Tag Archives: tomatoes

Today’s Harvest Basket 8/27

Posted on August 28, 2017 by | Leave a comment

Summer color explodes

Peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, onions

I grow just a few eggplant because I believe it’s best fresh. Canned or frozen eggplant is always disappointing. Ratatouille and baked Eggplant Parmesan are my favorites.

Charred Anaheim peppers.

Anaheim peppers and poblanos are beautiful and plentiful this year, especially now that the weather has cooled a bit. These mildly hot peppers get charred on the grill and then chopped and frozen.

As the peppers are needed, I pop a cube of frozen peppers into whatever I’m cooking. Fresh roasted poblanoes go into my salsa. That’s the heat level perfect for my salsa.

 

Peppers are growing well in the raised bed garden and in 5-gallon buckets on the deck. Sweet bell peppers are red, black, chocolate, golden and green. The long Anaheim peppers are mildly hot and juicy green and continue to ripen to a bright red.

Charred, peeled, and chopped Anaheim peppers are easy to freeze in cubes.

When peppers are charred and peeled, remove the seeds and stem. Chop peppers and pack in cubes, freeze. Once frozen, store cubes in heavy-duty ziplock bags.

I’m getting a few tomatoes – if I pick them early. Before the squirrels get them.

Tomato Tarte Tatin with caramelized onion on puff pastry.

Tomatoes for salsa and marinara, soup are purchased at the Farmers Market. We pick enough home-grown tomatoes for fresh eating. I’m buying tomatoes, “canners,” for making winter time tomato dishes because I do not buy tomatoes in the winter.

Cherry and pear tomatoes seem like the perfect choice for Tomato Tarte Tatin. I’ve made a fast and easy version using puff pastry. Choose a recipe to fit your tastes, there are several versions on my Pinterest tomato page.

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Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on September 5, 2012 by | Leave a comment

September 4, 2012.

That big butternut squash weighs over 3 pounds.

Tomatoes, butternut, garlic, peppers, potatoes

I did not count the Riesentraube cherry tomatoes, but just one tomato plant produced all of these. They filled a 2.5 quart bucket. Riesentraube means “Giant Bunches of Grapes.” Plant them once – you will always have these little German heirloom cherry tomatoes in your garden.

Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed is giving out free Riesentraube with some seed purchases. I suspect Gere is trying to cover the world with little pointy tomatoes. They are prolific.

Drying Cherry Tomatoes

Riesentraube is an early producer. When the big tomatoes start producing, I start drying these little cherries. Here is how I use these hundreds of cherry tomatoes: Tomato triage for too many tomatoes.

While I was cleaning out a raised bed, I found two pounds of these little potatoes. I did not plant potatoes this year. They came up from spuds I missed last fall!

TAM, a very tasty milder Jalapeno, just keeps producing.Kepp watering this pepper and it keeps producing as long as you keep picking peppers.

Quart sun pickles.

 

I left this jar of sun pickles out on the retaining wall for another day or two. When I made these, it clouded up and rained for three days. Which was good for the garden. But who knows about sun pickles?

 

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Peeling Tomatoes

Posted on August 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Dunking tomatoes in boiling water is the easiest way to peel them. photo PBH.

  • First, set a big pot of water on the stove to rolling boil. Half fill a sink with ice an water.
  • Next, choose the ripest tomatoes. Cut an ‘X’ into the blossom end of the tomato. Core the tomatoes now or later after they have cooled. If you do it now, the skin is just that much easier to remove.
  • Then, carefully drop a few tomatoes into the boiling water. I drop 4 to 6tomatoes in at one time. Allow the water to return to a boil. (usually about 1 minute.) Remove tomatoes with a slotted spoon and dunk into the ice water immediately.
  • Allow the big pot of hot water to return to a boil and drop in more tomatoes. In the mean time, peel the tomatoes after they cool in the ice water. Cut out the core or the green stem end, if you haven’t already. (This is when I do it. It seems like I get more of that tough, tasteless core out.)
  • If you want to remove the seeds, cut to tomato in half and squeeze it. Use your finger or a spoon to scoop out any remaining seed pockets.

Now your tomatoes are ready for processing, making salsa, spaghetti sauce or simply canning.

Making salsa

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Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on August 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

August 17, 2012

Riesentraube tomato there are about 90 of these little 1 ounce tomatoes, all from the same plant. Riesentraube means “bunch of grapes”.  Seed from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Indigo Rose tomatoes are the row at the top of the basket. Just over a dozen to these saladette tomatoes are all picked off the same plant. Seed from Nichols Garden Nursery

Outside the basket are a 3 small pink Brandywines. After a long, hot summer, these heirloom Brandywine tomatoes are much smaller than the usual tomatoes. Tomato seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

3 Italian roma tomatoes are Pompeii. Bigger than most plum tomatoes, these are meaty and rich-flavored. Great for sauce or dried. The seeds are from Renee’s Garden.

Today is really all about the tomato. The Riesentraubes are in the dehydrator now. By tomorrow evening they will be “Sun dried” tomatoes. The majority of tomatoes sold as “sun dried” are dried in a deydrator. It’s faster, safer, cleaner.

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Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

July 23, 2012
tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant, TAM pepper, onion, arugula

White Wonder cucumber, Grandmother and Uncle Ebb grew white cucumbers like this. They are small, non bitter, great slicer. Photo PBH

This arugula, is a perfect green to combine with lettuce. Tonights salad included the arugula, cucumber, tomatoes, red onion. I make my own salad dressing. Usually a lemon and olive oil is the start of a good homemade dressing.

TAM is Texas A & M jalapeno pepper. Less heat but all the distinct flavor of jalapeno. (The little red peppers on the right.) I’ll roast them, then freeze. That way they will be handy to add to salsa and chili.

 

 

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Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on July 20, 2012 by | Leave a comment

July 19, 2012

chard, mint, tomatoes

chard, mint, tomatoes

Todays harvest included lots of small tomatoes, some mixed varietys of chard, and a hand full of mint that will go in tabouli and iced tea.

This is how I keep the mint under control: every day I make sun tea. I snip a

Mojito mint planted in terracotta drain tile

bit of mint off one of the four varieties each day. So, once or twice a week each mint (or the lemon balm) gets a bit of a trim. And I get fresh mint for cooking or for my sun tea.

The tomatoes are mostly Riesentraube Cherry Tomatoes, an old Pennsylvania Dutch heirloom tomato meaning “giant bunches of grapes.” They are larger than most cherry tomatoes. and the distinctive thing about them is the little pointy nipple on the end of every tomato.

tlnb – the little neighbor boy-  came by today and told us we would miss him this week because he was going on vacation. I suspect he is right. We do miss our frequent garden guest when he doesn’t come around.

He’s just as cute a Dennis the menace and asks dozens of questions at every visit. Lately he can also answer some of the questions.

“Why do you garden so much?” he asked.

“I know. You like to know where your food comes from and gardening reminds you of your mother and your grandmother,” he answered.

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My Garden Bloggers Food Day

Posted on August 16, 2011 by | 1 comment

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day shows off all the blooms in my garden on August 15 2011. Even more than blooming, this month is about what happens after the bloom. The produce, fruit or seed that is created after the flower.

Rosa Bianco eggplant, tomatoes, Clairimore zucchini

I am trying to stay ahead of the of the zucchini production by picking them small, like the two little ones on the right. The blossoms are still attached to these Clairimore variety. The bigger ones became chocolate zucchini cake or zucchini and black walnut cake with lemon glaze.

This year, is not a good year for my garden. I couldn’t water enough to keep up hardy production.

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

Rosa Bianca Eggplant, a mild italian eggplant

The garden plants are stressed and more suseptible to insects and disease. Flea beetles are eating up the plants faster than the plants can produce eggplants.

I only got in a couple of pickings  of green beans before a gang of bug thugs moved in and trashed the bean patch.

I’ve planted a few more beans, hoping to get in a late crop of  haricots verts (skinny and tender French

Flea beetle damage. The little tiny holes in leaves and roots.

green beans) And a couple more cucumbers and squash to replace the ones killed by insects. It’s just a gamble to see if they produce before a killing frost. The space was empty and I had extra seed. We shall see.

Tomato plants did not set blooms because it was so hot. So, I will have a smaller than anticipated harvest. I’ll make some tabouli and a batch of gazpacho. Plus, I have enough to share with neighbors.

I won’t have enough to can or put up as salsa. But I did have enough for a couple of taste testings with the nine different varieties of heirloom tomatoes.  I’ll eventually review them all in my HubPages. There is a lot of good tomato information.

Best Home Garden Tomatoes: Paul Robeson

Best Home Garden Tomatoes: Royal Hillbilly

Next year, I’ll grow a few of the best tomatoes from this summer. And, I’ll grow some heirlooms I’ve never tried before.

The real reason I grow thin skinned, rich flavored, juicy heirloom tomatoes is simple:

BLT

Sourdough bread, crisp lettuce, oven baked thick sliced bacon.

Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches and

Insadada Caprese

Heirloom tomatoes, mozzerella cheese, balsamic vinegar, olive oil.

Insadada Caprese.

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Posted in Herbs in the garden, My Gardens, My Homeplace, Oh Grow Up!, Ozarks Travel Examiner

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Fried Green Tomatoes (or not)

Posted on August 13, 2011 by | 1 comment

This Paul Robeson tomato could have stayed on the vine another day or two if the vine hadn't broken off.

A friend, clearly not a gardener, asked for this recipe in the summer.

“Are you nuts?” I said.

“No self respecting gardener sacrifices a good tomato to make fried green tomatoes in the summer!”

Fried green tomatoes are fall food. They are what you do with tomatoes that haven’t ripened by the first killer frost of the season.

This friend was an Eastern Transplant, not familiar with Midwest or Southern culture and cuisine. I also had to introduce him to tomato sandwiches this year. “You mean without bacon?,” he said with trepidation.

When vines are too heavy with multiple tomatoes, it is better to pick a few while still green, rather than risk a broken vine and losing all the tomatoes.

Prepare fried green tomatoes like you do fried Okra. Slice, dip in a milk and egg wash and then in cornmeal or flour.

Uncle Ed says, “Well you know how to fry catfish, don’t cha? Well it’s the same thing, dip the tomato slices in milk and eggs. Then pat fish fry mix (four, cornmeal, salt, pepper) on both sides”. Then deep fry, pan fry, or, oven “fry”

A heavy tomato vine, loaded with tomatoes, broke off in a storm.

The cafe in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café is modeled after Irondale Cafe in Birmingham, AL. Novelist Fannie Flagg said her great-aunt operated Irondale Cafe for almost 40 years.

If it weren’t for the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, I believe this recipe would have remained a Southern delicacy. Just like fried pie.

There are two reasons a home cook prepares Fried Green Tomatoes.

  1. At the height of summer tomato production, some tomatoes are removed from the plant to keep the weight of the tomatoes from breaking the vine. (Not that I am bragging, but I had to do this twice this summer.)
  2. At the end of the tomato season, just before the first frosts hit the garden, all tomatoes are picked. Any tomatoes with a hint of color will be left to ripen slowly on the counter. Then, “waste not want not” happens. The most popular way of using up green tomatoes are fried green tomatoes, and green tomato relish.
sliced tomatoes

Insalata caprese (literally, the salad from Capri)

If I can have this: garden temperature juicy ripe tomatoes in a Tomato and Mozzarella Salad,

I’ll choose it everytime over fried green tomatoes.

These are heirloom tomatoes, Red: Paul Robeson and Yellow: Gold Medal

 

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Book Review: Tomatoes Garlic Basil

Posted on June 23, 2010 by | Leave a comment

PBHobson2 Patsy Bell Hobson is a garden writer and a travel writer. For her, it’s a great day when she can combine the two things she enjoys most: gardening and traveling. Visit her personal blog at and read her travel writings.

In my Zone 6 garden there are always three kinds of tomatoes: a paste tomato for sauces, a cherry tomato, because these small tomatoes are always the first to ripen (and later, when the big tomatoes are producing, these small ones will be dried), and a big, meaty tomato for eating fresh (and for bragging rights). I love tomatoes and when I saw Tomatoes Garlic Basil (St. Lynn’s Press, 2010), I judged the book by its cover. It is beautiful. Eventually, I was tempted to open the paperback tribute to the garden and kitchen’s favorite produce and I’m glad that I did. The book only gets better!

5-21-2010-5
Tomatoes, garlic and basil are the holy trinity of the vegetable garden.

Doug Oster’s Tomatoes Garlic Basil is a love letter about our favorite home garden produce. If you are one of the millions of backyard gardeners who grow tomatoes, this book is for you. Tomatoes are the star of the show. And, just like most gardens, basil and garlic have strong supporting roles in the book that magnify the magic of home grown tomatoes.

The book will not overwhelm you with soil science and plant genetics. It will give you some good advice about soil preparation and plant selection. The pleasure of reading this book grows as Oster offers us many choices with these three simple garden staples.

Like most gardeners, Oster is generous in sharing his experience and recipes. If you are new to gardening, try the simple combination of these three plants. He also encourages people who do not have garden space and shares some planting options. Each chapter begins with a garden or food quote that ties into the chapter. In Chapter 2, I was inspired by “Summer Celebrations” and looked forward to incorporating some of his ideas as I create new traditions for my own family. And by the time you get to the great advice in Chapter 9, which is about soil preparation and weed control, Oster will feel like an old neighbor

Oster is still on the big adventure of trying some different tomato plants every year as well as growing his favorites. It’s a good idea and you will never run out of tomato varieties to try. After reading this book you will be able to speak about basil and garlic as well as tomatoes with any home gardener.

This book would make a great gift for either a new or experienced gardener, as well as for the recipients of your produce bounty. (I recommend you buy the print version to enjoy the artful photographs.) The only difficult part is deciding whether to put this book with my cookbooks or on the shelf with the gardening books. I decided to take the book into the kitchen and try the recipes with my own fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil.

I enjoyed the humorous and serious gardening stories and there are plenty of artsy photographs throughout the book. I will definitely put Doug’s recipes and gardening tips to use this summer.

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Cherry tomatoes are heavy producers.

Book Details
• Tomatoes Garlic Basil: The Simple Pleasures of Growing and Cooking Your Garden’s Most Versatile Veggies by Doug Oster
• Paperback: 272 pages.
• Publisher: St. Lynn’s Press; 1st edition, ISBN-10: 0981961517 and ISBN-13: 978-0981961514
• See Doug Oster’s Blog at http://www.dougoster.com/books/ to read “My favorite story from Tomatoes Garlic Basil.”

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