One of my pet hates is to skin tomatoes. It drives me bonkers - I hate boiling up the water, dropping them in, fishing them out, waiting for the hot toms to cool so I can peel them - I'm far too impatient for all of that.
I prefer this method:
grating.
Firstly, I absolutely cannot take any credit for this tip as I saw it on the net, by an American chef called Justin Someone (can't remember his name at the mo, sorry) so I thought I would try it.
It's especially useful for using over-ripe or damaged fruit as you can easily cut out the bits you don't want, like these:
Take a ripe tomato, cut out any bits you don't want and cut the rest into two pieces
Then, merely grate the cut side of the tomato against a box grater
Just gently rub: the skin prevents you grating your fingers
you'll be left with the skin which you can feed to the chickens or put in the compost
and lovely, fresh tomato pulp which you can put with pasta as a sauce, add a few herbs and olive oil, or as I did, with chopped up squash, skinned marrow, onions, garlic, herbs and oil and popped in the wood oven for a sort-of-ratatouille, and eventually cooled for the freezer.
Easy-peasey! Took about 30 seconds...
