Using Up My Tomato Stash

I washed up my tomatoes from the last few harvests, tossed a couple that had gone bad, and then peeled them all. At first, I thought I might turn them all into salsa, but then I worried that the salsa might not turn out, and I would hate to waste all those tomatoes on nasty salsa. So I split the batch, turning half of them into tomato sauce and the other half into salsa. I was very happy with the flavor of the salsa after refrigerating it for about an hour, so I went ahead and put it into freezer jars (although one of the pint jars ended up in the refrigerator for tomorrow night...I just have to get some chips to eat it with). I ended up with 3 1/2 pints of tomato sauce and 3 1/2 pints of salsa.

I still have some tomatoes left over, ripening fully on the window sill, so I may go ahead and make another batch of salsa in a few days, adding to it any other sizable tomatoes from the garden.

Now, if I could only figure out some way to freeze the overabundant sun sugar tomatoes without going through the peeling process...

Squash Bugs Are Called that Because They Deserve to Be Squashed

I managed two harvests this week. Monday I pulled in the last 3 zucchini, and then pulled the plants. The leaves were completely covered with powdery mildew, although the zucchini themselves were fine.

And then, when I pulled up the plants, I found something I hadn't missed at all.

Squash bugs. [shiver]

These creepy crawlies look almost spiderlike, particularly when they are small, and can quickly devastate your squash plants. I didn't think I'd have to worry about them this year, since this is the first year of squash plantings. How wrong I was! I'm just thankful the zucchini was at the end of its season before they presented themselves.

In addition to the three zukes, I managed a handful of green beans--the first (and perhaps even the last!)--as well as several more tomatoes. The tomatoes are clearly losing steam, and I didn't think I'd feel this way, but I'm a bit glad. I hauled in 2 Peach Toms, 3 nameless yellow tomatoes, 4 Best Boy, 1 Beefsteak, 1 Costulouto Genovese, and 4 purple tomatoes--not sure what kind. I've been calling them Brandywine, but today I realized they aren't. I also harvested 95 sun sugar tomatoes and 11 Sungold Select.

Today I harvested a second time this week and picked my first 9 okra! The okra plants are tall and strong, despite the chewed-up parts of several leaves where the Japanese beetles have been feeding. We can't seem to get rid of those little buggers!

I also harvested 7 plum tomatoes of some kind, 3 Peach Toms, 3 Beefsteak, 4 Brandywine, 3 purple tomatoes, 2 yellow tomatoes, 3 Best Boys, 101 Sun Sugars, and 16 Sungold Select.

My goal tonight is to make a batch of salsa and what will probably be the last batch of tomato sauce this season.

Freezing Frenzy

One of the hardest parts of this experiment called "Playing in the Dirt" is finding the time and energy to cook, process, and put away the harvest food before it goes bad.

I managed tonight to process the tomatoes into tomato sauce (8 pints) and also ended up with 4 pints more of diced tomatoes. The Best Boy tomatoes seem to work best for dicing, while the meaty Beefsteak tomatoes work really well for the tomato sauce. I threw into the tomato sauce this time the few Costoluto Genovese tomatoes I had as well as several Orange Banana tomatoes, which are very sweet and meaty. Interestingly, the flavor of the tomato sauce is very different this time--definitely sweet. I think when I make tomato soup this fall, I'll use this particular batch of tomato sauce. I think it will make very tasty soup to accompany my grilled cheese sandwich! The round dots on top of each jar are labels that I've scribbled the contents, month, and year on so I can identify the frozen foods and also know which to use first.

I also put up most of the rest of the bread and butter pickles, which have been curing in the refrigerator for about a week. Unfortunately, I ran out of jars before I could get all of them put up, so I moved the rest into a smaller container until I can pick up more freezer jars. I did have one marinated artichokes jar on hand that I had just washed, so I used that for some pickles for the refrigerator--I'm not certain that the jar is freezer safe like the canning jars.

I'm pretty happy so far with what I've put away in the freezer for winter. I feel a bit like a squirrel preparing for the cold, foodless months, but at least I know where I hid my food.

So Many Tomatoes, So Little Time...

Today is "do something with all these veggies that are sitting out on the counters, the freezer, the table, and in baskets" day. It would be nice to eat at the table without having to shove zucchini or other vegetables to the side, and we haven't been able to get into our chest freezer for some time now--and I will definitely need to to move things from the refrigerator's freezer into the chest freezer this evening. I did manage to remove the rotting cucumbers from the table and haul them out to the compost bin. I just can't keep up with the produce right now! Next year, I'll definitely cut down on the number of zucchini plants I put in, and perhaps even reduce the number of cucumber plants. I'm happy with the number of tomato plants. At least for now.

After throwing out the rotten cukes and washing the rest, I decided to start my preserving endeavors with the tomatoes. I skinned them and made a double batch of tomato sauce--and this time, left the seeds in since I discovered they are actually good for you (high in protein). I did dice up some of the smaller Best Boy, since they seem to be a little drier than the Beefsteak tomatoes. I ended up with 8 1/2 pints of tomato sauce and 2 half-pints of diced tomatoes.

I also did a bit more harvesting, ending up with 2 more zucchini and 6 more cucumbers. More of the heirlooms were pickable this time, and I managed to scavenge 3 Brandywine, 1 Peach Tom, 4 Sungold Select, 1 Orange Banana, and 2 Costoluto Genovese. In addition, I harvested 6 more Best Boy, 7 Beefsteak, and 115 sun sugar tomatoes. I also harvested a beautiful blushing yellow tomato, but I'm not sure what kind it is. It appeared to be growing on a sun sugar plant, but it is very difficult to tell because many of the branches of the plants are tangled due to the severe rain storms we had. It is hard to untangle them or move them enough to follow them to the right plant for fear of breaking the branches. For now, I'm listing it as a "Not Sure" tomato; hopefully I'll get to harvest another one that is easier to track.

TOTAL PRODUCE COUNT TO DATE:
Zucchini: 105
Cucumbers: 175
White Onions: 1
Yellow Onions: 2
Sun Sugar Tomatoes: 801
Beefsteak Tomatoes: 46
Best Boy Tomatoes: 41
Cosmonaut Volkov Tomatoes: 1
Sungold Select Tomatoes: 7
Peach Tom: 2
Brandywine Tomatoes: 3
Orange Banana Tomatoes: 1
Costoluto Genovese Tomatoes: 2
Not sure Tomatoes: 1
Herbs: cilantro, mint, dill

Freezer Tomato Sauce, Newbie Style

I made my first batch of freezer tomato sauce, using the recipe at http://www.dianaskitchen.com/page/sauce/ftomato.htm. I tasted the sauce today (I was too tired last night to do the last step before pouring into the jars: throwing the cooked mix in a food processor and blend.

The recipe says it makes 6 to 8 cups of tomato sauce. I ended up with 4 pints total from one batch. I'm not sure how that equates to cups, and I'm too lazy to look it up in my cookbook or Google the answer online. If you're planning on making your own tomato sauce, at least now you have two measurements you can use.

The process is pretty simple, really. The most time consuming part is the peeling and de-seeding of the tomatoes. The peeling part is easy:

1. Wash the tomatoes you will be using.
2. Cut out the core and cut a shallow "x" into the bottom of the tomato.
3. Boil a pan of water. When it comes to a rolling boil, place the tomatoes carefully into the water (you don't want to splash boiling water on yourself).
4. Wait 30 seconds.
5. Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and immediately immerse in ice water. Leave in the water until completely cooled.
6. The skin should slide easily off the tomato. If a patch here and there sticks, just use a paring knife to remove.

I've been through this process in the past when I've frozen tomatoes for sauces. The hard part is removing the seeds. I tried a variety of ways. I tried cutting the seed sections out when I sliced the tomatoes. I tried pushing them out with my fingers. I tried squeezing the tomato, hoping the seeds would come out. I tried ripping the tomato slices apart to remove the seeds.

As you can probably guess, my inexact methods resulted in a horrible mess on the cutting board and seeds in my tomato sauce. But is that so bad? Surely the seeds add some nutritional value? And what about the globby stuff around the seeds...isn't that important, too? After all, that's what helps give a tomato its juiciness!

This morning I spied a very simple article on how to peel and seed a tomato at eHow that would have saved me a lot of trouble. But looking at the picture of the seeded tomatoes, the tomatoes look kind of empty, like the best parts have been removed. I'm not sure I want to fully remove the seeds if doing so leaves only empty tomato shells.

And by the way, I want you to know: I only used real ingredients. I added neither tomato fiber nor natural flavors.

Today's Food Endeavors

I need to be held accountable somehow, so I'm blogging about what I hope to accomplish in the food arena today. I'll provide a progress report at the end of the day with how far I managed to get. These are in no particular order.

1. Make a new batch of bread-and-butter pickles to begin curing.
2. Eat the yellow doll melon (okay, only half--hubby gets the other half) I cracked when I dropped it this morning on my way into the house with it.
3. Make dinner--venison stuffed green peppers with a side of fresh broccoli
4. Make a batch of whole wheat bread--unfortunately, not with my own freshly ground flour. Still working on the flour mill.
5. Make a batch of freezer tomato sauce.
6. Test the previously made freezer dill pickles to see if they're any good before giving some to others.
7. Make homemade applesauce.
8. Make homemade freezer slaw.
9. Make homemade cashew butter (like peanut butter, but from roasted, salted cashews).
10. Make raspberry-almond muffins for tomorrow's breakfast.
11. Chop and shred a LOT of zucchini.
12. Make honeyed carrots.
13. Eat leftovers for lunch to make room in the refrigerator.
***Added later***
14. Sautee 4 lbs. of button mushrooms for freezing.
***
A baker's dozen [sorry--added #14, so it's no longer a baker's dozen]--seems like a good number. Now, I wonder how far I will get? Care to guess?

"The best laid schemes o' [Bread] an' [Wom]en, gang aft agley"

See my bright, shiny new toy?

I was ecstatic to see it on my porch today. You see, I have 3 pounds of hard red winter wheat berries from the Farmer's Market that I want to grind into whole wheat--real whole wheat: bran, germ, and endosperm all. I have been waiting three weeks to grind this wheat, and had finally found a manual cast-iron, tinned grain mill on eBay that I felt I could afford. With shipping, it cost just over $48, which I thought a reasonable cost given the fact that it would last me a very long time.

It came in the original box (manufacturer: King; model # 3336-0) in about 5 pieces, which I managed to put together based on the picture on the box. It was quick and simple to assemble, which pleased me immensely--I am not mechanically inclined. Just ask my hubby, who can tell you about the just-shy-of-hysterical (I do not mean hysterical in the sense of humorous, by the way; rather, I mean hysterical in the sense of crying/screaming/cursing illogically while resisting the nearly overpowering urge to crush the remote control with a cement block) fits I throw when I can't make the remote control make the television upstairs do what I want it to do. Which is one reason I got the hand-crank model instead of one of the fancy-schmancy digital models. It's safer for all involved, especially the mill.

Except I can't. make. it. work.

To test it out, I dumped in a couple of handfuls of the wheat berries and began happily grinding. The result was a bit too coarse, so I tightened the bolts on the thingamabob that puts pressure on the gears and began grinding again. About the time I finally got the gears adjusted to the right grind, the gear began slipping. As best as I, with my non-mechanical mind, can tell, the gear sort of fits into the thingamabob that runs through the center. When it isn't fitted right, the crank doesn't turn the gear. But now I can't figure out how to get the bleeping gear to stay fitted to the center whatchamahoogie. Seriously frustrated, I gave up for the evening in the hope that hubby can help me sort out the problem in the morning.

Meanwhile, I did take my curing bread-and-butter pickles out of the refrigerator and put them in jars for the freezer. I managed nine 1/2-pints, with more to be made tomorrow, along with homemade tomato sauce--I just need some fresh celery for the recipe.

If anybody has dealt with this problem before, please help!

Can Someone Tell Me What "Natural Flavors" Are?

As I was putting together this evening's meal, I started to reflect on how our eating habits have changed as a society...and NOT for the better.

For dinner, I decided on venison (hunted by friends) meatloaf, and included in the meatloaf fresh eggs, green pepper, oregano, and sweet basil from the Farmer's Market, and a chopped white onion from my garden. Store ingredients include organic 2% milk and Hunt's tomato sauce (more on the tomato sauce in a moment), and Italian seasoned bread crumbs.

As sides, I'm fixing Yukon Gold mashed potatoes (using the aforementioned organic milk, some fresh goat cheese from the Farmer's Market, organic butter, and Sargento shredded cheddar) , and purple beans that are supposed to turn dark green when I cook them, purchased at the FM.

As you can see, very little of tonight's meal is processed, bagged, boxed, or canned. Typically, however, everything would have been purchased from the store, laden with hormones, antibiotics, insecticides, and herbicides.

As I peeled the label off the Hunt's Tomatoes Sauce so I could rinse and recycle the can, I decided to look at the ingredients list: "tomato puree (water, tomato paste), water, less than 2% of: salt, citric acid, spice, tomato fiber, natural flavor." The list looks impressively small, and the food seems somewhat normal.

But then, I began to wonder. How is tomato puree comprised of water and tomato paste? Shouldn't it be pureed tomatoes, skinned and de-seeded? Water was used to make the puree and is also a stand-alone ingredient. I'm almost afraid to ask about the water quality and where the water comes from, so I won't. Salt, normal. Citric acid? Why add this ingredient? Don't tomatoes have acid enough? Spice, ok--although they don't tell us what spices. Tomato fiber...huh? How do you grow tomato fiber? If you are using pureed tomatoes (rather than reconstituted tomato paste), you don't have to add fiber--it's already in the tomato. So, do they have dehydrated tomato fiber powder somewhere that they add to their sauce, sort of like Konsyl or Metamucil?

And what the hell is "natural flavor"? Can anybody tell me that? If you are using real tomatoes and spices and salt, don't those have a flavor already? What flavor is being added? And if you have to add a flavor (I'm pretty sure I don't have a bottle of "tomato flavor" in my cupboard), can it be natural? Please, I'd love some insight on this issue.

Despite the fact that I didn't add any "natural flavor" other than that already in the Hunt's tomato sauce (which I won't be buying anymore since I'll be making my own), I can assure you, this meal was more flavorful than the same meal made from completely store-bought ingredients.

How did society get to the point where consumers regularly buy food that is genetically modified, processed, or heavily produced with the use of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and ingredients that appear to be food but aren't? How did we allow this to happen? Why don't we do something to change the system?

I've decided that I've had it with the products of industrialized farming. I'm putting away food from my own garden, supplementing with locally grown, organic or chemical-free foods from the Farmer's Market, and finding local farmers that I can purchase antibiotic- and hormone-free meats from.

Meanwhile, thinking about tonight's meal, although I did pretty well at using healthier, more natural foods, I can do better. I've just found a recipe for freezer tomato sauce, so I'll be turning my over-abundance of tomatoes into sauce and freezing it, along with some tomatoes. I just purchased a hand-crank grain mill on e-bay for $48.16 and have 3 lbs. of FM red winter wheat berries ($3) on hand so I can grind my own flour and make my own bread...which will also mean I can make and store my own bread crumbs. We have a local dairy that makes its own cheese from antibiotic- and hormone-free, grass-fed and -finished cows. All in all, with a little bit of maneuvering and some work, I could have made tonight's dinner from natural foods.

And I won't need to go buy that bottle of "natural tomato flavor."