Tomatoes in November?!?

I was a bit relieved, actually, when I thought I’d received my final tomato delivery from my CSA and picked the final ripe tomato from my own plants.  But then, as I was helping a friend tear out her gazillion tomato plants, she told me of her plan to place her green tomatoes in containers between layers of newspaper.  This, apparently, would ripen them right up.  I reluctantly followed this advice, and sure enough, over the next couple of weeks, I was right back into tomato mode.  Because it was November, I just couldn’t bring myself use these in a caprese salad, or grilled caprese panini, or any of the number of amazing ways we were enjoying them fresh off the vine in August and September.  Fall had come, and tomatoes needed to be cooked!  Here are several recipe suggestions for using those bonus tomatoes.  Use the following guidelines when substituting canned tomatoes for fresh in a recipe:

• one 28 oz. can of tomatoes equals about 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes
• one 14 oz. can of tomatoes equals about 1 pound of fresh tomatoes

• roasted fennel tomato sauce (Lynne Rosetto Casper, The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper)
• roasted tomato soup with garlic (Bon Appetit)
• lentil bacon soup (Macrina Bakery); I used about 2 pounds of tomatoes, and it was delicious
• coulis de tomates a la provencale (Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
• tomato sauce iv (Lynne Rosetto Casper, The Italian Country Table)
• basic tomato sauce (recipe.doc)

And here’s the link to one of many sources on how to ripen green tomatoes (“Pick’em & paper ’em”):  The Art of Doing Stuff