Sunday, July 25, 2010

Garden Goings

We have been busy enjoying the Summer, and I hope you all have been too!  All attempts at seed starting for the Fall garden are ending in misery.  I continue to neglect seedlings sprouting in flats, and the bunnies eat the pea and bean sowings.  Since I never ordered more seeds after emptying my packets it looks as though there will be no Late Summer/Fall peas (or beans) for us.  Very sad.  Don't tell my kids.  Oh, and speaking of kids, meet our new pet:  "Fatty".....


I wanted to call this beast "Bubba", but the kids kept saying "but he is so fat"!  They win.


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We harvested lots of tomatoes, and some more early red potatoes this past week, most of my potato plants are dying back at this point, including the late maturing fingerlings.  Ivy my Labrador volunteered to keep an eye on the potatoes for me.  She has taken to hanging around just outside the garden fence in hopes of catching a cherry tomato or green bean being flung from the garden.  (She is after all the strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and apple eater.  I think I may have to add cilantro to her list of culinary preferences.  I used to have plants out there.  Just last week.  Hmmm.)


This garden fresh salsa was delicious, and it went fast!  What a great way to use up all that garden bounty.



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Garden Flowers






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The Making of Caramelized Tomatoes

Last year I did some oven drying with my tomatoes (pictured here).  They were delicious all winter in quiches and on pizza.  This time around I am trying a new technique, one that appears to be a marriage of oven-roasting, and oven-drying with a sprinkling of sugar thrown in.  After googling "caramelized tomatoes" I settled on the instructions found here.  Below are the Sungold and Juliet tomatoes halved, salted, and drizzled with oil, now ready for their heat treatment:


After 30 minutes @ 350˚ the Sungolds burned a bit, but I did a taste taste test 
and they still have nice flavor.  
I lowered the oven down to 325˚ for the remainder of the Juliet's cooking time.


After another 30 minutes or so they looked like this:


Now into the freezer!


9 comments:

meemsnyc said...

Oh my, those tomatos look delicious. Fatty is a cutey. Haha.

Kelly said...

Those tomatoes are delicious meensync!! :) It was quite hard to stop eating them.

Erin said...

You mean you don't garden exclusively for Ivy's benefit? Don't tell her that LOL!

Nice green pet... eeeewwww!

Those tomatoes looks delicious that way, I think I'll try that with my little ones if ever I am brave enough to go out there - it won't be anytime soon - it's 107 degrees right now!

Ruth Trowbridge said...

The dalhia is so perfect. I am so thankful for the seeds you sent. I finished off the old packages with less than 10 percent germination and other seeds like lupines in the mix. Just starting to get fruit on the tomatoes I hope the chocolate one made it. Clever idea with the tomatoes. Hope you are well and staying cool. Peace

Thomas said...

Awesome potatoes! Ivy's a cutey.

I caught my own little Fatty the other day. It was the first time I cam face to face with one...kinda freaked me out. I was really surprised by its grip! It latched on to the branch for dear life!

Kelly said...

I know Thomas!!! I have had to snip the branch every time I encounter one of these beasts.....I pull, and I pull (squeamishly) but it is no use.

Erin said...

Thomas and Kelly, stop it! Y'all are freaking me out! LOL

Dani said...

They need to make a campy hornworm horror flick.

Lorie said...

Ugh, fatty is not so cute, but those tomatoes and salsa look great. We still have some in the freezer from, last year. They sure are yummy.