Tag Archives: tomatoes

Help! I’m trapped in the kitchen!

Posted on by
Reply

I think this may be the penance I have to pay for escaping on a vacation to Spain during harvest season.

It all started innocently enough with a five-cent wine sale at our local big-box alcoholic-beverage store. Buy one bottle of certain specific wines, and you can get a second bottle for five cents. Now, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am not one to turn away from a bargain easily. And besides, since we were preparing for our trip to Spain at the time, I had a hankering for a good Rioja. But how could I know if this particular Rioja that was on sale would be any good? Never fear, they told me. If you don’t like the wine, just bring back the unopened second bottle, and we’ll refund half your money.

This seemed like a good deal. We bought the wine.

It was pretty bad.

So we returned the second bottle, got half our money back, and were left with an almost-full bottle of wine in our refrigerator that no one wanted to drink, but we were too conscious of waste to throw out. “Never mind,” I told Dan. “I’ll use it to make coq au vin.” This traditional French recipe calls for a bottle of red wine to cook the chicken in, and it doesn’t have to be your best wine. Your leftover undrinkable Rioja will do just fine.

A little bit of research–this was tricky–led to a couple of recipes for coq au vin that did not call for pork parts. It also led to some pretty interesting ideas for side dishes: a hash of Brussels sprouts and leeks, and something delicious-looking called “smashed potatoes.” I needed leeks anyway for the chicken recipe, so I bought a couple more, along with some potatoes and Brussels sprouts, and now I was committed.

Only problem was that our garden was producing tomatoes about as fast as dandelions shoot seeds; there were more cucumbers hiding under the cucumber leaves than we had thought possible; several fat zucchini were working up the bulk for sumo wrestling, and our delicate purple-flowered eggplant plants had finally set fruit.

The refrigerator was beginning to resemble a hoarder’s closet. And I’m not sure I can escape.

I made coq au vin from a whole bird–meadow-raised and purchased at our farmers market from Rossotti Ranch. This was quite good but impossible to finish before we went away, so into the freezer it went. I made Brussels sprouts hash and smashed potatoes–both a bit of a disappointment, and into the freezer went these leftovers too. I made ratatouille, which had to be finished, and seemed to call for brown rice; and I made endless helpings of cucumber salad and cucumbers with yogurt,and tomato salad.

And no, I may never get out of the kitchen.

Gazpacho

Posted on by
Reply

I have become interested in gazpacho lately. Partly, this is because we enjoyed some wonderful gazpacho while traveling in Spain recently. But more urgently, this interest arises from the overwhelming quantity of tomatoes we are harvesting each day from our garden.

Here’s what I have learned about gazpacho recipes.

They can be divided into those that use canned or jarred tomato juice or equivalent, and those that don’t. In my mind, the ones using canned tomato juice can be ignored. It’s not that it’s cheating (though it probably is), but rather that the whole beauty of gazpacho lies in the garden-fresh goodness of the tomatoes, a trait that’s completely lacking in the canned juice. And you can tell.

Among the remaining recipes, these can be divided into those that use bread in some form as a thickening agent, and those that don’t. There are reputable advocates on both sides of this divide, but I side with those who do not use bread. I am a tomato purist.

Among the recipes still remaining, there are those that call for the whole soup to be pureed to a silky smoothness, and those that prefer chunks. The gazpachos we enjoyed in Spain recently were the pureed type, and quite delicious. On the other hand, in the past we have also enjoyed very chunky gazpachos in both Spain and Portugal on a past trip to different regions. I like to have it both ways: noticeable chunks in an otherwise smooth soup.

After all this research, I ended up with five not-quite-right-for-me recipes from the Internet. I used features of all five, and what follows here is my own recipe. It came out with perfect all-tomato, no-bread, smooth-yet-also-chunky goodness. I hope you enjoy it, but be warned: Use the very best fresh, local tomatoes you can find. The better the tomatoes, the better the soup.

Ginger’s Own Summer Gazpacho

4 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded
  • ½ large red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded
  • 1 small hot red pepper (such as cayenne), minced (optional)
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 – 2 ½ pounds very ripe red tomatoes, peeled
  • ½ large onion, chopped (chop about 1/3 of this coarsely, the rest finer)
  • 2 Tbsp (or more) sherry or red wine vinegar
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil, more or less
  • Quartered cherry tomatoes (optional), chopped chives and basil (for serving)

Preparation

Cut 2-3″ of the cucumber into ¼” pieces and set aside; coarsely chop remaining cucumber and place in a large bowl. Cut one-quarter of the bell pepper into ¼” pieces and set aside; coarsely chop remaining bell pepper and add to bowl with chopped cucumber. Chop one-quarter of the onion into small pieces (1/8”) and set aside; coarsely chop the rest and add to the large bowl with the cucumbers and peppers.

Cut the tomatoes into four or six wedges and seed them over a strainer set above a bowl to catch the liquid. Squeeze liquid out of the seeds.

Transfer about ¾ of the tomatoes and all of the juice to a blender. Add about ¾ of the cucumber mixture. Add garlic, hot peppers, vinegar, salt, and oil; and purée on medium speed until smooth. Adjust seasonings with salt and vinegar, if desired. Add the rest of the tomatoes and the cucumber mixture from the large bowl, and puree only briefly so that coarse pieces still remain. Add the pieces that have been set aside. Transfer to a large bowl or pitcher and chill at least an hour; overnight is better.

Divide gazpacho among bowls. Top with cherry tomatoes if you use them, chives, and basil.

The problem with the garden these days

Posted on by
Reply

Since there’s not enough sunny garden area around our house for growing vegetables, that’s what we use the community garden for. And again this year, we’ve been lucky enough to be given one of the unclaimed plots as well. Despite this wealth of sunny land, we had to pack things kind of close in order to fit in everything we wanted to grow: tomatoes and cucumbers, of course; arugula, basil, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, zucchini (that space hog!), and this year kohlrabi and beans. A lot to grow in a limited space, and let’s just say that it’s our own private jungle out there. The vegetable jungle.

And it’s finally that wonderful time of year when the tomatoes are ripening. I am eating two tomatoes a day–two wonderful, sweet, homegrown garden tomatoes–and I’m falling behind.

Can you see the problem? The bowl on the right contains yesterday’s harvest. The one in front, the day before. The one on the left, the old ones we have to use up first.

Tomato salad for dinner, anyone?

 

Inle Lake – Floating Tomato Gardens

Posted on by
Reply

Just writing the title of this post makes me smile. Floating tomato gardens! What a concept! And what would they do with the cucumbers? Hang the vines on air hooks?

Maybe not. Maybe that’s why they grow tomatoes on Inle Lake, and not cucumbers.

But tomatoes they do grow, and they grow them in abundance. This region supplies sixty percent of all the tomatoes consumed in Myanmar–a population of 5.5 million people. That’s a lot of tomatoes.

So… The tomatoes are grown in baskets that float in the lake, in long, dense, caged rows. There are problems with this farming technique. The silt that escapes the baskets and the organic waste from the plants are slowly eroding the lake environment, enriching the water so that water hyacinth–lovely, but a devastating weed–is beginning to take over, one of the few plants that can grow in water so organically rich. And then there is the matter of the pesticides… Let’s just say: This is not water you’d want to drink.

Nevertheless, there is an enchanting beauty in these farms.

   

 

Mostly it’s the women who work the tomato gardens, weeding and harvesting. They work from their boats.

 

 

Occasionally, the tomato gardens frame vistas that have breathtaking rural grace and beauty.