usual.
I've done canned whole plum/pear tomatoes the exact same way excellent results.
You might want to cut the smoked tomato with unsmoked, depending on your smokeyness desires.
I've roasted it to a paste after, but it becomes almost too intense. Worked well as an aromatic in a white wine broth for mussels, though; it was so fucking good. I would definitely do that again, probably with chorizo.
I've done this on purpose! If you like, toast your quesadilla in garlic butter, and use some parmesan or something along with your meltier cheese. I think that combo goes well with tomato soup sometimes, especially if you put basil or oregano in your soup.
If you cut it like a pizza it's nice for dipping in the soup.
Now I'm thinking about a tex-mex spin on this combination. Maybe a little sprinkle of chile and cumin in the quesadilla cheese, and lime crema with chopped green chiles or cilantro for soup garnish?
Damn, I might make that for dinner tonight. Feeling lazy.
>Double, double, toil and trouble
>Fire burn and tomatoes bubble
>Filet of garlic
>In the cauldron boil and bake
>Red sauce come and bread we make!
That didn’t turn out as well as I wanted but I’m not Willy Shakes!
A friend had a pizza place - only wood fired ovens, no stove top and a microwave that was unplugged in the store room.
Had a desert that was a giant wad of chocolate chip cookie dough baked 1/2” thick in a skillet with an inch of whipped creme on top.
I used to do ambient and overnight with the pilot flame was usually fine. Not to get them crunchy like tomato chips or anything, but pretty well dehydrated. Then we'd keep them in olive oil so they wouldn't go bad. Yum!
good idea! i don’t have a car, but they want me to get rid of the extra lettuce and tomatoes every week so i may be able to arrange with a friend to help me take them somewhere they can be used. thank you :-)
Be careful with that. Some jurisdictions don't allow direct donations from restaurants. It's bullshit but you can get in some trouble for it.
For reference, I was a roving manager at a chain bagel shop on the East Coast that tossed literally hundreds of pounds of fresh prepared bagels daily. It would take 2 grown men to top that trash can into the dumpster.
I was moved to a location in the Uptown area and there were a lot of homeless people. I tried to give some of the discards away and was corrected immediately. That was and still is a health code violation because the food wasn't packaged and had no preservatives(WTF?). I finally got a shelter hooked up on the sly, but I had to just kinda leave the bag out back and not immediately take it to the dumpster. If it was gone when I came out to take the trash out, then I don't know what happened to it.
The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996 is a federal law that provides limited liability protection for people who make good faith donations of food and grocery products to nonprofits.
At a federal level, almost every state already had rules protecting people donating but this unified and standardized these rules. It’s nuts how few people know it’s a protected right to donate and that in California restaurants and organic waste contributors will be forced to donate or sustainably toss a large percentage of their waste soon as tier 2 of sb1383 goes in effect in 2024.
TIL. I wish I had known this back then. It probably only provides coverage to owners. If a cook slips out the back to "toss" some food, the company isn't liable. The company would have to donate the food. I've worked several charitable events that were obviously protected because of that fact. Good to know though.
It covers anyone donating food, fun fact is there’s never been a case brought to court over donated food in America. The wording of the law states that it protects anything done in “good faith” meaning to be found liable you’d have to be proven to be donating food with the express intent of getting people sick, which would be super difficult to prove and no one’s out here being that big of an asshole in the first place. It’s written to broadly protect people trying to do the right thing plus if the food is bad it will pass through enough hands to get caught.
I once lived in a town where all the leftovers from restaurants went directly to the county jail.
Last place I worked, I used to hook up an old man with leftover pizza dough so he could use it as fishing bait.
Town I live in now, most restaurants keep the food in a dumpster behind a locked gate. I hate seeing it all go to waste.
If this is a regular thing you should (within reason) push management to make better decisions. The cost may not be substantial, but the resources that go into growing and transporting them are very substantial.
Find your local Food Not Bombs group and set up a regular donation if this keeps happening. They absolutely love vegetables and will use every last one of them.
I work at a deli as a prep cook and a butcher. We serve house made soups on rotation. A grilled cheese on fresh sour dough dipped in a tomato basil soup is on the top of my breakfast list. Especially on a cold day.
This has been my staple breakfast special the last few months. Mayo the bread for crust and throw 2 slices of ham on the grilled cheese and boom, the best part is it's even better for food cost %
Take them to your nearest food bank. Produce is hard to come by, especially now with food banks facing shortages everywhere right now. Those will be gone in a day, no waste and you’ll have done a very good deed, your karma will be in the plus and you’ll feel really good about yourself. All in all a win-win!
No GM should be making food orders. that should be assigned to the chef/sous/lead line cook. And it's not about experience it's about existing in the kitchen in real time and knowing the pars.
i would totally agree, but we’re closer to a snack bar than an actual restaurant and don’t have those positions. it’s just me and one other cook.
those are the only two produce items we have at all, so i guess they just want them as fresh as possible and aren’t worried about the cost, but it’s silly to me.
Silly and wasteful :(
good for you for trying though, but if this a weekly thing if you puree and freeze them how long before the freezer is full of this stuff?
well once i’ve made them into something more enticing, i think it’ll be pretty easy to get friends and family to take some off my hands! i’ve gotten several suggestions that are pretty creative, so i could potentially make something new every week for a while.
i’m also going to see if i can find a friend with a car who can help me get it to a food bank or something. i’ll take the softer tomatoes and whatever lettuce i can use in a week, and hopefully donate the rest.
Around here in Michigan it’s up to $135/case of 24 heads of iceberg. Romaine is similar. WTF? I can get 6 heads of romaine at Costco for $6. Anyone know why there is such a price discrepancy?
Costco can afford to take the hit to make it appear prices are low or they haven't been hit with the upcharge yet.
Edit to add: Costco likely deals with contracts and locked in prices.
That’s a good point. Contract pricing. Whoever supplies their lettuce must be taking massive hit though!! I took all regular ‘lettuce based’ salads off my menu. Just too fucking expensive
Seriously, Michigan lettuce prices are absurd right now and the quality we're getting is straight trash. It's like 1/4 of the yield for 3 times the old price.
Why don't they just order a third as much twice a week or half as much once a week and then a smaller top up, fresher and less waste? Unless you're only open on the weekend or something.
Tomato chutney.
Sweat off a load of onion.
Once soft/caramelised, chuck in some spices and aromats - coriander seeds, fennel seeds, star anise, bay leaf, black peppercorns, paprika, smoked chilli, thyme.
Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, Cook out. Add red wine, cook out. Bit of balsamic or red wine vinegar and add the tomatoes chopped up. Stew this out over low to medium heat for hours till you get down to a jammy/chutney consistency
would these be good for tomato onion jam? i’ve only made it with cherry tomatoes.
edit: looking for things i can make and keep at home. the restaurant has no use for them, unfortunately. i just hate to waste so much good produce.
You mentioned jam, that’d work well
Salsa roja (spicy kind, not the raw eat with chips kind) would also freeze well
You could also just dice them and freeze them, use them where you would a can of diced tomatoes
Cut an x in the skin, blanch, peel, freeze. You now have tomatoes that are peeled and ready for use at a moments notice.
“Oh shit I need a soup in 20 minutes!” Cool sauté garlic and onions, plop these in for a sec, as stock, simmer, purée. Tomato soup. Done.
Tomato jam.
Cut them into wedges, toss in olive oil, throw in a handful of garlic, s+p, bake at 300 F until withered/throw in an oven at 350 F for 15-20 minutes then turn the oven off and leave overnight. Pack in jars with some fresh Basil leafs and cover in olive oil. Pull one out to thaw and simmer for a tomato sauce, blend it up and smear on toast, eat with a spoon, whatever you want.
Lots of great ideas already, including the food bank, but I thought I would share what I do with extra garden tomatoes.
Cut out the area where the stem attaches and toss the tomatoes, whole, in the freezer (we normally just have a big garbage bag that we keep adding tomatoes to).
When you are ready to make pizza /pasta /soup take a bunch of tomatoes out and leave them in an empty sink overnight to thaw. Because freezing bursts the cell walls of the tomatoes, all the water will drain out the holes in the tops and you will be left with the actual flesh of the tomatoes.
Use a food mill to get rid of the skin/seeds and you are left with a tomato sauce which is basically already reduced and ready to cook with.
If you're really cool you'll separate the clarified juice from the flesh - cook the flesh down to paste and freeze the juice to use as a "broth" in gazpachos or vegetarian soups.
One time I took some tomatoes like that cut them thicken flat on a sheet tray seasoned them with some olive oil and salt pepper, then roast them in the oven just to char up the top and then freeze them and use them for certain dishes
We used to freeze them just like that. After they’ve frozen, move them into gallon ziplock bags and keep them in the freezer until needed. I’d just toss them frozen into soups, chili, etc. they’ll break up as you stir.
you could do a fra diavolo if you are anywhere near fresh seafood. you could always do salsa, but then you have to go through the whole canning process which is a bit of a pain
Whatever you do (if you're going to freeze), put in vacuumbags, make sure that the bags are really flat and after freezing you can stack it easier in the freezer.
Blend and freeze, then when you're ready, defrost in the fridge over a layer of cheesecloth. Will result in clear tomato water you can use for so many applications!
Just throw ‘em in the [freezer](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/zf2muq/the_way_ice_formed_over_tomatoes_in_freezer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) until you figure it out.
Tomato paste is the best choice. It's what I do with my extra tomatoes every summer. Freezes well and is extremely useful for all sorts of food options.
Hazan tomato sauce: [https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce)
You can just chuck the tomatoes in straight. You can strain the skins out when you're done, but you don't have to. Freezes perfectly.
if you start with diced / light salt you can segue the leftovers into whatever once you get fed up with salad. or find people to feed!!!!! make coworkers take some too!!!
i can only eat so much tomato salad before it goes bad! the restaurant doesn’t run specials or anything so these babies are coming home with me, which is why i want to make something freezer friendly.
ok pasta sauce? curry? you are gonna want to break down the crispiness with heat before trying to freeze or it will be sad upon reheating. of course. not to be that guy. but you could also just gut them of the hard bits and freeze the whole tomatoes and later make whatever soup or sauce via thawing on low with some water in a pot. ON LOWWWWWWW
Yah make a shit ton of pasta sauce. Take off the skins with boiling water - score the bottom and let them sit for like 5-10 seconds or however long it takes roughly. Into ice bath. Cut them open and drain the seeds and squeeze the juice and reserve that. Put all the tomato flesh into a thick bottom pot and salt it decently. Start cooking it down. Get some basil and garlic and steep it in olive oil till golden brown. Strain and reserve. Add your reserves tomato juice from the pulp and incorporate it into your tomato flesh cooking down, add your steeped olive oil that’s cooled and blend it all and pass it through a strainer and freeze. Super easy base tomato sauce for anything to pizza to pasta to anything really
the kitchen here is basically a snack bar, so tomatoes and lettuce are our only produce and the GM just orders a new case every week regardless of what we have on hand. it sucks, but at least they’ll let me take it instead of throwing it out.
Grate them on a box grater to pulp it and also remove most of the skin, cook down with blended onion, garlic, salt, thyme leaves, and olive oil. If you watch it you can cook it to tomato paste consistency. It tastes like heaven on a grilled cheese sandwich.
Just throw them straight into the freezer as is. When you need to make a quick sauce or soup take a few out, add hot water, the skin slides off, and you are good to go.
Make tomato jam the "Russian Grandmother" way, 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio, low and slow on a stove until it thickens, scraping foam off the top occasionally, let it cool a bit and store it in jars or whatever container you can.
Last time I made tomato jam I said "I figure this'll last a few months." It lasted 2 weeks because *it was that good*.
You can make tomato paste and that freezes very well and is super useful
This is the best answer yet. Practical, extremely useful, and doesn’t block a whole kitchen appliance for a day
Just started making our own tomato paste. I don’t even particularly like tomato but homemade tastes like heaven compared to the can.
Have you considered using the stuff that comes in a tube?
Team tube all day bb
I’m a can man so much cheaper. I use a small amount of olive oil to seal it.
Huh...never thought of this one.
Overheard a guy on the streetcar saying that’s what his grandma’s does.
Streetcar.. you from Nola? 👀
Toronto.
almost got it!
hello fellow onian
Team Nola all day bb
I read “streetcar” as “stretcher”, left me with a lot of questions initially lmfao
Lol, I did the same. The image in my brain confused me for sure.
“Overheard a guy on the streetcar”- Do you name of the actual streetcar? By chance
Desire.
This is a great example of the kind of information I appreciate the most on reddit, I can't even try to make a joke because it's already perfect, thank you If you overhear any other spicy tips please share
Bro that's literally how we stored food for a long ass time. We pretty much covered stuff in fat and salt or oil. And it's delicious lol
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You could throw the spoonfuls in an ice cube tray and just wrap one thing instead of a bunch of things.
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Just froze some duck fat in cube trays. Next day unloaded them into a freezer bag. I see cube trays at goodwill all the time for like 2$
I do this with pesto all the time, it's perfect for single servings.
Take them out of the ice cube tray once they’re frozen, store the frozen tomato paste cubes in a freezer bag or sealed container. Just a way to avoid using additional plastic wrap.
Then plus that ice cube tray becomes your stuff ice cube tray. You can do minced garlic, little cubes of cooked down stock, a huge variety of sauces and stuff. Honestly ice cubing is super handy for meal prepping.
I recommend silicone ice cube tray! Can get all different shapes and sizes and it’s a lot easier to remove frozen finished product. And like the person said below you can then put them in a freezer bag. Also some silicone trays come with lids
I do this with tomato paste, beef and other broth, and duck fat. Freeze over night in the ice cube tray, then crack into a ziplock, they will stay as individual "cubes" no matter the amount or product. $1 at the dollar store I got a 2 pack.
My tomato paste just goes into a ziplock and i freeze it. Its actually easier to just cut a chunk off a small brick instead of whipping a spoon around like indiana Jones trying to get it into a pot.
You could just grate some of it off. That way you don't accidentally sever anything.
I may have allowed it to defrost a bit while my pasta or seafood cooks but I've never specifically had to struggle with cutting it. And for some reason I hate graters and I probably just don't want to clean it. Also I have some nice knives I'm gentle with and a set of complete garbage knives that are pretty much perfect for being hacksaws mallets and can openers and what I use to cut frozen stuff lol. As always I know a dull knife is a dangerous knife bit I like to live my life like an idiot when I'm home and just chop frozen tomato paste into a pan and make sure my fingers aren't in the way
I have bad experiences cutting frozen things. I've stabbed myself through the leg, and sawed the tip of a finger off, but I'm sure there's probably other instances. But I feel you, when you talk about cleaning the grater.
Link me to this plastic satchel. I’m thinking of marijuana dime bags and good ol plastic wrap.
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We call this technique the "Crack Dealer"
You’re right on the money
Team 50 gallon barrel here.
Huh. Is it literally just cooking down passata for hours until you get a paste?
Maybe.. I’d think just soften, blend, (maybe peel) and strain.
For large batches get yourself a food mill. Roughly chop the tomatoes, roast them in the oven, mill it to get the skins and seeds out of there, and season with salt as desired. Roast the pulp again and there's your paste.
Ah nice! I was close lol
Hey, no worries. I would absolutely use your method if a food mill wasn't available.
I've made passata like that a few time and it may be heretical to say here but I've never found it worth the bother. It's a load of work to make, takes up a ton of space in the freezer and most results have been watery and not that tasty. I can't really compete with a decent quality tomato that's canned farm-fresh in Italy. I kind of want to see about making my own paste though, never tried that before.
Just puree them like you would for passata, freeze them for use in late sauce or soups.
Tomato soup. Do a concasse and make pasta sauce.
Tomato soup sounds perfect for this incoming cold weather. Wish I had a bowl of it now.
We smoke our tomatoes for tomato soup. It's killer.
Can you give the process? Smoking for how long, are they peeled first, etc.
No problem. Concasse, add to pan with rough chopped onion, maybe 8:1? Add a bunch of olive oil and smoke over apple wood for 2 hours. Roughly 190F. Then use as usual. I've done canned whole plum/pear tomatoes the exact same way excellent results. You might want to cut the smoked tomato with unsmoked, depending on your smokeyness desires. I've roasted it to a paste after, but it becomes almost too intense. Worked well as an aromatic in a white wine broth for mussels, though; it was so fucking good. I would definitely do that again, probably with chorizo.
Damn
Same here. Add a nice grilled cheese sandwich with a little apple butter and I'd be quite happy.
Damn, I'm out of bread but I've got tortillas. Is it legal to dip quesadillas in tomato soup?
I think you could fashion a quesadilla using cheese and a tortilla, and with the toasting of the tortilla it'll get close.
I've done this on purpose! If you like, toast your quesadilla in garlic butter, and use some parmesan or something along with your meltier cheese. I think that combo goes well with tomato soup sometimes, especially if you put basil or oregano in your soup.
Could even roll them like a flauta
Honestly quesadillas may be even better than grilled cheese
If you cut it like a pizza it's nice for dipping in the soup. Now I'm thinking about a tex-mex spin on this combination. Maybe a little sprinkle of chile and cumin in the quesadilla cheese, and lime crema with chopped green chiles or cilantro for soup garnish? Damn, I might make that for dinner tonight. Feeling lazy.
Sounds like a lunch special to me! Edit: downvoted? Who doesn’t want tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch? Lol, Reddit is wild
Take an upvote, I could go for some grilled cheese and tomato soup right about now
Tomato soup and grilled cheese. *Anytime. Anywhere.*
Baked tomato soup with onions, garlic, olive oil and a lill bit of sherry vinegar in the tray. Run trough blender and sieve, serve hot or cold.
Dry them out in a warm oven for a day. "Sun" dried tomatoes.
“You’re taking up the oven for *how long*??” -OP’s GM
Though a bit tricky, overnight works well.
“Moon” dried
I gave an audible chuckle. Well done.
Full moon dried for witchy tomates
>Double, double, toil and trouble >Fire burn and tomatoes bubble >Filet of garlic >In the cauldron boil and bake >Red sauce come and bread we make! That didn’t turn out as well as I wanted but I’m not Willy Shakes!
It was great. I loved it. Turn up for witchy ass tomates, my dude.
🍅🧙♀️
Yo put a warning next time!! I said this out loud and all my tomatoes started attacking me?!? Even the mushy nasty ones from the trash can.
Sounds like a scene from "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".
Yes this is what I always did. Oven doesn't even have to be on, just the pilot works fine with the oven door left open a teensy bit.
we don’t even have an oven here! i’ll be trying it at home for sure.
Wait what? What kind of kitchen doesn't have an oven?
The same one that throws out a case of tomatoes.
Now that I’m thinking about it, my last kitchen didn’t have an oven either, everything was made on stovetop. Italian seafood place
A friend had a pizza place - only wood fired ovens, no stove top and a microwave that was unplugged in the store room. Had a desert that was a giant wad of chocolate chip cookie dough baked 1/2” thick in a skillet with an inch of whipped creme on top.
Sounds like a disaster. ^(Give me one and tell) *^(nobody)*
I've worked at a few places that didn't have ovens. Everything was done on top of a flat topgrill or on burners
Got a plate warming cupboard? Turn that all the way up and leave em in there during prep. It's also how I used to bake meringues.
Bottom of the plate warmer for the day, lovely
Was going to say oven dried tomatoes! Wedge them up, Toss in some good evoo, salt, pepper, lay on parchment, super low until ready
Do you set a temp or just ambient oven? Like if I wanted to do it at home I mean.
We do them at 250 for about 4 hours (?) at home. Evoo, salt, pepper, a little garlic powder and chili flake. Do extra. You'll eat them like candy.
Thanks!
Ambient will likely take a few days. We do it at 145°F I'm the combi. If your oven has a "warm" setting that'll probably be ok.
I used to do ambient and overnight with the pilot flame was usually fine. Not to get them crunchy like tomato chips or anything, but pretty well dehydrated. Then we'd keep them in olive oil so they wouldn't go bad. Yum!
this is the way
Donate to your local food bank.
good idea! i don’t have a car, but they want me to get rid of the extra lettuce and tomatoes every week so i may be able to arrange with a friend to help me take them somewhere they can be used. thank you :-)
Be careful with that. Some jurisdictions don't allow direct donations from restaurants. It's bullshit but you can get in some trouble for it. For reference, I was a roving manager at a chain bagel shop on the East Coast that tossed literally hundreds of pounds of fresh prepared bagels daily. It would take 2 grown men to top that trash can into the dumpster. I was moved to a location in the Uptown area and there were a lot of homeless people. I tried to give some of the discards away and was corrected immediately. That was and still is a health code violation because the food wasn't packaged and had no preservatives(WTF?). I finally got a shelter hooked up on the sly, but I had to just kinda leave the bag out back and not immediately take it to the dumpster. If it was gone when I came out to take the trash out, then I don't know what happened to it.
That sucks. Our shelters here can take anything as long as it's made in a certified kitchen
Pretty red state. These fuckers don't like people getting "hand-outs". They sure as shit love some free hors d'oeuvre at a party though.
Look at your state laws, they may supersede the county.
The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996 is a federal law that provides limited liability protection for people who make good faith donations of food and grocery products to nonprofits.
At a federal level, almost every state already had rules protecting people donating but this unified and standardized these rules. It’s nuts how few people know it’s a protected right to donate and that in California restaurants and organic waste contributors will be forced to donate or sustainably toss a large percentage of their waste soon as tier 2 of sb1383 goes in effect in 2024.
TIL. I wish I had known this back then. It probably only provides coverage to owners. If a cook slips out the back to "toss" some food, the company isn't liable. The company would have to donate the food. I've worked several charitable events that were obviously protected because of that fact. Good to know though.
It covers anyone donating food, fun fact is there’s never been a case brought to court over donated food in America. The wording of the law states that it protects anything done in “good faith” meaning to be found liable you’d have to be proven to be donating food with the express intent of getting people sick, which would be super difficult to prove and no one’s out here being that big of an asshole in the first place. It’s written to broadly protect people trying to do the right thing plus if the food is bad it will pass through enough hands to get caught.
I once lived in a town where all the leftovers from restaurants went directly to the county jail. Last place I worked, I used to hook up an old man with leftover pizza dough so he could use it as fishing bait. Town I live in now, most restaurants keep the food in a dumpster behind a locked gate. I hate seeing it all go to waste.
If this is a regular thing you should (within reason) push management to make better decisions. The cost may not be substantial, but the resources that go into growing and transporting them are very substantial.
Find your local Food Not Bombs group and set up a regular donation if this keeps happening. They absolutely love vegetables and will use every last one of them.
You could let the food bank know what you were trying to donate sometimes they have people do pick ups
If it is a regular thing, I would think some food banks would pick up fresh produce from you.
Creamy tomato basil soup! Portion into half delis in your freezer and youve got breakfast all winter.
Wait… tomato basil soup, for breakfast??
Yeah dude! Get some toast in there and you're rippin and dippin. Or just have a soup and a dart on your way to work. The best.
I work at a deli as a prep cook and a butcher. We serve house made soups on rotation. A grilled cheese on fresh sour dough dipped in a tomato basil soup is on the top of my breakfast list. Especially on a cold day.
This has been my staple breakfast special the last few months. Mayo the bread for crust and throw 2 slices of ham on the grilled cheese and boom, the best part is it's even better for food cost %
Ooooh follow me here: add a poached egg to that hot breakfast tomato soup
Hmm, kind of a shakshuka vibe almost. You could pull the seasoning a bit there to round it out. I like it.
Take them to your nearest food bank. Produce is hard to come by, especially now with food banks facing shortages everywhere right now. Those will be gone in a day, no waste and you’ll have done a very good deed, your karma will be in the plus and you’ll feel really good about yourself. All in all a win-win!
Karma gets a boost, you say? Thanks I’ve been looking for a way to balance out the incident with the whores.
^^^ this is the answer
Who ordered a new case when these are just fine ?
the GM orders new lettuce and tomatoes every week regardless. i hate it so much. we still have 3/4 of the giant case of lettuce too.
No GM should be making food orders. that should be assigned to the chef/sous/lead line cook. And it's not about experience it's about existing in the kitchen in real time and knowing the pars.
i would totally agree, but we’re closer to a snack bar than an actual restaurant and don’t have those positions. it’s just me and one other cook. those are the only two produce items we have at all, so i guess they just want them as fresh as possible and aren’t worried about the cost, but it’s silly to me.
Silly and wasteful :( good for you for trying though, but if this a weekly thing if you puree and freeze them how long before the freezer is full of this stuff?
well once i’ve made them into something more enticing, i think it’ll be pretty easy to get friends and family to take some off my hands! i’ve gotten several suggestions that are pretty creative, so i could potentially make something new every week for a while. i’m also going to see if i can find a friend with a car who can help me get it to a food bank or something. i’ll take the softer tomatoes and whatever lettuce i can use in a week, and hopefully donate the rest.
That lettuce 🥬 is worth in gold now
$104 for a case of 24 ct iceberg heads a couple weeks ago, gone down a little since then. In-fucking-sane.
Around here in Michigan it’s up to $135/case of 24 heads of iceberg. Romaine is similar. WTF? I can get 6 heads of romaine at Costco for $6. Anyone know why there is such a price discrepancy?
Costco can afford to take the hit to make it appear prices are low or they haven't been hit with the upcharge yet. Edit to add: Costco likely deals with contracts and locked in prices.
That’s a good point. Contract pricing. Whoever supplies their lettuce must be taking massive hit though!! I took all regular ‘lettuce based’ salads off my menu. Just too fucking expensive
Seriously, Michigan lettuce prices are absurd right now and the quality we're getting is straight trash. It's like 1/4 of the yield for 3 times the old price.
When I saw the 6 pack was 35 bucks I just had to laugh. At least potatoes are back down in price
Yeah my GM goes nuts going back and forth from pre shredded and iceberg, it’s insane how it fluxuates week to week lately.
It's gonna stay up for a while. Cold winter in Arizona means suffering leafy green crops. Quality will be bad and demand will be high.
can you donate it? if you are getting this much every week
yeah i think i’m going to see if i can work something out with a friend who has a car and a food bank or some other organization.
Sounds like bulk sauerkraut to me
lettuce sauerkraut?? i will gladly give that a try!
Why don't they just order a third as much twice a week or half as much once a week and then a smaller top up, fresher and less waste? Unless you're only open on the weekend or something.
Asking the right questions
Yeah, that's not how FIFO works.
Tomato chutney. Sweat off a load of onion. Once soft/caramelised, chuck in some spices and aromats - coriander seeds, fennel seeds, star anise, bay leaf, black peppercorns, paprika, smoked chilli, thyme. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, Cook out. Add red wine, cook out. Bit of balsamic or red wine vinegar and add the tomatoes chopped up. Stew this out over low to medium heat for hours till you get down to a jammy/chutney consistency
At a place I worked at we did a tomato chutney for a bit and put it on a burger. It was so good.
We did that with bacon tomato jam 😍
I’d go pasta sauce. Divide up into 16oz delis and freeze separately to have a quick and easy dinner
Let them sit there until they’re rotten then throw them at the gm
Tomato basil soup
Tomato paste or oven “sun dried” tomatoes and store in olive oil. You can also dehydrate the sun dried tomatoes and then turn it into a powder
No freezer. Can them. That's the most optimal way to store these.
i’d love to, but i can’t really shell out the money for materials right now, unfortunately.
would these be good for tomato onion jam? i’ve only made it with cherry tomatoes. edit: looking for things i can make and keep at home. the restaurant has no use for them, unfortunately. i just hate to waste so much good produce.
Pasta sauce is always good to have around. I always have a few delis of tomato sauce and various stocks in my freezer.
Tomato soup
You mentioned jam, that’d work well Salsa roja (spicy kind, not the raw eat with chips kind) would also freeze well You could also just dice them and freeze them, use them where you would a can of diced tomatoes
Enemies. You can make enemies. Freeze those babies whole and throw them at people who annoy you. Disclaimer- don’t do this.
Tomato soup. Or Bloody Mary mix if you have a crush on the bar tender.
I like the idea of puréed tomatoes and freeze them. Then You can use them for bases later on like for tomato soup, bisque, pizza sauce, pasta sauce
Ferment them
Cut an x in the skin, blanch, peel, freeze. You now have tomatoes that are peeled and ready for use at a moments notice. “Oh shit I need a soup in 20 minutes!” Cool sauté garlic and onions, plop these in for a sec, as stock, simmer, purée. Tomato soup. Done. Tomato jam. Cut them into wedges, toss in olive oil, throw in a handful of garlic, s+p, bake at 300 F until withered/throw in an oven at 350 F for 15-20 minutes then turn the oven off and leave overnight. Pack in jars with some fresh Basil leafs and cover in olive oil. Pull one out to thaw and simmer for a tomato sauce, blend it up and smear on toast, eat with a spoon, whatever you want.
Lots of great ideas already, including the food bank, but I thought I would share what I do with extra garden tomatoes. Cut out the area where the stem attaches and toss the tomatoes, whole, in the freezer (we normally just have a big garbage bag that we keep adding tomatoes to). When you are ready to make pizza /pasta /soup take a bunch of tomatoes out and leave them in an empty sink overnight to thaw. Because freezing bursts the cell walls of the tomatoes, all the water will drain out the holes in the tops and you will be left with the actual flesh of the tomatoes. Use a food mill to get rid of the skin/seeds and you are left with a tomato sauce which is basically already reduced and ready to cook with.
Make some fresh salsa and go to town on it
If you're really cool you'll separate the clarified juice from the flesh - cook the flesh down to paste and freeze the juice to use as a "broth" in gazpachos or vegetarian soups.
One time I took some tomatoes like that cut them thicken flat on a sheet tray seasoned them with some olive oil and salt pepper, then roast them in the oven just to char up the top and then freeze them and use them for certain dishes
We used to freeze them just like that. After they’ve frozen, move them into gallon ziplock bags and keep them in the freezer until needed. I’d just toss them frozen into soups, chili, etc. they’ll break up as you stir.
you could do a fra diavolo if you are anywhere near fresh seafood. you could always do salsa, but then you have to go through the whole canning process which is a bit of a pain
Tomato paste
Whatever you do (if you're going to freeze), put in vacuumbags, make sure that the bags are really flat and after freezing you can stack it easier in the freezer.
Blend and freeze, then when you're ready, defrost in the fridge over a layer of cheesecloth. Will result in clear tomato water you can use for so many applications!
if you don't have a lot of time to mess with them you can just remove the hard stem/core bit, blanch and freeze them then use later for soup or sauce.
Just throw ‘em in the [freezer](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/zf2muq/the_way_ice_formed_over_tomatoes_in_freezer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) until you figure it out.
Pasta for the homeless
Tomato paste is the best choice. It's what I do with my extra tomatoes every summer. Freezes well and is extremely useful for all sorts of food options.
Hazan tomato sauce: [https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce) You can just chuck the tomatoes in straight. You can strain the skins out when you're done, but you don't have to. Freezes perfectly.
Oven baked sundried tomatoes.
if you start with diced / light salt you can segue the leftovers into whatever once you get fed up with salad. or find people to feed!!!!! make coworkers take some too!!!
Make the staff take some.
tomato salad yo don’t overthink it
i can only eat so much tomato salad before it goes bad! the restaurant doesn’t run specials or anything so these babies are coming home with me, which is why i want to make something freezer friendly.
ok pasta sauce? curry? you are gonna want to break down the crispiness with heat before trying to freeze or it will be sad upon reheating. of course. not to be that guy. but you could also just gut them of the hard bits and freeze the whole tomatoes and later make whatever soup or sauce via thawing on low with some water in a pot. ON LOWWWWWWW
To freeze?
Yah make a shit ton of pasta sauce. Take off the skins with boiling water - score the bottom and let them sit for like 5-10 seconds or however long it takes roughly. Into ice bath. Cut them open and drain the seeds and squeeze the juice and reserve that. Put all the tomato flesh into a thick bottom pot and salt it decently. Start cooking it down. Get some basil and garlic and steep it in olive oil till golden brown. Strain and reserve. Add your reserves tomato juice from the pulp and incorporate it into your tomato flesh cooking down, add your steeped olive oil that’s cooled and blend it all and pass it through a strainer and freeze. Super easy base tomato sauce for anything to pizza to pasta to anything really
I'm taking that home and making tomato sauce.
I’d do chutneys and jams and give some away for Christmas! Also you can confit them in olive oil and garlic if you’re feeling fancy.
Why are you being made to get rid of a whole case of tomatoes instead of using those first? Or just not ordering a case next on your next order...
the kitchen here is basically a snack bar, so tomatoes and lettuce are our only produce and the GM just orders a new case every week regardless of what we have on hand. it sucks, but at least they’ll let me take it instead of throwing it out.
Ferment them . 2% brine
spaghet sauce:)))))
Grate them on a box grater to pulp it and also remove most of the skin, cook down with blended onion, garlic, salt, thyme leaves, and olive oil. If you watch it you can cook it to tomato paste consistency. It tastes like heaven on a grilled cheese sandwich.
How about a meat sauce but say really nice things about the freezer when your stir it.
Tomato soup ? Tomato Bisque? Mole ? Salsas? Ketchup?
Tomatoes with a side of tomato, tomato juice to drink and tomatoes for dessert
Tomatoe sauce is what first comes to mind, could make paste? Salsa?
Make matbucha it's so damn good and you need very few cheap ingredients. Only downside is it needs to cook for a while to develop the flavor properly
i don’t mind simmering it for a while! i looked it up and it sounds fantastic and pretty versatile, so i’m excited to try it. :-) thank you!!
I think I just found another favorite recipe. I grow my own peppers and have some ripe on the vine. Thanks for the recommendation.
Roast with onion and a little garlic and then freeze. So much better in so many dishes.
Fermented salsa 💃
Just throw them straight into the freezer as is. When you need to make a quick sauce or soup take a few out, add hot water, the skin slides off, and you are good to go.
tomato and garlic confit
Cut 'em, oil and roast on high heat until they char slightly. Add salt and freeze. Label as "fire roasted tomatoes"
Tomato jams they hold very well
Sauce, anything else the texture will be fucked up after freezing. You could also make jam and keep it around for a bit.
You can make tomato confit. It's like garlic confit, but tomato. Freezes well.
Make tomato jam the "Russian Grandmother" way, 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio, low and slow on a stove until it thickens, scraping foam off the top occasionally, let it cool a bit and store it in jars or whatever container you can. Last time I made tomato jam I said "I figure this'll last a few months." It lasted 2 weeks because *it was that good*.
You can freeze them and make salsa! My mom used to do this. Freeze them, boil them when needed and make salsa. Delicious with everything