Tag Archives: heirloom tomatoes

Small Packages

Posted on September 4, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in good things come in small packages. If you were an individual, or a working couple who traveled or ate out more than twice a week, a CSA wasn’t always a good fit.

For us, having the option to pick a half share, or an individual basket at two local food sources here in Howard County, has been really enlightening. It gives us more freedom, while giving us affordable fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, bread and herbs.

We, being retired, do like having both options. An individual basket from Friends and Farms, and a half share CSA from the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative.

Here’s what we got and what we are doing with this week’s Friends and Farms share.

This is the vegetable and bread portion. Two lovely large red peppers. Five peaches. Two ears of corn. Green beans. Garlic. An onion. Two heirloom tomatoes. A loaf of honey whole wheat bread.

The green beans and corn were steamed for dinner tonight.

As for the protein.

Yellowfin tuna. I did order an extra piece as the individual share only gives you one portion. A small tri tip steak. Scamorza cheese, a take on mozzarella.

The tuna was slow cooked tonight with one of the tomatoes, and one of my heirloom pineapple tomatoes. Covered with lemon zest, olive oil, white wine vinegar and herbs.

Definitely a good start to using the basket. Tomorrow night. Grilled tri tip, with leftover mushrooms from last week. Caprese salad using the other tomato and some of the scamorza.

The peppers, along with some eggplant from my other source, will become a dip this weekend.

I like the way my two sources complement one another. Easy, seasonal fresh food.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Real Food and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

T’storms

Posted on September 3, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in one of the more prolific storms that have hit us this summer. Almost half an inch of rain in ten minutes last night.

To me, thunderstorms and massively heavy rainfall impact my garden. To me, that garden is a luxury and not my life. I feel for all our local farmers dealing with these deluges.

At least I got most of my tomatoes off the vine yesterday morning, before the skies opened.

I did learn one very important lesson from my winery friend. When the weather is periods of heavy rain for much of the summer, leave your weeds around your vegetables. Some vegetables, like my tomatoes, don’t like more than an inch of rain a week. The weeds compete for all that moisture, and the tomatoes do better. In periods of drought, you need to weed aggressively.

This year, the weeds may look bad, but they are keeping my tomato plants from rotting.

I have learned also to go out there and pick the tomatoes before they really split open, and are prone to rotting.

Every year poses new challenges. This year, cool rainy weather. Did you know we never hit 90 degrees here in August until the last day of the month?

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Howard County, Nature, Weather and tagged Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Howard County, tomatoes, weather. Bookmark the permalink.

Peaches and Peppers

Posted on September 1, 2014 by AnnieRie

And other things being done in the kitchen.

I’ve literally been overwhelmed with peaches this year.

There’s a few reasons for it. Besides getting peaches most weeks in the CSA, I was managing the site for a month while the site host was on vacation. Add to that, it was August. Lots of members didn’t show up. I ended up with the host’s peaches a few weeks, and a few leftover fruit shares. One week, we had six watermelons left. Food bank got most of it, but the peaches. Became a gateway to preservation.

I made peach syrup. I vacuum sealed a few bags. I have just enough left to make jelly, using the peaches and the jalapenos from my garden. We ate copious amounts of juicy fresh peaches for lunch. And breakfast.

As for the peppers.

The last week I hosted, I had my sweet pepper item, plus some from the swap box, and a share I picked up for a vacationing member. Yesterday, I blanched, sliced and froze four bags of peppers. This winter there will be lovely bright peppers on chicken, or fish, or pasta.

The beauty of having a CSA share is that ability to preserve and freeze the extras. In the dead of winter, those ingredients will liven my dinners. Grab a bag of peppers. Some tomato sauce. Some caramelized onions, maybe. Some pesto. Mix and match.

Those bright red Amish paste tomatoes in the picture above became tomato sauce. A quart of it. The slicing tomatoes met the same fate. Two pint jars. The freezer is almost full. Winter won’t be dull and dreary around here.

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Posted in CSA, Food, Locavore, Real Food, Winter Eat Local and tagged cooking, CSA, Food, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

Lima Beans!

Posted on August 28, 2014 by AnnieRie

Fresh. In shell. Something I have never encountered before today.

They were in the swap box today for our CSA pick up. I had to get them and gave up radicchio to do so.

Already shelled and part of a simple dinner tonight. That also included this salad.

Heirloom tomatoes and some African blue basil from my garden. That absolutely awesome mozzarella from last week’s CSA cheese share. Secolari’s white balsamic vinegar and Sevillano olive oil.

There were also potatoes and Merguez sausage for dinner.

But, let’s get back to the CSA basket.

Spaghetti squash
Amish paste tomatoes
Slicing tomatoes
Baby sweet peppers
Baby bok choy
Green Beans
Cubanelles

As for fruit.

Apples. Plums. More peaches (like we need more peaches).

Things I am thinking of making. More tomato sauce, obviously. Pickled peppers. Spaghetti squash with butter and Parm.

As for the chicken share, not pictured, there were two boneless breasts of chicken, and a package of whole chicken legs. Chicken salad will be made this weekend.

Lancaster Farm Fresh comes through again with a mix of very interesting favorites and a few surprises.

Tomorrow: What I did with the Friends and Farms Individual basket.

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Posted in Food, LFFC, Real Food and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food. Bookmark the permalink.

Picture Perfect

Posted on August 22, 2014 by AnnieRie

That was dinner tonight.

A trio of food. One from my garden. One from my CSA. And one from Friends and Farms.

My pineapple tomatoes are finally kicking in there and producing. The heirloom carrots from last week’s CSA were oven roasted. The arctic char from this week’s Friends and Farms basket was quick baked at 400 degrees with some honey mustard and lemon pepper on top.

Here’s the rest of the Friends and Farms basket. I need to get creative with some of the items.

Cilantro. Lettuce. Eggplant. Blueberries. Nectarines. An onion. Elephant garlic. Poblanos. Jalapenos. Red Beans.

As for protein.

One dozen eggs. Ground beef. That lovely Arctic char.

And, a loaf of bread. Not pictured.

Thoughts for dinner. Tacos. This basket screams TACOS.

Well, after tomorrow’s Food Preserving program, there will be lots of goodies to eat, or freeze. And, I am seriously considering a major pickled pepper frenzy. Plus, a couple of hot pepper jellies.

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Posted in Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, howard county conservancy, Locavore, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

The Value of a Garden

Posted on August 17, 2014 by AnnieRie

Sometimes when it is hot and humid, and it seems the weeds are winning, I question my sanity in expanding my garden. But then, I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor and it makes it all worthwhile.

Like when the heirloom tomato plants start producing. And when I get my first white eggplants.

This week I met a major milestone. Four ounces shy of 100 pounds of tomatoes harvested.

Yellow plums are one of the latest mass producers. But, I have harvested 36 pounds of heirloom tomatoes. All told, if I were buying tomatoes at markets and organic food stores, I would have spent way more than the investment in this garden plot.

Yes, my labor counts for something. But I rationalize it as a substitute for paying for a gym membership. Weeding, watering, weeding, harvesting, weeding (did I mention weeding?), all contribute to feeling like I just came home from a workout. Particularly after crawling around on the ground wrestling with crab grass.

Today I put up another four pints of sauce for the freezer. Tomorrow roasting the 90 yellow plums still on the counter.

Add to that, the work I am doing to get ready for my Conservancy event next Saturday. Things like making herb butters. And, preserving mint.

Ice cube trays. One of my favorite techniques to put away the right sized portions to use in future recipes.

The garden was definitely worth the time and effort. Now, I would just like it to slow down a bit.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Volunteering and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, hobbies, howard county conservancy, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

In The Box

Posted on August 14, 2014 by AnnieRie

The view from above.

This is what you see when you open a half share Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA box in the middle of August.

The new one in the box is the bunch of Malabar spinach. I do grow this in my garden, but mine is nowhere near as large as these are. There are nine ears of corn in there. Because I swapped three zucchini for the corn. There is a bag of green beans. A bag of rainbow carrots. An eggplant. And, hidden below those two heirloom tomatoes.

A bag of roma tomatoes, suitable for making sauce. As for the fruit share.

It must be a banner year for peaches, as we have another six in the fruit box. Last and certainly the largest. The watermelon, a red seedless variety.

No pictures of the frozen chicken in my chicken share. There were two large boneless skinless chicken breasts. And, two whole legs of chicken.

Moving over to the Friends and Farms bags. Just a small amount, except for that cantaloupe.

An individual share. Two tomatoes. Two peaches (I have no idea where they are, they aren’t in the picture). One zucchini, I am happy to report. Two ears of corn. Three humongous leeks. Hydroponic lettuce. And that okra. I need to go look for something new to do with okra.

Protein.

Fresh kielbasa. Bacon. Eggs. A new supplier of chicken. Breasts this week. They were already the main item at dinner tonight. Baked in olive oil with a coating of mixed herbs.

Plans for tomorrow. Make tomato sauce. Find a recipe for a curry using the Malabar spinach. Make peach jam. It’s summer craziness when everything starts ripening at once.

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Posted in CSA, Farms, Food, Friends and Farms, Gardening, LFFC and tagged cooking, CSA, farms, Food, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, tomatoes, value of CSA. Bookmark the permalink.

That New Page in My Book

Posted on August 12, 2014 by AnnieRie

My Preservation Page.

The work in progress as I get ready for my August 23rd event at the Howard County Conservancy.

It makes me pay attention to how haphazard my blog posts are. How I can’t just focus on one item or one recipe. Trying to show people what I have done to preserve foods. While feeling like I am herding cats.

Yes, I mostly freeze foods. But, I also dry them. And roast them. And slow cook them. And occasionally when I am feeling feisty, I actually can things. Like that awesome jelly.

Pineapple habanero, as a matter of fact. This year, the habaneros aren’t producing so there will be some jalapeno pineapple jelly made later this week.

In the mean time, I am doing nothing but processing tomatoes and peppers. Since I really am drowning in them.

Yes, I believe most horizontal surfaces in this kitchen are covered in some sort of tomato. Tomorrow, there will be oven roasted yellow plums. And sauce from Early Girl and Big Boy. And, tabouleh from the thousands (has to be that many) of the Supersweet 100s and the Sun Gold tomatoes in the big bowl on the counter.

The processing frenzy continues. I will be happy in February. Now, I am just frazzled.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Hobbies, Real Food and tagged cooking, crock pot cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, Locavore, real food, tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

My Out of Control Garden

Posted on August 11, 2014 by AnnieRie

To go along with the out of control kitchen. I should have known. Doubling the size of my garden, and doubling the amount of sunlight daily would result in a quadrupling of the amount of tomatoes we harvest.

The ten pounds of tomatoes harvested yesterday. To join that ten pounds from Friday. All told, more than 76 pounds of tomatoes so far this year.

The zucchinis are still producing. So are the cucumbers.

And I really should have entered that big one in the fair. At 1 3/4 pounds I think it would have gotten second place. The winner, I believe, was 1.9 pounds.

We have tomatoes for at least two meals a day. The oven roasting, oven drying, tomato sauce, salad making, gifts, etc. are hardly making a dent in it. I had more plants last year with less than half this harvest.

Note to self. Do NOT plant this many tomatoes next year.

I have been busy. Pickling. Canning. Cooking. I even slow cooked a dozen onions to make caramelized onions to freeze.

Since I am doing the event at the Howard County Conservancy next week, I am creating a page to use as my “handout”, for participants to use for referral after coming to the event.

The page, which you can see above the posts, will include recipes and technique posts. The focus of my blog posts for the next ten days will be the advice I am providing relative to the “Putting Food Away” event.

After all, when your garden goes nuts, you need to find something to do with all this food.

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Posted in Food, Gardening, Howard County, Volunteering and tagged cooking, Food, foodie, gardening, heirloom tomatoes, howard county conservancy, tomatoes, volunteering. Bookmark the permalink.

Food Processing Friday …

Posted on August 8, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and Saturday and Sunday.

As shown we are drowning in tomatoes. And, other things. Which are “pickle-able”.

I pickled shallots, cucumbers and peppers today. Did Peter Pecker pick those peppers? No, and neither did I. They were in the CSA share this week.

I made a simple pickling spice mix. Added it to a mix of four to one, vinegar to water. Got it boiling. Blanched the veggies first. Sterilized the lids and seals. Came up with a few jars of “refrigerator’ pickles. These are easy to do. No canning techniques necessary. Just consume them in a week or two.

As for tomatoes. I did two pints of sauce today.

This is a chunky tomato sauce. A number of blanched tomatoes stood by while I sweated onions, carrots, minced garlic, basil, thyme and oregano. Oh yeah. Salt and pepper.

I ended up with two pints ready to go into the freezer, to make those cold winter nights remind me of summer.

More tomorrow, when I blanch and fill green peppers with a sausage mixture. A feast that makes Stouffer’s look pathetic.

The freezer is filling up. That’s for sure.

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