Tomato Surprise

Tomato Surprise sounds like a recipe you might find in a Betty Crocker cookbook from the fifties.  Probably a cassrole including ingredients like canned tomato soup, saltine crackers and cheese.  But no, read on to learn about our tomato surprise.

Here is the scene about every other day.  The cukes and squash are getting pretty thick.  Dating each bag is critical to making sure we are on a "first in, first out" program.  The blueberries have been plentiful enough to start freezing some.  We are up to 2 quarts in the freezer, as many as we can eat fresh and lots more on the bushes. 

Don't get me wrong, this is a good problem to have, but the need to process is a bit oppressive at times.

This is the other fairly constant scene in our kitchen right now.  Despite eating as many as we can, processing for sauce, freezing whole, making BLT's, gazpacho, salsa and they just keep coming.  I actually made a sauce last night with Sungold cherries because they were on the verge of going over and that would be a crime.  The sauce was fantastically sweet, I put it through the food mill to remove the skins, and then cooked it with some Japanese eggplants and a load of garlic and basil. Yeah.

The big surprise in the mater patch this season were the Aunt Ruby's German Greens.  Now I knew I had started some seeds but somewhere in the translation of seed flats to stepped up pots, I thought none of them had sprouted.  I found the seed in a last seasons reduced bin and so I figured maybe they just had not been good seeds.  Luckily, they did sprout and were mislabeled.  I planted a couple in the group of plums thinking they were sauce tomatoes.

As they started to mature it became apparent they were no kind of plum tomato but some sort of heirloom.  I thought they were Georgia Streaks, yellow with a red sunburst on the bottom, but the mystery tomato was ripening later.  Not until a couple of them started to rot on the vine did it occur to me they were the German Greens. 

What a fantastic tomato!  They have a silky texture similar to a Cherokee Purple and that gorgeous sunburst of pink at the bottom. Even with very green shoulders, they are perfectly ripe, with a nice balance of acid and sweet.  Fortunately we made the realization before they all went bad.

Here a dynamite salad made with the Aunt Ruby's Green tomato, watermelon, purple onion, feta and topped with peanuts.  I did a dressing with peanut oil, rice wine vinegar and fresh basil.  It was super tasty.

Fortunately I think I have enough plums for one more big batch of sauce and the crop seems to be winding down.  Then we will go through withdrawal because we will no longer be eating 2 or 3 amazing tomatoes each day.  Oh well, can't have it all.  If they were available all year like this we wouldn't appreciate them as we do when they only are at their peak for a couple of months.  But we will have them frozen and canned to enjoy over the winter.

Monster Cukes and Other Garden Trivia

These two state fair quality beauties measuring 17 and 19 inches respectively, slipped past our attentive pickers eyes.  They were each snuggled close to or behind the green metal fence posts upon which the cucumber trellis is supported.  They were hiding under the leaves of cukes and beans.  Growing longer by the day.  I'm sure the inch of rain we finally got helped push them along to their mammoth lengths.  Both are Japanese varieties; small seeded, thin skinned, sweet, wet, crunchy, spectacular, even at this size.  The top one is a Suyo Long; prickly and ridged, fancy when cut cross-wise to reveal scalloped edges.  The bottom is a Tasty Jade, smooth and round.  Both are long time standards in our garden. 

I think I know how I'll be spending my day tomorrow 

It's sauce making time.   Despite the early blight, the tomatoes have done quite well and put on a very nice set of fruit.  This is definitely the peak week, we'll be eating as many as we possibly can. 

I was shocked to realize we haven't had a BLT yet, so I went to the store today to get all the ingredients for the ultimate sandwich.   Good rustic white bread, a head of lettuce and some decent bacon.  Tomorrows lunch.  Discussing tonight's dinner menu and this quest for BLT fixin's with  David this morning, I apologized for being geezerly in my anticipation of meals to come, but there you have it.  Got to have something to look forward to right?

Especially since we have cancelled our anticipated camping vacation for next week due to the fact that it looks like rain most every day in the mountains starting Sunday, the day we were to leave and lasting through the week :-(.   SO we are going to stay home and eat.  And work.  But considering all I've got to get done this month, its probably a wise decision.  Hopefully we'll get a chance to sneak off for a little fun at some point soon.

And with all those maters coming in, well, we probably ought to stick around to deal with them too.

Quintessential Summer Supper

 Cherokee Purple, Sungold and Pink Bumblebee tomatoes with some summer friends

I can't get through July without posting about this most summery of plates.  We've been eating some combo of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and snap beans once and sometimes twice a day for the past couple of weeks.  I do not tire of this grouping as I know it will never taste quite the same at any other time of year as it does when it comes fresh from the garden.

Some S&P, O&V and a smattering of feta or cottage cheese with some purple onion for bite and fresh basil for pizazz, its just hard to go wrong.

On the left up there is a zucchini stuffed with a custard made of fresh corn, egg, milk and cheese.  It's topped with fresh tomato sauce made of nothing but onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil with peeled chopped plum tomatoes.  It is so sweet and simple.

I added a pile of lentils last night for some more protein.  French lentils are great eaten cold, worth a try if you haven't and they cook up quickly too.

Best news of all.  It's raining.  Rained last night too.  A half an inch and I'm feeling maybe we'll have another half inch or more tonight.  Everyone, even non-gardeners, are breathing a sigh of relief.

 Corn Stuffed Zucchini (Calabacitas rellenas con elote)

           Adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico 

3 large zucchini- wash, trim the ends and cut in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the flesh and save for another dish, leaving a 1/4-1/2 inch thick "boat" to hold the custard.

Put in a blender:

   Scraped kernels from 3 ears of corn

   1 egg

   1-2 T milk (enough to free the blades of the blender)

   1/4 t salt and some fresh pepper

Puree

Add 1/2 cup of grated cheese, and give another zip in blender

(I like muenster but you could use jack or cheddar)

Put zucchini boats in a baking dish, pour the custard into the boats, top with more grated cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes-one hour.

Serve with fresh tomato sauce and some chopped fresh parsley or basil.

Praying for Rain

And perhaps the prayers will be answered.  It is so parched and dry the weeds that make up our lawn are starting to die. Many plants around the yard are drooping, despite spending hours each day standing with the hose to give a hope of continued life to the many shrubs and trees we've planted over the past few years. 

The bonus to standing with the hose is a chance to take in a slow view of things. Watch birds flit about the yard.  Or clouds move across the sky casting shadows on the parched landscape. A moment to pluck and crush Japanese beetles munching away on the apple trees. Or pick blueberries while the hose rests at their feet, giving the roots a deep soak to yield plump berries. 

Happiness in Blue

I resorted to the rain bird today.  We rarely use a sprinkler, as they seem wasteful, but it's come to that, too many vast dry areas and too little time to spare.

It did rain today, but only briefly.  I went out and just stood, listening to that sound of water hitting leaves, ground, roof.  I thought "Come on, come on, keep going, PLEASE."  It has been nearly a month since we had any appreciable rain, so it's getting critical.  More is forecast for tomorrow.  Fingers crossed that we are under the 60% of sky that's predicted to give a decent shower. We'll need at least an inch to even begin to soak down into the baked and cracked soil.

Good news is that diligent watering does yield vegetables.  And the lack of rain has probably saved our tomatoes from the blight that was overtaking them earlier in the season after the one heavy rain we had back in May.

 

Happiness in Red and Yellow

 

We are also fortunate to have a well.  Here's hoping it keeps on pumping cool clear water from deep in the ground for many years to come. 

Nothing really says July quite like day lilies.  This one is a fave with its green throat in contrast against those velvety purple petals.

 

This two-toner is another beauty

I've noticed the plants with tuberous roots; day lilies, ginger lilies, peonies, are much better able to endure the lack of water.  But even they are beginning to show signs of distress.  

Come on.  Rain.

Where's Jack?

The rain just won't quit.

Another 7 tenths last night, after 7 tenths the night before, after.... I can't keep track anymore, it seems its rained almost everyday.  As a result things are growing very tall, I guess they are trying to reach for the sun?

Standing in front of the pole bean trellis

David added  3 feet to the top of this trellis and still the beans have grown another three feet beyond that, winding and wrapping around themselves in an attempt to grow higher.  They are finally setting flowers and beans, I may have to get a ladder to pick them though.  In addition to Jack in the Beanstalk references I keep hearing Aretha singing The House That Jack Built "But I ain't got Jack, and I want my Jack back".

The extension David made for the cucumber trellis was so heavy with vine and fruit that it snapped and folded over on itself.  So now picking cucumbers is more like an excavation.  But they keep putting on, with all the rain they are watery, crisp and sweet.  I am glad we will be leaving for a vacation in another 10 days and when we get back, hopefully all the cucurbits and tomatoes will be dead.

After making 4 gallons of tomato sauce, half in the freezer, half in jars and tucked safely away for winter, I am happy to see the tomatoes coming to an end.   But not quite, so last night we took advantage of the first 3 fat eggplants and the squash surplus and made a big pot of ratatouille.  So tasty.

 Vat of Rat + Today's Harvest

Back in my restaurant days we would make 5 gallon buckets of ratatouille and put it in everything from omelets to crepes or serve it as a side dish along side cold roasted lamb.  There, we actually flash fried each vegetable in oil and added it to the cooked tomato sauce.  At home, I sauté batches of each veggie in olive oil and then simmer it all together with tomatoes, onions, garlic and a healthy handful of fresh basil.  Yum.  Some of this is headed for the freezer too.

In fact, we are slated to go out and buy a new larger freezer today as our 25 year old 10 cubic foot freezer is stuffed and we need more space. It's making this groaning sound that gets me nervous, I would hate for the old thing to die right now as its filled to the brim with cherries, blueberries, tomato sauce and more.  I hate shopping but sometimes you just gotta do it.  25 years for an appliance is not bad, and I fear the new one won't last half that long.

Red Alert- Tomato Emergency!

I planted extra tomatoes this year with canning in mind.  I've always made sauce and frozen it, but last year I also canned pints and quarts and they turned out so well and didn't take up freezer space so I decided I wanted to do more canning this season.  When I made that decision I didn't know it would be the wettest summer on record.  In case you didn't know, tomatoes don't really like humidity and wet weather.  What was one of the best looking tomato patches we've had in a long time; healthy, lush plants loaded with green fruit, has been turned, in the course of three very wet weeks, into this.

This batch of Red Agate romas have lost almost all of their leaves. Not pictured are the Marianna hybrid which are doing a little better but the fruit is only beginning to ripen.  Granted, the fruit set is fantastic as you can see, but the tomatoes are starting to rot before they fully ripen due to too much moisture.  So today I picked everything that was remotely red and brought it into the kitchen. I dried off and left on the counter all that looked like they would make it a few days to get redder. Look close to see the little spots that in a few days turn into black rot.

The rest I washed and processed for sauce.  I have a method that is probably not the most efficient but I like the result so I labor away.  First I remove any spots and the cores from the tomatoes, cut in chunks and put them in a big pot with some salt and cook until soft, 20 or 30 minutes.  Then I put that mixture through the food mill to remove skins and most of the seeds.  In addition, because I like my sauce to be a bit chunky, I peel and seed some of the better looking ones and chop those up.  So the result is two batches, one of chopped and one of puree.

I heat some fruity olive oil in a large heavy bottom pot, cook chopped onions and garlic until starting to soften, then add both batches of tomatoes along with about a cup of chopped fresh basil, marjoram and oregano and a bay leaf and let the whole thing simmer for at least an hour to meld the flavors and cook away some of the water. This yields a rich, thick sauce that I can freeze in baggies for winter pizza's and pasta.

The final product, burbling away

I was at this for three hours this morning between the picking, sorting, peeling, chopping, not to mention washing the dishes that mount in a process like this, but it will be worthwhile in the end.  I hope the remaining tomatoes in the garden are going to ripen up before the plants go down completely so I can actually get some into jars as I had planned.  The weather is finally turning hot and dry this week, with 90+ degree days  forecast every day  I am not looking forward to that very much, but at least we are already half way through July.

The Lotus Pond

Last summer David brought home a black plastic tub and some tiny lotus plants.  He filled the tub with mud, brought water from the farm pond to introduce a few water creatures, nestled the plants into their new home and we waited.  Within a couple of months we had breathtaking, spectacular flowers.

D would visit the little pond daily to see what was up, who was hatching, growing, zipping in and around the floating leaves.  All kinds of frogs moved onto the scene.  The lotus pond became a source of entertainment and natural wonder.

During the first warm nights this past spring, when we opened the windows to let in the night air, along with the breeze came a deafening call of dozens of tree frogs just outside the bedroom window where the little pond sat.  David constructed a plywood sled that he hoisted the pond onto and then used to drag the heavy pool across the yard and settle the tub further away from the bedroom window.  He brought soil to pile around the edges and planted iris and ginger lilies to soften the black plastic rim.  Just this past week the lotus began to bloom again. 

They are ethereal.

Along with the frogs and whirly gig beetles, tadpoles and skimmers came dragonflies.  Nymphs that spent the winter in the mud began to crawl up out of the muck onto the stalks. Their backs split open and out hatched the winged creatures, filling up like butterflies coming out of a chrysalis, then taking wing around the yard, snatching up mosquitoes and other small flying insects.

Dry nymph shell above, dragon ready to fly below

Buddhists consider the lotus to be representative of the journey to enlightenment, from the murky mud rises a beautiful flower, its opening an awakening or rebirth.  I'm glad to see the fat purple buds and pink flowers gracing the yard again and its timely that they came at the summer solstice, I certainly have felt my own energy rising after the passage of the first day of summer.  I've not reached enlightenment, I'm far from that, but I do feel a release from things that were weighing me down, a renewal of my spirit moving me forward to new things. 

I'm trying to embrace summer as best I can.  

Swimming outside, riding my bike, long evenings drinking gin and tonics, playing croquet and watching the fireflies rise up from the lawn, suppers of tomatoes, corn, squash and cucumbers, and I picked our first ripe blueberry today.

Yep, summer has arrived.

Between Rain Showers

I just dashed out between the rain showers to snap a few photos and cut some lilacs to bring in before they got all smashed and ruined in the rain.  I can't believe that it is already the 6th of May and 3 weeks since my last post.  Apologies faithful readers, it's been a busy patch.  This Gold Flame lonicera (honeysuckle) has been spectacular over the past week and continues to delight, especially nice that it can be seen from the kitchen window.  Last season it bloomed 4 times over the course of the season, a real winner.

What have I been up to since last I wrote?  Learning more about bird banding over at Prairie Ridge and taking a few bird walks around here in search of spring migrants, they seem a bit late due to the cool weather.  I've organized work days and planting at the community garden. I went to a two-day writing workshop on "Those who shape us - character portraits"  with my long time teacher Carol which was really good, now I need to put the learning into practice as I continue to work on a long piece about "my life in food" and my early days in Austin, Texas.

We've had two more meetings of the garden club mob, one at a new garden and one at Spanish for Fun Academy child care center.  This was our "community service" effort of the group as one of our members works at SFF and has no garden space at home.  I have been working with them for 2 years on their naturalized play space, adding more bit by bit. Click here for photos of the play space over time, I was just looking at them and its kind of amazing how it has changed, going from having nothing growing there to adding 16 trees, many shrubs, blueberries, apples, strawberries and a fig tree, veggie and flower beds- remarkable! 

Yesterday I  worked like a maniac all day trying to get the rest of our summer veggies planted before the next long rainy period which started just about the time I could no longer stand up straight last evening and is to continue through Wednesday!  I was a success, planted 16 assorted pepper plants that I started from seed back in March; red, yellow and orange bells, Carmen Italian stuffing, Hungarian round pimentos, one Serrano, one new Mex Joe Parker and one Marconi Gold yellow Italian.  I also prepped beds and sowed 3 kinds of cukes; Tasty Jade, Diva and Suyo Long, 3 kinds of squash; sunburst patty pan, romanesco costato zucchini, and yellow crook neck- the seed viability test of the year with seeds from 2000!  I sowed 3 kinds of beans, are we picking up a theme here?  Roc d'or yellow wax, Tavera haricot verts and Pension Italian flat. I also set out some basil and parsley plants.

I had managed to get most of the tomatoes in back around April 15th, but yesterday I added 4 cherry tomato plants to round out the tomato planting to a total of 28 plants.  This years goal was to have more plum tomatoes for sauce and canning and fewer slicers, but because we like so many kinds and want a variety, I still planted more than we probably need.  Seven Mariana hybrid romas and 7 Red Agate romas, and a couple of each; Cherokee purple, Georgia streak, Celebrity, Bolseno, Mosckvich and beef steak, and the four cherries; Sungold, Sundrop, Bi-color and Sweetie.  I think we won't see a shortage of mates this season!

I will leave you with a couple of photos of clematis that have started to bloom in the past couple of weeks, they're very happy with all the rain.  Here is Niobe, transplanted last year to this sunnier spot, it grew and grew but never flowered, this year it is covered with buds.

 This is Nelly Moser below, very happy on the fence between the veggie garden and the lawn.

and up close

I'm glad for all the rain, but am looking forward to warmer weather, it is May after all, seems weird to have the heater running.  I'll try to write more this month, there is certainly plenty to write about!

Summer Berry Pie

Look what I made :-)

In my opinion, pie is one of the all time greatest desserts and a real showcase for good fruits. The calories are exorbitant but I thought the fight for the berries made a pie worthwhile. The squirrels were tearing up the plants and stealing the berries but through diligent picking morning and evening, I gleaned 3 pints over 5 days, as I collected them I kept telling myself, If I get enough, I'm treating us to a pie.

I haven't cut into it yet but I know it's going to be delicious. Flavored with cinnamon and orange, it will be juicy and tart and sweet and have that amazing blackberry flavor that I can't describe but love.

I finished cleaning up the garlic this week which means I removed most of the brown tops, cut off the roots and scraped off the outside layer of skin that was a little dirty and musty. The yield was 60 heads, I made one long braid with 25 of the biggest prettiest heads and then put the smaller ones in a basket. I hope it will be enough garlic to last all year but it could be close considering how tasty this fresh garlic is and how much we like it in cooking. I am eager to learn if the onions and garlic we've grown will keep well or will rot or mildew? Hopefully keeping them in the house will keep them dry enough. (If you've experience storing onions and garlic in the south drop me a comment about that please.)

There are now about 100 tomatoes on the counter so I'm going to have to make sauce this week, no way around it. We eat them in and with everything-- like along side the fried eggs this morning. No other veggie/fruit can really compare to a good old tomato fresh and warm from the garden.

I don't even want to talk about the squash situation. It seems we are lucky, lots of folks tell us they've lost their squash to borers and bugs, not the case here so far, picked about 8 more squash today. HELP!