Highlights from Tomato Festival 2015
Here we have some reports from the 15th Annual Tomato Festival for you, including recipes, best tasting tomatoes from the great Tomato Tasting, and our top finishers from the race. It was a lovely sunny day with many joys to be had with all of our visitors!
Tomato Recipes: Sides, Salads, Soups, and More (Bulk Order Tomatoes Here)
Tomato Tasting Results from the Festival: The votes are in…
Tomato Trot Race Results: Top Contestants by Age Category
Read on for more…
We just wrapped on Tomato Festival 2015. Thank you to all who came out – we had just about 2,000 guests! Though the fest has passed, we are still swimming in tomatoes – it’s the peak of the season! Our farmstands and markets now have tons of heirloom, red, cherry, and paste types for you to try. And you can also order heirlooms, slicers and pastes in bulk for preserving.
What happened at the Festival? Check out the photo album.
Tomato Recipes for the Peak Season
Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite tomato recipes. Do you have a recipe you’d like to share? Email recipes@redfirefarm.com to tell us your favorite ways to celebrate the tomato.
Recipes for Preserving Tomatoes
Oven Roasted Tomatoes
Tomato Sauce Farmer-Style – the recipe Sarah Voiland did for the Tomato Canning Demo at the fest.
Canned Plum Tomatoes
We have half bushels of heirlooms, reds, or paste tomatoes that you can order for pickup in the Boston area and around Western MA at our farmstands, markets and CSA pickups. Everyone is welcome to order.
Fun Recipes for Fresh Tomatoes
Roasted Tomato Basil Salad Dressing
Fresh Tomato-Corn Salsa
Tomato Basil Salad
Panzanella: Tomato and Bread Salad
Dekal’s Tomato Bean Soup
Gazpacho
Husk Cherry and Cherry Tomato Salsa
Ratatouille Outside the Box
Garlic and Herb Ratatouille
And what we’ve been waiting for….
The Famous Tomato Tasting ~ Results 2015
There they were – the many many varieties of tomatoes, ready to taste.
If you came to the tasting at the Tomato Festival, you received stickers to assign to your favorite tomatoes in any way you like. As the tasting goes along you can see which ones are working it by the collection of stickers on their card.
It is hard to taste all the varieties laid out there anyway, so the outcome is skewed by which tomatoes people choose to taste more. And I would say the tasting also favors those tomatoes with fresh eating qualities, as opposed to cooking or saucing qualities.
The votes are in…The public has spoken!
Overall Top 20 in Heirloom and Cherry Varieties – Type, Variety Name, Total Votes
Heirloom | Green Zebra | 42 |
Heirloom | Mexico | 39 |
Heirloom | Chef’s Choice | 29 |
Heirloom | Brandywine | 29 |
Heirloom | Ispolin | 29 |
Heirloom | Pink Beauty | 25 |
Heirloom | Janet’s Jewel | 23 |
Heirloom | Orlov Yellow Giant | 23 |
Heirloom | Gary Ibsen’s Gold | 23 |
Heirloom | Juanne Flamme | 22 |
Cherry | Sungold | 16 |
Cherry | Black Cherry | 15 |
Cherry | Rosita | 14 |
Cherry | Sunlemon | 12 |
Cherry | Pink Princess Gene Pool | 7 |
Cherry | Mt. Magic | 7 |
Cherry | Jasper | 5 |
Cherry | Jelly Bean | 5 |
Cherry | Sweet Treats | 4 |
Cherry | Blush | 4 |
Thanks very much to our tomato chopping volunteers and staff who spent hours slicing and dicing all of these samples for us to try.
Tomato Trot 5K Race Results
Top Results for Ages 1-12:
Aidan Messier (#60), first place male
McKenna Childs (#56), first place female
Top Results for Ages 13-19:
Orion Cable (#16), first place male
bib #73 – whose name we are missing :), first place female
Top Results for Ages 20-59, Women’s Category:
Joanna Johnson (#23), first place in this category and overall
Biliana Mihaylora (#31), second place in this category and overall
Christine Leonard (#26), third place in this category and overall
Julia Merton (#40), fourth place
Top Results for Ages 20-59, Men’s Category:
Patrick Homyack (#93), first place in this category and overall
John McCarthy (#109), second place in this category and overall
Erick Line (#24), third place in this category and overall
Jared Buckley (#25), fourth place
Top Results for Ages 60+:
David LeFrancois (#14), first place male
Peggy Kocoras (#17), first place female
View more photos of the Tomato Trot on Facebook.
Congratulations to all runners for a great race!
Thanks to all for a great festival! It will happen again next year, round the same time, when the tomatoes start to weigh heavy and ripe on the vines.
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~ Sarah Voiland