Tomatoes: Who Gets Voted Off?

The major harvesting seems to be over, which is kind of early, I think.  We have fruits and veggies still to harvest, but more of a small stream than a tsunami.    Regular tsunamis are bad, but tomato tsunamis are exhilarating!  Ah well.  Now is a good time start evaluating what we grew, before I forget.

Weird tomato

Tomatoes (14 plants total): It seemed like we didn't have very many tomatoes for 14 plants.  However, 2 plants were for drying (and there were lots of them!), one was a cherry, three were slicing tomatoes and only 6 were for sauce.  Of those 6, 3 got some kind of illness but still valiantly produced tomatoes.  They were also determinate, and so made only so many tomatoes, then stopped.  So all things considered, we did OK getting  5 quarts and 5 pints of crushed tomatoes and 1 quart and 5 pints of nice, thick sauce.  There will be enough for another batch of sauce, as well.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Recipe

The tomatillos are coming in nicely and, even after giving away a couple or three pounds, we had 8.5 pounds on hand.  Tomatillos keep well but still have to be used eventually.  Thus, we have 3 quarts of roasted tomatillo salsa cooling in the pressure canner (along with 2 quarts of diced Viva Italia paste tomatoes!) and 2 pints in the refrigerator for immediate use!

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
makes about 4 quarts

• 8.5 pounds tomatillos, roasted
• 4 medium onions, peeled and cut into eighths
• 2 bulbs (not cloves) garlic, peeled
• 2 cups cilantro leaves, packed
• 9 red, green &/or purple jalapenos, de-stemmed and cut in half*
• 1 NuMex Big Jim pepper (Anaheim type), de-stemmed and cut in half*

Szechuan Green Bean Recipe

What to do with a zillion green beans...  I've frozen quite a few, but they are best fresh.   We have been eating a lot of green beans Szechuan-style.  These are spicy, crisp beans that are often deep-fried, but it turns out that they are just as good, if not better, dry-fried.

Szechuan Green Beans

• fresh green beans, washed with stem ends removed
• House of Tsang Szechuan Stir-fry Sauce
• OR homemade equivalent (internet has good options)
• toasted sesame seeds, optional

Heat a large frying pan on high until it is really hot.  A stainless steel or anodized pan might be best, since Teflon doesn't do well with high temps.  Add a nice handful of beans.  Toss and cook until the skins get little blisters and some black spots.  Dump in a bowl or on a plate.  Repeat with more beans.  When you have enough beans for your group,  toss them with szechuan sauce to taste.   Sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Serve warm or room temperature.  Lovely for appetizers.

Note: You can use a teaspoon or so of oil per batch, if you want.  Absolutely not necessary, though.

I know this is a little loose, without cups, ounces, times and temperatures.  But this is how I cook and it is a flexible recipe anyway!  Enjoy with good friends on the patio or deck.

Blueberries - Fresh, Frozen and Jam

This was a great year for blueberries!  I pick with a friend at Blue Ridge Growers in River Falls, WI and the crop this year was tremendous.  It was hard to stop picking, even when your back ached and you really wished you hadn't had that third cup of coffee on the way out there.  Because the picking was so good, I got about 3 gallons of berries.

Blueberries are may be the best berries for pickers.  They grow on nice thornless bushes that can be tall enough that you don't have to bend over much.  The berries sometimes grow in clusters, so in a plentiful season, you can almost pick a handful at a time!   Blueberries also don't squish on you the way raspberries and blackberries do.

Tomatillos

Tomatillo

Tomatillos have become one of my favorite things to grow!  Probably four years ago, I took the plunge and tried them without much hope of success.  These are plants of the Southwest and, by all rights, shouldn't do well this far north.  Ha!  They do great!

If you are not familiar with the tomatillo (toe-ma-tea-o) , they are related to tomatoes and are also known as husk tomatoes. 

The calm before the storm

Dinner from the garden

This is a period of waiting.  Except for the beans, everything is gathering strength for the big ripening push.  It is the calm before the storm.

More vegetables should be like the green beans.  They have been steadily producing for weeks now.  Sometimes more, sometimes a little less, but almost always enough for a meal.  We have about five pounds in the freezer and I need to freeze another big batch.  The frozen beans last year had an unpleasant problem with their skins sliding off when thawed.  They tasted OK, but it was off-putting.  This year

Next Year, Already

I've been thinking about what to do with the garden next year.  It is only August and the main harvest hasn't even really come in yet, but garden plans and new varieties are already dancing in my head.  It's not that I'm unhappy with the way the garden is growing this year, but there is always room for improvement.

Next year I would:

Seed Starting and Ear Piercing

Oh. My. Goodness. Huge piercing emergency tonight. DD needed to change the hardware in her rook piercing (an odd part of your ear that you probably never knew had a name). Last time was a terrifying disaster and this time was not really better.