What to do with 14 pounds of heirloom tomatoes (that's in addition to my own harvest of about 5-6 beauties)? Chop them up, cook them down, and turn them into all kids of goodies! This fabulous box of ripe tomatoes made one heaping bowl of super-spicy salsa for Jeremy to eat, a half gallon of heirloom tomato and garlic pasta sauce with basil, 2 quarts of my tomato soup base, and enough tomatoes left over for a yummy BLT tomorrow. If you've never made your own pasta sauce, you really should give it a try. Once the ingredients are in the pot, just simmer it down until it is thick, cool it down, and bag it up for the freezer. I chose not to can my sauce, because of the unknown acidity in heirlooms and my newness to the craft. I find it easy to thaw a bag of sauce anyway. Although, my deep freeze is almost full to the brim...but more on that later.
My salsa is pretty basic: seed and squeeze out the juice from several ripe tomatoes, add chopped jalapeno to taste, a few cloves of garlic, a splash of lime juice to preserve the color, a small handful of chopped cilantro and a dash of kosher salt.
My pasta sauce is just a heaping pot of peeled and seeded tomatoes cooked with some garlic and onions. Once enough liquid cooks off, I add some fresh basil, a little salt, fresh ground black pepper, and let it cool I already had dinner planned tonight, so this batch is in the freezer.
I used all colors in the sauce today, so it looks a little funny in the picture, but it was quite tasty!
My tomato soup is one of my favorite summer recipes. I take 4 large tomatoes (I especially like yellow and red in this soup) and simmer them with 4 cups of tomato juice. Today, with all the tomato processing I was doing, I collected enough juice for 2 batches of this soup. No more canned tomato juice for me! When it has simmer about 30 minutes, I cool it and put in (in batches) in my blender with about 1/4 cup of fresh basil. When I'm ready to eat it, I heat it back up with about a cup of milk and about 4 ounces of cream cheese, some salt and pepper to taste. BEST SOUP EVER!!! I loooooooove this soup with a toasty grilled cheese sandwich on homemade bread. Now that's a local meal to die for!
While all the tomatoes were simmering, I also managed to bake a loaf of my homemade wheat bread (yes, all local ingredients down to the flour!). The smell of homemade bread is one of my favorite things. And then, since the oven was warmed up and the air outside was cool, I baked 2 of the sugar pie pumpkins I picked up at the Rome farmer's market last week. The pumpkins gave me about 6 cups of pumpkin puree, which I packaged up for later use. Then, I took the seeds and sprinkled them with a little kosher salt, garlic powder, seasoned salt, and olive oil. Then into a 250 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Oh, so delicious! And now my house smells like fall!
Of course, even though I spent most of my day in the kitchen, I still wanted to put a local meal on the dinner table! I had 2 bunches of fresh kale on hand, and decided that kale and potato soup would really fit the day! I heated up a little oil and sauted a few cloves of garlic and some onions until they were soft. Then I added a quart or so of chicken broth (lucky for me, I had a quart bag full from the last roast chicken I made!) until boiling. Added to that 6 medium potatoes from my garden harvest in August, peeled and diced. I let that simmer until the potatoes were soft (about 25 minutes). Then I added 1/2 pound of hot sausage (mine was from Sweet Grass Farms) that I precooked in a skillet. Finally, I wilted in about 5 cups of fresh kale and let the whole thing simmer for about 15 minutes more. Delish! Just the right mixture of comfort and spice. Jeremy got up to get a second and then a third helping and Alayna was seen drinking the last drops out of her bowl! Kira (not a big fan of anything green) ate all but the kale, but at least made a good effort. This would have been even more fabulous with a crusty loaf, but I didn't have one on hand.
So, I decided this would be my first local food day after all. I may have to have a cheat meal or two thrown in to avoid conflict at a couple of gatherings, but I've decided that I can still spread the word without being a rude guest!
Here's what I ate today:
Breakfast: blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, milk
Lunch: fresh edamame, leftover pasta with broccoli, garlic, and tomatoes, slice of homemade bread with local honey, cider
Snack: pumpkin seeds and a little cheese
Dinner: kale and potato soup, local wine
Dessert: pears sliced thin and poached in apple cider and maple syrup!
I don't feel restricted at all by a day like this! Hopefully I can continue the week with such luck!
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