Ripe Tomatoes

As happens almost every year, this winter I started seeds for most of the garden I planted. Some years I do a vast number of tomato varieties, but this year I only planted three kinds. One is a grape tomato, sort of an elongated cherry tomato. Although I expected them to ripen first the one that actually is giving me enough tomatoes for salads is called Stupice. The tomatoes are about golf ball size and have a nice strong tomato flavor. Some of them have green shoulders at the stem end even when the rest of the tomato is fully ripe, but I just cut that part off and put it in the compost pile. A few of the grape tomatoes are ripe, too, but not many. The third tomato is my favorite Black Krim. They are lobed and get larger and are a brownish red and super delicious. I also planted the seed for them later than the others, so I probably won't harvest any until next month at the earliest.

Tonight we'll be having three kinds of grilled squash: white scallop, yellow scallop and zucchini. There will be sliced Stupice tomatoes with basil from the garden and Sweetie and Straight Shooter will enjoy grilled rib eye steaks from a local farm while I enjoy chicken thighs from a local market. A summery meal for a summers evening.

The morning glories are running rampant in the garden, climbing anything they can climb, including the tomato plants.

The lilies have just started to bloom, too.

I didn't really plant too many other flowers this year, devoting my water mostly to veggies. I'd like a few more cucumbers, too, but they have slowed down production. Only got one this week.

We finished our deck repair on the front of the house and even moved some wicker furniture and a rocker to the most recently repaired part near the door to the baking center. I just finished having a cup of tea while enjoying the rocker, a nice breeze and the company of Sweetie and Pi doggie. Bliss.

Hope you are having your own kinds of summer good times.

Welcome August

Made it through July, always a tough month. Having our new dog has made a difference and brought a lot of joy to our lives. Pi has been really, really good about not chasing cats for over a week but, instead I guess, has discovered that the kitchen has food that is yummy. Since we are not feeding him scraps or any 'people food' it took him a while. This morning we found that we had left the pantry door open and there were two almonds on the rug by his crate. Since he didn't seem to have gotten into the bag of almonds I can only guess that Sweetie dropped a few last time he snacked on almonds. Still Pi and I had words and a stern warning was given to stay out of my kitchen.

One of the blessings of August is the bounty that becomes available for harvesting as things ripen in their time. Although the plums are finished for the year, we have tons of blackberries that are just ripe now. I've harvested a few cucumbers but more are on the way. The zucchini squash continue to produce enough for us with extra to share. So far we are greeted with 'Yay' when we bring them to friends. It might be a different story by the start of September. The Gravenstein apples will soon be ripe and I have some beans getting bigger, so they will be eaten this month, too. The pears look like they might be ready in late August.

The biggest news is that we had our first full sized tomato of the season last night. I had used a few of the Juliet grape tomatoes in a salad the day before but it is always a treat to enjoy the first slicer.

We had it sliced and dressed, lightly, with good olive oil, salt and pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. What a pleasure to experience the taste of summer in each bite. No recipe needed. Just be sure to not put the vine ripened tomato in the 'fridge. The cold changes the chemistry somehow and the taste suffers. We have been known to eat tomatoes right off of the vine, like an apple, with juices running down the chin. Heavenly August!

Fresh from the Garden - Cucumber Fun

After all those months of planting, watering, fertilizing, weeding and similar garden tasks, harvest time has finally arrived. We have been harvesting zucchini for a while and did have some green beans, too, but now we have lots of zucchini plus two kinds of cucumbers, butternut squash, more beans, and....the first tomato.

One kind of cucumber I planted is new to me...long cucumbers. They look just like those expensive hothouse cucumbers that have few if any seeds. Given how much they charge at the market for them I figured that they were hard to grow or only would produce a few. Wrong.

They are growing even better than the regular cucumbers and each vine is happily producing more than half dozen of them. With so many gorgeous cucumbers to have fun with I decided to make a couple of recipes.

For lunch yesterday I had a very proper cup of tea and cucumber sandwich. I had some homemade sourdough bread which I sliced fairly thinly. I removed the crusts, spread the slices with butter, thinly, and then layered on thinly sliced long cucumbers. They went really well with the Earl Gray tea and I really enjoyed the crunchy mild cucumbers which contrasted nicely with the bread and butter.

For dinner tonight I made a salad which included chunks of both long and regular cucumbers, a couple of tomatoes cut in chunks, half a sweet white onion, diced small, a ripe avocado, peeled, seeded and diced small, and a nice balsamic/ red wine vinaigrette with oregano and herbes de provence.

After the salad marinated for an hour, I topped it with about 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles for the perfect chilled salad to go with barbecued chicken and fresh corn on the cob.

Summer bounty is so appreciated.

Yay Food Bloggers!

One of the hallmarks of the food blogging community is positivity. In much of the blogosphere negativity is common, so it is such a nice realization to consider the warmth and caring that is constantly shown by food bloggers. Comments are usually upbeat, funny, affirming and encouraging. Yay for food bloggers!

Thanks to all of you who come by, commenter and 'lurkers' alike!

Even though it takes some time to blog, I find it very rewarding.

Trouble is that I can spend time thinking about what to cook or bake, taking the time to cook or bake it, photograph it, do what is necessary in Photoshop to make the photos ready for the blog, then do the write up, add the photos, spell check (mostly), make links were needed, and, finally post OR go around and look at the fantastic blogs of other food bloggers, make comments, make notes on inspiration that has come because of their excellence, or even blogs to return to for recipes, etc. That doesn't even include the time taken to read e-mails and post the comments to the blog and post answers (sometimes), nor to create recipes for 'original' things cooked or baked. It seems difficult these days to find enough time to do it all, especially with the garden calling to me every day.

So if I don't get around to your blog or post very often bear with me. I wouldn't be surprised if you have the same problem if you are a food blogger. Oops, gotta go, the squash are demanding to be harvested....again!

Walking Through the Garden Pie

As I've mentioned before, summer is not my favorite season. This summer of 2007 has been such a lovely summer that I might have to change my tune. With the exception of the occasional heat spell, we have had beautiful days and cool nights, fog to clean and cool the air, and some of the best stone fruits and berries that I can remember. To top it off, my garden is one of the best in 20 years. The squash plants have been giving a steady harvest of tender green and yellow zucchini and rounded beige butternut squash, with one hardy crookneck producing a squash a week. I never grew cucumbers before, but will next year. It has been a joy to pick a nice green regualr cucumber for a mixed green salad, or to combine that with some round, prickly yellowish lemon cucumbers for a relish style salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and some chunks of tomato.

Best of all, the heirloom tomatoes that I started from seed are finally ripening. Red, deeply lobed Costellutos came first. They were not very large in size, but had a sweet tomato flavor.

Next I served our first Black Krim tomato sliced with a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of garlic salt, then scattered some chopped opal basil over the plate. Black Krim originate in the Black Sea reagion of Europe and have a dark, almost brown red flesh, shot through with bright red and spring leaf green. They have a very deep, delightful tomato flavor and are firm, but juicy. The little yellow pear tomatoes ripened just as the first Green Zebra tomato began to grow golden under the green stripes. I served chunks of marinated mozarella cheese on top of chunks of Black Krim and Green Zebra for a delicious taste of summer.

But what about the pie? It was a spur of the moment idea to make for dinner last weekend. Don't be too envious of my garden. This is the first time in almost 15 years that I've had more than about 6 food plants total in the garden. Finally this winter and spring I had the time to sow seeds for tomatoes, squash, and chard and, late, for cucumber. What really takes time is finding enough places to plant those seedlings that are not vulnerable to gophers and then finding the time to water every day. So these summer jewels are rare for me and very appreciated.

Imagine walking through the garden and picking some fresh chard, some of that dark opal basil, a few zucchini, a few tomatoes, and then heading for the kitchen to make a pie that tastes just like high summer. I blind baked a pie shell (using a round of parchment paper and my much-used and saved for pie baking kidney beans to keep the pastry from rising or forming big bubbles in the crust. Then I put chopped onions and mushrooms into a skillet with olive oil to saute'. While that was cooking, I made half moons of zucchini and cut tomatoes into chunks. I chopped basil and sliced well-washed chard into ribbons about 1 inch wide, after removing the stems. Once the onions and mushrooms were tender, I added the squash and tomatoes, let them cook until the squash were tender, then placed the chard on top, added a couple tablespoons water, and covered the pan to steam the chard.



While the chard steamed, I mixed 1/2 cup milk, egg substitute workth three eggs, 1/4 cup pesto, and a few grinds of pepper in a bowl. When the chard was tender, I mixed the vegetable mixture into the egg mixture and poured it all into the pie shell. After baking at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes until the pie filling was set and browned lightly, I let it cool just enough that it could be cut, then served it at our little eating place on the porch to Sweetie with those sliced tomatoes and some lemonade. Wish you could have joined us.