This week’s Five Things Friday randomness: emergency preparedness, helping after Harvey, apples and (finally) planting the fall starts, acidulating your tomatoes, the town where Golden Delicious apples grow wild, American power dynamics, Henry Rollins gets poetic, and more.
Tomatoes
Old Bay Corn Relish
This straightforward sweet corn relish is seasoned with Old Bay and is excellent with crabcakes, fried seafood, tuna salad, beans or chicken.
Home Canned Spaghetti Sauce For People Who Like Ragu
What do you do if you love growing tomatoes and making homemade pasta sauce, but your partner only wants Ragu from the store? In this post, analysing the appeal of store bought pasta sauce, and crafting a homemade, home-canned version that can win over picky taste-buds.
Kale & Chickpea Salad with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
The thing about salads in winter, is – they have to have some ooomph there, you know what I mean? In summer I’ve been known to eat a head of romaine plain, one leaf at a time…munch, munch, munch. But in winter I like meal-worthy salads with hearty components like beets, apple, sweet potatoes and more. With garbanzo beans, slow…
Lacto-Fermented Tomatillo Salsa
No shock to any of my regular readers – I pretty much want to ferment all the things, all the time. I’m basically a jewel case away from being a Portlandia sketch. My new favorite fermented condiment is this Lacto-Fermented Tomatillo Salsa. It’s super easy. You just chop up a bunch of stuff in a…
Oven-Roasted Herb Confit Tomatoes
As a gardener, going away or taking vacation in the summer is always a bit of a deal with the devil. On the one hand, a long weekend spent camping (or whatever) is awesome! On the other hand, when you come back home, you are likely to find your tomato plants have taken over your…
How To Peel A Lot Of Tomatoes Fast
If you’re like me, you are in the thick of canning season. Over the past three weeks or so I’ve gotten something like 240 pounds of tomatoes turned into sauce, chopped tomatoes, salsa, various relishes, savory jams, etc. So it’s fair to say I’ve peeled many, many tomatoes. At this point, I think I’ve honed the…
Tomato Canning Quick Reference Guide
When I was canning up tomatoes this past weekend, and I was sick, so I kept double checking things and kinda getting hazy about what the hell I was doing. Moral of the story: do not attempt to can 100 pounds of tomatoes while sick. But as I was shuffling back and forth to my…
Can-o-Rama 2013
This past weekend was pretty much dedicated to canning. Homebrew Husband and I did this last year (see: Can-o-Rama 2012). Dedicating a solid weekend to putting up staple foods like pickles and tomatoes can be a bit of a whirlwind, but it feels fantastic to take the pantry from nearly-bare to nearly-full in 48 hours….
Stop Throwing Away Free Tomato Sauce
It has come to my attention that many people are unwittingly throwing away free tomato sauce when they preserve their summer tomatoes. Here’s the thing: like all fruit, the skin of tomato is where much of the natural pectin resides. Pectin is the starch that gives jams their thickness and good tomato sauce its natural,…
Can-o-Rama 2012
It’s 1:43 AM Monday as I write this. The past 56 hours have been a Can-o-rama from “where’s-my-coffee?” to way-past-dusk that has precluded the writing of any witty or useful blog posts. I’m eating good cheese with a spoon, too tired even to drink the well-deserved pour of wine next to me. I got nothin’,…
Kim Kardashian's Tomatoes: 5 Thoughts on Blogging
Here’s something you might not know about blogging. If I write headlines like these: What Kim Kardashian Can Teach You About Tomatoes 20 Ways to Grow 1,000 Pounds of Vegetables In 10 Minutes A Day Why Overpaying For Seeds Is Costing You More Than Just Money …there is a huge chance you will click on the…