Preserving Ripe Tomatoes

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Home grown tomatoes often ripen in a rush, leaving the cook with a pantry full of produce that won’t wait. While drying or canning are the usual methods, I’ve had good luck freezing roasted tomatoes for up to three months, especially when prepared without seasonings that can develop off-flavors in the freezer.

Roasted Reds

2 quarts medium red tomatoes, cut in half
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rub each tomato, (skin side only) with oil, then place them cut-side-down in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F until soft and edges are lightly caramelized (50-60 minutes). Pack in jars and seal or puree first for a smoother sauce. Freeze for up to 3 months (use straight-sided jars and leave an inch of head room). Makes about 4 cups.

Thawed or just made, pureed Roasted Reds are luscious in Rich Red Sauce, which tastes like you spent hours making it but cooks up in minutes. Serve over pasta, quinoa, or rice and prepare to receive complements.

Rich Red Sauce

2 teaspoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 cups pureed Roasted Reds (thawed if frozen)
2-3 tablespoons fresh goat cheese, crumbled or Asiago, grated

In a sauce pan, heat oil, garlic, olives and onion over medium high heat for 2 minutes. Sprinkle with salt, add celery and cook until barely tender (3-4 minutes). Add chopped tomatoes, bring to a simmer, add puree, bring to a simmer and serve at once over pasta or  rice, garnished with cheese. Serves 4.

When you have a pan full of fresh, ripe tomatoes, Fresh Tomato Soup With Roasted Corn is a worthy way to celebrate them.  It goes together fast, cooks in minutes, and disappears even faster.   If you didn’t have time to roast corn ahead, just stir in some raw kernels and let them warm up–that will also taste just lovely.

Fresh Tomato Soup With Roasted Corn

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 shallots or cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
6 cups fresh tomatoes, chopped (with juice)
OR canned, diced tomatoes in juice
1 cup roasted corn (see below)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons sour cream (nonfat works fine)

In a soup pot, melt butter in oil over medium high heat. Add shallots and cook for 2 minutes. Ad onion, sprinkle with salt and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often. Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Puree in small batches and return to pan, return to simmer, stir in roasted corn and pepper and serve, garnished with sour cream. Serves 4.

Roasted Corn

2 ears yellow corn (not super sweet), husked

Rinse each ear, wrap individually in waxed paper and microwave on high heat for 3 minutes (or boil in salted water for 3 minutes and drain). Cut kernels from cob as closely as possible and spread them in a single layer on a tea towel. Let dry for an hour (or overnight). Heat a heavy frying pan (cast iron works best) over medium high heat and roast dry corn until slightly blackened, shaking pan often. Refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for up to three months. Makes about 2 cups.

Fragrant and lightly spicy, Red Tomato Chutney is a delicious addition to salad dressings and makes an unusual appetizer dip for sliced apples and pears. It’s also lovely spooned over grilled fish or chicken as well as basmati or nutty-tasting Bhutanese red rice. It keeps a long time in the refrigerator and makes a welcome holiday gift.

Red Tomato Chutney

1 teaspoon rice oil or safflower oil
1/2 teaspoon coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
6 green cardamom pods
2 white or yellow onions, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1 quart ripe tomatoes, sliced in wedges
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar

In a deep pan, heat oil, seeds, and pods over medium high heat to the fragrance point (1-2 minutes).  Add onions and salt and cook for 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook until soft (10-15 minutes). Add vinegar and sugar to taste and cook for 20 minutes. Remove green cardamom pods, pour chutney into sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 5 cups.

Posted in preserving food, Recipes, Tomatoes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Great Tumbling Tomatoes!

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

The last few weeks of warm, humid weather have worked miracles with my tomatoes. Late as it is, they’re ripening like crazy, turning red almost before our eyes. In fact, we’ve been watching my biggest Brandywine (the biggest I’ve ever grown in this cool, damp climate) ripen and it is definitely redder each afternoon than in the morning. Our cherry tomatoes are coming in by the handful, and though many of the ungrafted plants are showing signs of late blight, the grafted ones are still statuesque and fruitful. Check out the picture below of a pair of Log House Plants ‘Big Beef’ tomatoes and guess which one is grafted? Both were planted the same day from gallon pots and though I’d be thrilled anytime with the results on the “little” ungrafted one, the strapping, buxom grafted one is just stupendous.

These late tomatoes are utterly delicious, adding a delightful tart-sweet tang to salads and stir fries. One of my favorite ways to enjoy them is in this super fast, exceptionally tasty recipe:

Fresh Pasta With Fresh Tomato Sauce

8 ounces fresh fettucini or noodles
2 teaspoons virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 leeks, thinly sliced (white and palest green parts only)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, stemmed
2 cups diced, fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh basil, stemmed and shredded
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup shredded Asiago or Romano cheese

Cook pasta as directed on package. While pasta water is heating, combine oil, garlic, and fennel in a wide, shallow pan over medium heat and cook to the fragrance point (about one minute). Add leeks, half the salt, and the oregano and cook until tender-crisp (5-6 minutes). Add diced tomatoes, cover pan and bring to a simmer. Cook pasta as directed, drain and serve with hot sauce, garnished with remaining salt, basil, cherry tomatoes, and cheese. Serves at least one, up to 4.

Posted in Recipes, Tomatoes | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

On Eating Weeds

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Conversations With Pat

Over the summer, I’ve been exchanging notes with Pat Patterson, a grand gardener who is now retired from being Oregon State University’s Master Gardener coordinator. We were discussing this summer’s disappointing performance of tomatoes (in my neck of the woods, at any rate) despite their being efficient self-pollinators when she said: “I learned from SSE some years ago that although peppers also self-pollinate as efficiently as tomatoes, they will outcross with pollinator up to 30%. Let’s see, Habenero x Bell- spicy spaghetti? 8-).”

I do love that idea–it reminded me of those marvelous offers in low-end gardening magazines for tomatoes grafted onto potato rootstock. The plants were supposed to produce huge quantities of both tomatoes and potatoes–and if they didn’t, it was most certainly your own fault! Happily, the Log House Plants grafted tomatoes have been performing far better than those mythical marvels. On Bainbridge, we experienced far too many cold nights, often dipping into the 40’s, which caused many promising tomato blossoms to drop off in disgust.
Some of the cherry tomatoes did pretty well despite the cold, and the grafted tomatoes are still going strong in their new home off my bedroom. As summer drifted away, I moved half the grafted tomatoes into an unheated sunporch that allows floods of light into the otherwise dim bedroom. The sunporch faces due south and gets all the light that’s going, and the tomatoes and some pots of basil seem quite happy there. They have to share quarters with my jasmine, now a strapping 6-footer in a 3-gallon pot, but so far, all is peaceful coexistence.

In mid-August, Pat wrote: “I am putting up the year’s supply of dilly beans and frozen beans now. Also, we are eating the first tomatoes from the garden. I should have plenty within the week! 😎 We’ve had a few peppers also. On the down side, I had to replace all the greens but the cabbages, so we are a bit short on those. Good thing we eat the weeds. Still lots of greens there. Most of my cukes were destroyed by the voles, but the two survivors are putting up a good show for us. No pickle relish this year, but I canned 2 years’ supply last year. Our nights got down to 40, but are up to 50 again. Wish us luck!

Hi Pat!
I just picked my first tomato also and have harvested exactly 6 beans so far–they are very slow this year. Our greens are going great guns and are about the only thing that is really looking splendid this year. We are eating masses of kale and endive and chicory and spinach and all kinds of lettuces. I love salads and totally enjoy gathering snippets of herbs and greens for each meal.
Actually, our herbs are doing very well and we’ve got plenty for pestos and dressings and salads and so on. So are the little Italian onions (cippolini), which are about the size of a marble and wonderful in salads (tossed with cherry tomatoes, chopped basil, lemon thyme, and tiny fresh mozzarella balls).
We also have been plagued by cool nights into the forties and mid fifties–really frustrating, since the heat lovers just HATE that and sulk like mad. We are starting to build some cold frames and some movable mini greenhouse structures with scrap lumber from our basement remodel. Next year, all the hotties will be raised in comfort!
We had voles in Montana and it was scary what tiny spaces they could get through. Even when I lined beds with wire mesh, they squeezed those little bodies in and out again; kind of creepy. I’ve been told that lining beds with row cover will work but what a job! Have you got a cat? Our young males catch voles and moles as well as mice and baby rats, which haunt the chicken house. Our kids, who are remodeling our daylight basement into an apartment for themselves, turned an unused gazebo into a very elegant chicken abode. We love the eggs and the wild cluckings that announce them, but are not so wild about the rats. What are you feeding your beans?

Ann

Hi Ann,

Harvest is starting to roll in. I picked about a dozen Cool Breeze cukes, some zucchini, maybe 20 assorted tomatoes (as usual Bloody Butcher is leading the pack, but Juliet beat him for earliness.), dill for the beans and 18 ears of Quickie corn. If you have not tried it, you should. It is a short plant and very quick to bear, a very sweet bicolor. We ate 4 ears for dinner, I kept back 4 for tomorrow and the rest I froze already. It tastes doubly good at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We had our first basil, cream cheese, bacon and tomato sandwich today. Heaven!

I envy you your great greens. Even my summer lettuce has now bolted and run. Of the new ones I put in half have just vanished, a combination of too much heat and slugs. It is a good thing we eat the weeds as they are our most reliable greens. My purslane is doing great and it is so nutritious and versatile. I had to pull some of the amaranth and lambs-quarter as they were over the hill, but new ones are popping up. The chickweed in the watered and shadier area is doing great, but the bittercress is just now starting again after shooting its artillery seeds all over.  Best of all, I don’t have to plant or coddle any of them 8-). Still, we do yearn for some juicy lettuces and Mizuna.

Do you like the radish pods? I like them better than the radishes and I get at least a pint of snappy pods instead of one solitary radish. I know the leaves are edible, but we really don’t much like them.

The Eugene Celebration was on today, so the radio show was slower than usual, but still lots of nice conversations.

Yes, we have two cats and both are great hunters. Sita-Xena hunts the house, greenhouse and house yard, Pasha hunts the barn and garden. I think he finally got it that my preferred prey is voles as he has presented me with 3 in the last week. Each time he is praised extravagantly and rewarded with his favorite treat, a dried liver bit. He is a big cat. We try hard to dissuade their interest in our many birds and both are collared, but they can stalk without a tinkle. Mostly the victims are rodents.

We love our poultry, but you are right, they do draw in the rats and skunks. I don’t mind the skunks, but I cannot abide the rats and it is constant warfare. So far we are keeping ahead. I think the ducks are helping and we have many raptors about, esp. hawks, but also owls. Needless to say, the birds are in every evening and not out until broad daylight. They are a delight to watch as they forage, dust bath and work out the interpersonal conflicts.

As to what I feed my beans, lots of compost, a special fertilizer mix at planting only of biofish, kelp, cottonseed meal and fish bone meal. All but the cottonseed meal are NW products and I may drop that next year, tho it is my cheapest ingredient. I am trying to get more and more local in my materials. Living just 50 min. from the ocean makes that easier.

Pat

Well, great tip! I am now enjoying radish seedpods in salads and as a snack–they are spicy, crunchy and kind of addictive. Here’s our favorite (and rather healthy) version of that quintessential summer sandwich, the BLT (the ETC is all optional but so very delicious!):

BLT ETC

4 slices Canadian or lean peppered bacon
OR soy bacon (Morningstar is pretty not bad)
1 ripe tomato, thickly sliced
sea salt and pepper
4 slices wholegrain bread, lightly toasted
1/4 cup hummus
OR 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 thick slices white or yellow onion
lettuce and/or kale
big leaf basil

Cook bacon until crisp but still flexible (or however you prefer it), drain. Sprinkle tomato slices with sea salt and pepper, set aside for at least 10 minutes. Spread bread with hummus and layer on the tomatoes, onion, bacon, lettuce and basil. Makes two.

Posted in Pets & Pests In The Garden, Recipes, Tomatoes, Weed Control | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Cooking With Cool School Kids

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Ann Lovejoy
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Snippets From Friends…

As a result of this new Log House Plants blog, I’ve heard from a number of folks and thought I’d share some of what I’m learning. For instance, Bonney Lemkin, a Master Gardener I knew long ago in Seattle, writes about her volunteer work at Shorewood High School in Shoreline, Washington: “The garden is adjacent to the classroom, making it convenient for the students to join our workparties. They are learning a lot and we’re delighted to work with them as well as have the benefit of their youthful energy. We find this a great way to talk to them about growing food and eating fresh. Over time, they have started to use more and more of the produce in their cooking. During the summer, we donate the produce to the food bank.”

How cool is that? Bonney works with Shorewood Culinary Arts, an awesome two-year program for high school juniors and seniors, where Master Gardeners and trained chefs give students a dirt-to-plate, hands-on introduction to the food industry. The kids host outstanding Guest Chef Dinners featuring local chefs from fabulous Seattle area restaurants like Lark, Cafe Juanita, Tilth, and Poppy. These noble volunteer chefs help the class plan and prepare a terrific meal for up to 85 guests. The students also run a catering service and can whip up an informal lunch for four (their minimum) or a sit-down multi-course feast for 300. I’m thrilled when young people get hooked into growing and cooking food–it’s hugely important for the computer/facebook generation to fall in love with the natural world and what better entrance point than food?

Check out the program at www.shorewoodculinaryarts.org

Snippets From Neighbors:

Another Bainbridge Islander, Greg Atkinson, is teaching an innovative program at Seattle Culinary Institute. Greg is developing a generation of young chefs who not only shop locally and cook seasonally; they also run green kitchens, composting as much kitchen waste as possible and sourcing everything with thoughtful care and attention. Greg’s website is www.westcoastcooking.com and here’s a link to his program at Seattle Culinary Academy www.seattlecentral.edu/seattleculinary/

One day at the grocery store, Greg taught my Mom his wonderful way with broccoli and mustard seed, which he wrote down on a mushroom bag (which she still uses for reference). I adapted his recipe (a lot less butter, for one thing) to the following delicious if less sumptuous dish:

Broccoli With Popped Mustard Seeds

2 teaspoons virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons butter
1 tablespoon yellow or brown mustard seeds
2 cups broccoli florets
1 teaspoon horseradish paste *
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
sea salt
pepper

In a wide, shallow pan, melt oil and butter over medium high heat. Add mustard seeds and cook until they pop (use a frying pan screen to keep them fro exploding all over the kitchen). Add broccoli and cook until tender-crisp (about 3 minutes). Stir in horseradish paste, season to taste with lemon juice, sea salt and pepper and serve hot. Serves at least one.

* The best horseradish paste is refrigerated and contains no high-fructose corn syrup or fat of any kind. If you can’t find it, try this recipe: (The WOW part is self explanatory once you start to make this. If you happen to have a cold, one whiff of this delicious stuff will clear out your sinuses in a heartbeat.)

WOW! Prepared Horseradish

6 inches fresh horseradish root (remove any green parts)
plain rice vinegar
sea salt
cane sugar

Trim and peel the horseradish root and cut into 1-inch chunks. With a food processor and the coarse grater blade, grate (don’t grind) 1/2 cup of horseradish with 1/4 cup vinegar. Remove to a strainer placed over a bowl and catch the vinegar. Use it again with each small batch until all has been grated. In a bowl, combine grated horseradish with just enough of the vinegar to moisten it all (if you used a big root, you may need more vinegar). Add about 1/8 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt for each half cup or to your own taste (the effect should be subtle, if the word can be applied to raw horseradish). Both are used to enhance the horseradish flavor, not make the stuff sweet or salty tasting. Refrigerate in a tightly sealed glass jar for up to a month.

Posted in Cooking Schools, Recipes | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments