My ode to the tomato

Until I started growing my own, I had no idea there was such a thing as heirloom tomatoes, nor the huge spectrum of colors they came in!

Ok, in the name of full disclosure, I need to tell you all something. There is a good chance that a large percentage of this month’s posts will contain tomatoes, in one form or another, for a myriad of reasons. First there is the simple fact, that here, it is officially tomato season. We tomato freaks lovers planted seeds indoors, in March, tended the tiny seedlings that sprouted, until they were strong enough to head outdoors, where we then protected them, supported them and worried over them for months. (Honestly, my tomato seedlings took a beating this year, so we saved what we could and supplemented with seedlings from our local, organic greenhouse.)  I personally have a hard time waiting for the first ripe tomato. Whenever I head out to the garden, the tomato patch is the first place I go, to both check in on everyone and see what offerings are waiting for us. Second, we can grow awesome tomato plants. I don’t mean to toot our own horn…well at least not too loud…oh what the hell, toot-toot. We have been known to grow 8 foot tall paste tomato plants and the only tomato failure that Kevin and I have suffered, occurred during our absence and was due to my father’s overzealous watering (we were in the middle of a drought and he thought giving them all the water they could take would insure their survival) which caused Blossom End Rot on all but the cherry tomatoes. Lastly, nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the taste of a freshly picked homegrown tomato. One bought at a grocery store, may look and feel like a tomato but they, most decidedly, will not smell or taste like one. 

The first heirloom of the season, this one is a Cherokee Purple.

I love tomatoes and I love eating them, in any form. Whether they are sliced up in a salad, slapped between two pieces of bread with a little mayo, salt and pepper, as a quick, just pop in your mouth, afternoon snack, sun-dried on homemade pizza, tossed in olive oil and served with fresh-cut basil and mozzarella or made into my great-grandmothers yummy tomato sauce, I just can’t get enough.

Just as pretty on the inside.

I think part of my tomato prowess, and borderline obsession, is due to my genetics. My family is almost completely Sicilian and Italian. After wine, garlic and macaroni (yes, they always called it macaroni, never pasta) tomatoes are the most important sustenance in our lives. To further prove my point, PJ, ever since he first had solids as a baby, has gobbled up tomatoes in any form. It’s the Sicilian in him, I’m sure of it.

Diced and ready to go.

So, to honor tomato season, I wanted to share my salsa recipe. I know, I know, it’s not an Italian tomato recipe, but right now, in our garden, all of the ingredients are ripe so, this is the one you get! Plus, it’s not really salsa, I think it would be considered more of a Pico de Gallo, but it’s what we eat as salsa because I, personally, don’t like the taste or texture of the conventional stuff. I have also been experimenting with canning it. If I am happy with the results, I will share that process next season, after I am sure that it truly has a shelf-life of a year, and a decent flavor when finally cracked open.

You can’t make salsa with out these little hotties!

Homegrown Pico de Gallo

3 medium to large heirloom tomatoes, with seeds removed, and diced. (I sometimes throw in cherry tomatoes too, to add different colors.)

1 small to medium yellow onion, diced.

6-8 cloves of garlic, minced. (Yes, I know my Sicilian is showing through, and this is what makes the whole house (and us) stink when I whip up a batch, but it just doesn’t taste the same with less.

1 small jalapeno pepper, with seeds removed, diced.

1 handful of fresh cilantro, finely chopped. (I usually add more because I’m a cilantro junkie, but a handful should do.)

1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

1 tablespoon of lime juice.

Salt and pepper to taste.

If Kevin is around when I make it, he tends to walk by and throw in some Frank’s Red Hot and a half a shot of tequila. This, right here people, is the only downside to being married to a cook. I think it is delicious and fresh tasting without these additions.

If I’m not canning it, I store it in a container, with a tight-fitting lid, in the fridge. (The bit about the lid is very important, otherwise your entire fridge is gonna stink.) It doesn’t usually hang around for more than a night anyway, so this is rarely ever a problem. We enjoy eating it on chips, as a snack, or over some chicken, rice and black beans, as dinner. I also like to take two fresh avocados, mash them up, and throw in 2 -3 tablespoons of the finished salsa. Voilà, we have instant guacamole! I bet it would also be delicious, over some eggs, in the morning. Ha! There! You can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now, as my grandmother used to say, “go, eat…manga, manga!”

If you try it, let me know what you think. Do you have any special ways you like to prepare your tomatoes?

Friday confessions

This Friday’s confession is brought to you by our garden, and my apparent lack of creativity, as of late…

This isn’t even the whole lot. I processed a basket full two days ago and gave another basket full away to some neighbors.

I’m beginning to resent my tomato plants, they are producing too much, to quickly and I can’t keep up. So, maybe I actually resent my lack of ability to stay on top of all my to dos. Where did the girl go who could keep up with everything? Oh yeah, that’s right, she had two kids, gave up sleeping at night, vowed to live without certain conveniences (ones that might make things faster but were harmful to both her loved ones and the earth) and took on running a homestead.  I am officially out of creative ways to prepare and preserve these pretty little gems. Actually, I lost some because I let them sit too long while I contemplated what to make with them. Not to worry though, the chickens enjoyed them as an afternoon snack the other day. So I guess we will be eating them one way or another. Eggs anyone?

So if you have any suggestions please send them my way. And hurry! Two days from now the amount of tomatoes will have double. Kevin’s, not so helpful, advice was to have a tomato throwing fight. I said that was wasteful. He said “not if we do it near the chicken coop or in the pigs’ pasture.” His reasoning here is, unfortunately, sound. I really don’t want to participate in his plan, so if you would like to save me from this embarrassment, send me your ideas. As added incentive, next week I promise to share a very tasty recipe in return. 😉

Happy Weekend!

The weekend

The storm rolling in.

Is there really ever a weekend when you live on a farm? Certainly not in the sense of two days off at the end of your work week, but on the other hand, we never suffer from a case of the “Mondays”, so there’s that! The past two days here have been low on productivity with Saturdays highs reaching the mid 90’s and the heat index reaching well into the 100’s (not feasible with two babes that must follow us everywhere.) Sunday brought a, much needed, downpour that chased us all inside. 

The view out of our kitchen window.

We did manage to move the mobile chicken coop to a new swath of pasture, which ended up taking two extra people and two extra hours and ended in us darting for the house before the sky opened up. Because really, who wants to be handling electronet fencing in a thunderstorm? It is all quite hilarious looking back on it now, possibly even post worthy. I also harvested some produce, the most notable being 2 pounds of beans destined for pickling and was able to put up 8 jars of pesto. Outside of those accomplishments, and the usual daily chores, nothing else got done.

Waiting for a trim and pickling.

It has also been hard getting back into the swing of things after being away for 4 days. Upon arriving home, it seemed as if, the only thing that had grown were the weeds and I think we are both struggling with being extremely overwhelmed by how far behind we feel. So in that vein, and to please my Type A personality, here is our “To Do” list for the upcoming week:

1. Make and can Dilly Beans.
2. Weed herb garden.
3. Harvest some lemon balm, parsley, basil, cilantro, sage, thyme, tarragon, and marjoram.
4. Dry, freeze or otherwise process said herbs.
5. Weed, weed, and more weeding of vegetable garden. Problem here is, by the time we get done weeding the entire garden the weeds are growing back in where we started.
6. Create some kind of support for the sweet corn.
7. Tend slicing and cherry tomatoes – prune, snip, re-tie/support.
8. Come up with a way to trellis paste tomatoes. These have gotten quite out of hand and we are at a loss for a good way to support them that also allows us to easily harvest the ripe fruit.
9. Try to train pole beans back onto their respective poles. I have never had a problem with this in the past but this year they just seem to have a mind of their own.
10. Pick and trim swiss chard.
11. Freeze what chard we do not use this week.
12. Pick lettuce, beets, eggplant, peppers, squash, possibly fingerling potatoes.
13. Weed sweet potatoes.
14. Plant fall crops. We are kind of late with this but I would like to throw, at least, some peas and spinach in.
15. Weed asparagus and rhubarb bed.
16. Fence in pine trees in front pasture and move sheep into said pasture.
17. Move Lilac out of front pasture, break-up middle pasture and move her into first section.
18. Move pigs to other end of, what will become, the garlic patch.
19. Lay down manure to “bake” in sun on the section pigs just rooted.
20. Muck out chicken coop and lay down new litter for “deep bed method.”
21. Muck out stalls and big section of barn.
22. Pick up peaches from local orchard.
23. Jam, can and freeze peaches.
24. Pick rest of boysenberries off bush by barn and process.
25. Name lambs and send in registration for all sheep.
26. Find a Ram that fits all of our criteria and set up a plan for getting him here by October 1st, to use for breeding in November.
27. Order hive and have beekeeper relocate the bees that have taken up residence in barn wall.
28. Place grass-fed beef order for winter. Hopefully this will be the last time and next year we will be running our own steers.
29. Go over budget and accounting for farm books.
30. Work out plan for winter food storage.

Well, what do you think? Can we get it all done by next Sunday night? What is on your “To Do” list this week?