Recently, tomatoes, more importantly, the pigment that makes them red (lycopene) have been making the news. Lycopene has been elevated to supernutrient in preventing cancer. Here’s the reality of the situation: It’s a pigment active in photosynthesis. Lycopene is a fat soluble compound that in our bodies accumulates in fatty tissues such as the liver, testes, and adrenal glands. That’s it. All the science says that people who have diets high in tomatoes have a lower incidence of cancer, but there is no direct link between lycopene, tomatoes, and cancer risk. We should all want our families to eat tomatoes not because of what the media says but what we know about them. Tomatoes are full of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Potassium which are all nutrients essential to our day to day health.
Tomatoes can be rather intimidating. So you can throw them on a salad, sandwich, burger, or in salsa, but really as of easy things to do with tomatoes that is it. Every other preparation of tomatoes involves one thing that I personally hate to do: Peeling the skin off. It’s not complicated or hard, I just find it to be a pain. I will clean shrimp, roll 100 little dumplings, hand roll a pie crust, or whip fresh cream by hand, but for whatever reason I hate peeling tomatoes. ComputerNerd dislikes tomatoes in big chunks so I have few options when it comes to tomatoes unless I skin them or use canned. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now I avoid processed foods especially if I can make my own. So let’s do this. I will make it as painless as possible.
Painless Tomatoes
- Wash your tomatoes
- Boil a large pot of water
- Drop your tomatoes in the boiling water
- Wait until the skin cracks on your tomatoes, take them out of the boiling water
- Immerse tomatoes in an ice water bath until cool to the touch
- The skin should peel right off
At this point I usually also take the opportunity to remove the stem scar and dice them. Skinned tomatoes can be put in plastic bags for storage in the freezer for up to 6 months.
