Exceptional tomatoes and corn this summer

SHARON — Now is the time for all farm-to-table cooks to start canning tomatoes. That’s the advice of Charlie Paley, owner and farmer of Paley’s Farm Market in Sharon.

“People always come in September and ask me for canning tomatoes,” he said on Thursday morning, Aug. 20, “but this is the time for canning.”

That morning he and his crew had just picked 1,000 pounds of tomatoes. They were stacked in boxes all around the store, waiting for someone to take them home and love them. 

Paley said it’s been a phenomenal year for growing produce, thanks to the steady early-season rains. On an average year, he said, about half of the seeds he plants will not produce; this year, pretty much everything he planted has turned into a beautiful stalk of corn or a vine of fat red tomatoes (or row of lettuce or strand of green beans or …). 

The quality of the produce has been exceptional this year, too, with kernels on the corn that are crisp and sweet and tomatoes that are dense and flavorful and intensely colored. Even the tomatoes that Paley is selling as “seconds” are red and fat and have very little cracking or other blemishes. 

And speaking of those seconds (and of canning tomatoes), Paley has flats of the lower-priced “seconds” that are selling for less than the more perfect orbs. Be careful, however, not to mistake a flat of “firsts” at full price for a flat of “seconds.

Storage tips

Canning is not the only way to store tomatoes and corn. Freezing is also an option.

Cooks seem to be divided on the best method for freezing tomatoes. Some like to slow roast them at low heat, with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on them along with some olive oil and some herbs (basil is the obvious choice but not the only one). Other cooks prefer a fast roast at high heat (375 to 400 degrees) — again, with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on them along with some olive oil and some herbs. The herbs are optional, of course. 

Store the frozen tomatoes in smaller containers so that you can defrost only what you need when you need it (on some cold dark day of winter when lasagna seems like a good idea).

It’s also possible with the smaller tomatoes to put them in a freezer bag with a “zipper” top and store them that way until they’re needed. They obviously can’t be sliced and put on a sandwich once they’re defrosted but they’re perfect for tomato sauces and for roasting. 

Larger tomatoes can be flash frozen, too; just slice them first. With the large and the small tomatoes be sure that they are in a single layer and that they are stored flat on a freezer shelf until they’re frozen. Then they can be rearranged without turning into a pulpy mess.

Corn seems to freeze best when it’s been lightly cooked first. The easiest thing to do is cook a few extra ears while preparing dinner, and slice the kernels off the cob and store them in a zipper bag or other freezer-safe container.