Well,lets start from the beginning. I love tomatoes and buy them every week from my nearby supermarket.Few weeks ago,I found that the tomatoes there were not so fresh or ripe and you know what,that was the week I had planned to do tomato dishes.Naturally I gave up the idea.Then the next week there was a fresh crop and I purchased double the quantity and this happened twice.Finally,my fridge was full of tomatoes -almost 3kilos! and I was too busy to make the planned dishes and had also planned a short vacation! But I took time to go through my bookmarked recipes and found a simple and easy solutions- a savoury homemade tomato juice and also sweet Vietnamese Tomato shake.
Homemade Tomato Juice:
This is not just the ordinary juice where you blend tomatoes and serve. This involves cooking tomatoes with onions and spices and celery and as usual blending.I had bookmarked the recipe from Elise's Simply Recipes,but I changed it a bit with the addition of cinnamon and red chillies.
Ingredients:
Dried Red Chillies:1-2 medium size as per taste
Cinnamon:1 big piece or as per taste
Tomatoes: almost 1.5 kilos (5-6 cups coarsely chopped)
Onion: 1 small chopped (around 4-5 tbsp)
Celery: chopped around 1-1.25 cup
Sugar: a pinch
Salt & Pepper :as per taste
Preparation:
Coarsely chop the tomatoes,onions and celery.Heat a heavy bottomed pan.Add dry chillies and cinnamon.As soon as they start roasting,add all other ingredients.Mix well and cook in a medium-low heat for about 25-30 minutes until the mix turns soupy.Cool and then blend removing the cinnamon piece and red chilly. Strain and serve chilled. I did not strain and served at room temp or a bit warm.This gives you about 4 cups .
I am a sucker for savoury drinks and loved it.Cinnamon and red chilly combine beautifully with tomatoes. Adjust the red chilly with pepper.Apart from this you can also add other spices like and adapt it to your taste.
Vietnamese Tomato Shake (Sinh To Ca Chua):
This is a very simple and sweet tomato juice where tomato is blended with icecubes and sugar.I adapted it from Wandering Chopsticks.I actually got the link to this recipe from SimplyRecipes. I was surprised about the fact that the tomato shake is supposed to be a street food in Vietnam.A simple search also confirmed the fact. The recipe (if I can call it) is toooooo simple.
Ingredients:
Tomatoes: 3-4 medium
Ice Cubes:1/2-1 cup
Sugar: 1-2 tsp or as per taste
Preparation:
Blend all the ingredients together till the ice cubes are crushed.Serve it tangy or sweet adjusting the sugar.
Ripe tomatoes are to be used in this and the juice will be tangy as well as sweet.Add more sugar for sweetness.My family preferred it sweeter with more sugar while I liked mine tangy.
If you are not a tomato lover then you can avoid this.Anyway now,I know what to do when I have extra tomatoes. :). This tomato shake also goes to AWED:Vietnam hosted by Priya, an event by DK. This is first time, I am sending 4 entries to an event and 3 of them are tomato based!