Ivan thinks big when it comes to his tomatoes

KEEN vegie grower Ivan Skorjanec reckons he may have grown the biggest tomato in Geelong.

He’s been harvesting his own tomatoes each season, grown from a scattering of seeds given to him six years ago, and this year one tomato has tipped the scales at 850g.

“I haven’t got a bit of bread big enough to put a slice of this tomato on,” he laughed.

Mr Skorjanec doesn’t know the name of the tomatoes — “some beefsteak variety probably” — but they’re robust, big, juicy and tasty.

Some of the plants in his Leopold backyard have five or six tomatoes on them, each of them maybe 500g or heavier.

So what does he do with all that bountiful harvest?

“Put slices of tomato on pizza with fresh basil and chives and some buffalo mozzarella,’’ he said.

“I make a tomato salad with wedges of tomatoes and some onion slices. You season it with salt and pepper and some oil and vinegar and a bit of sugar. You don’t eat the onions, they just flavour the tomatoes.”

He’s also partial to a fresh pasta sauce made by sauteing onion and garlic before adding chopped tomatoes, a spoonful of Vegeta vegetable stock, a good pinch of salt and a couple of tablespoons of sugar.

“The sugar is the secret,’’ Mr Skorjanec said. Have you got a decent crop of tomatoes this year? What are you making with them? Share your recipe with Real Cooking. Email margaret.linley@news.com.au.