Tomatoes to Sauce: Teaser

Start with about 20 Roma Tomatoes, fresh herbs, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and some simmer loving on the stove for about 3 1/2 hours. End Result? Delicious, mouthwatering homemade Italian Tomato Sauce.

Recipe and details coming soon.

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CSA's and Container Gardening

Hopefully my readers can take the summer months of lax posting as it just being the summer, the strange time of the year where time slips away like the freshly squeezed juice of a lemon through a strainer. That's my hope, anyway. There is definitely much to come as we've been overwhelmed with produce from our CSA, Wimer's Organics as well as our own container garden.

If you are a member of or considering becoming a member of  a CSA for this or next season, Wimer's is definitely the one to go with. They seem rather dirt cheap for the amazing, delicious, and organic offerings we get bi-weekly (there's no way we could eat as much as we get in one week!). They even offer payment plans, which I was happily surprised to find out, since joining a CSA is a lot of money to put out up front for the season or seasons you want. I know this had been a reason in teh past we had not joined one sooner, as I have also heard from friends and acquaintances, always with a wistful look in their eye. I was happy not to have that wistful look in my eye this year.

Along with comparing their previous grow seasons yields, which offered tremendous variety, more so we thought than other farms, the close pick up location, and the opportunity to purchase eggs, yogurt, chickens, and other items from their store (like COFFEE!) sealed the deal. We also get a thoughtful weekly email from Bud Wimer about the farm, maybe some recipes, and what to expect "in the box," an advance peep so as to plan ahead for meals and trips the grocer. And what was "in the box" this week you might inquire? In addition to the pounds and pounds of the three varieties of tomatoes you see below, we also got six ears of corn, two eggplants, two red peppers, a hunk of fresh mint, some beets, and a giant onion. Mind you, we still are working off of some leftovers of our last share.

Wimer's is a Certified Organic Farm, and while a lot of families and individuals choose to eat as much organic possible, this could also be a clincher, but as I've stated before, we wouldn't purchase organic fruit or vegetables over non-organic; we're more interested in that the crops and animals are raised and bred with resourceful and ecologically safe manners, (for example, Integrated Pest Management), as local as possible, and cage free (for the animals, not the crops for that one :)

We've had some struggle with some of our crops, particularly the zucchini, squash, and cucumbers. They come up but somehow either don't grow to a picking size before shriveling (zukes and squash) or they turn into some sort of oddly shaped rotund fruit which we can't use, either for pickling or just well, as a cucumber. Our tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and strawberries are for the most part doing well. The marjoram died in one of the earlier of our many heat waves, but the rest powered through..

Right now we are flush with tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes, as you can see. The first two images are beautiful roma, cherry, and beefsteak (?) from our CSA, and the last two are champion, patio, and lemony tomatoes and orange, green, and red peppers recently picked from our garden.

We're thinking some sauce is in order to make use before it spoils.Maybe a  lot of sauce. Stay tuned for that post.

Mini Chocolate Nanner Muffins

My grandad grew up during the Great Depression. This comes out in weird ways sometimes, like in the form of beer can whirligigs or the old TV he always has lying around just in case. My grandad also grows a lot of his own produce. In his later years, he's started growing produce for sport rather than sustenance. My poor grandma is left trying to figure out how to use everything he grows in the kitchen. And she, also a child of the Great Depression, feels the need to bake, cook, freeze, or jar all of it. Corn, berries, zucchini (so much zucchini), and lately champagne grapes (in Southern Idaho! my grandad is both talented AND crazy). My grandma finds a way to use it all, and I have a cache of creative hand-me-down recipes to prove it. But before I get to those, I'll give you a fruit saving recipe for something you probably already have lying around: rotten bananas.

Mini Chocolate Nanner Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 and beat the following together in a large bowl:
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 cup overly ripe bananas, mushed

Add:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Don't over mix! Let your batter stay lumpy as long as all the dry ingredients are wet.

Evenly split batter into a lined mini muffin pan (you'll have enough batter to fill it at least twice). Once the batter is in, put a Hershey's kiss in each, pressing it into the batter until the edges are covered. I usually leave one muffin in the center of the pan kiss-less, at least the first pan per batch, so that I can do a toothpick test or two.

Bake roughly 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Check the mini muffins often after the 10 minute mark if they're still too wet; they're real small and the line between done and burnt is really thin. Pull the muffins from the pan as soon as you can manage to get them out without burning off your fingerprints and let them cool on a wire rack.

If you don't have a mini muffin pan or you just like your muffins normal-sized, you can mix in 1-1 1/2 cups chocolate chips to the batter instead of the kisses to achieve the right chocolate to banana ratio.

A dessert homage to the 4th

A light dessert of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries on slices of angel food cake with whipped cream. A color-appropriate dish without intention. Happy Fourth of July!

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Summer Bites

This was last night's dinner: mozzarella, grape tomatoes, and fresh basil from our CSA speared like mini kabobs on toothpicks, drizzled in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Delicious and perfect for the 101 degree hot and humid day, which found me around six o'clock scratching my head in our kitchen trying to figure out what to eat when neither of us were hungry, most likely due to the fact that it was still above 90 at that time. This hit cold dish hit the spot.

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It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought. ~James Douglas, Down Shoe Lane

After the last few weeks chock full of gardening with a whole lot of love and sweat and dirt, those long hours in the early morning sun out front (we live without access to a yard so we really do our research and expend a lot of energy and research on our container gardens. After a few trips to home depot for really cheap herbs and veggies, some errands to a box store for some colorful containers to plant in, and the like, our current container garden is looking pretty great. I'm worried about the heat we've had and what it will do to my freshly planted bucket of herbs, but I figure if farmers are planting their crops in the sun, we aren't too far off from the arrangement, aside from our fruits and veggies and recently added herbs being on our our downstairs neighbor;s bay window. My green thumb has been diligent with rising at 6:30am to water the roof, again to pull some things in, such as the herbs for a little bit, (if necessary - they just went out today), and to to then head down to our rode bushes, azalea bush, a jack o lantern pumpkin in a 5 gallon bucket, perennial shasta daisies which I'm desperately trying to revive from the scorchers we've had lately, marigolds and roman candlesticks, and a few other pretty flowers and a large lavender plant that needs to be split as there are several plants outgrowing its tiny basket yet to go in...somewhere :)

I have pictures of the 'roof deck' - Are you ready for this urban farming? :) And please, if you have any tips to pass along, this is the first spring/summer I've gone beyond strawberries and tomatoes. SO far everything looks good, though soon we may have to stake one of the zucchini branch leaf for some added support for the buds arriving. Without further ado (drum roll anyone?) The almost completed 'roof deck.'

This was how the project began: a mishmash of potting soil, containers, water, water, and water, some nutrient food, prepping the containers for drainage holes, assessing which veggies and fruits could go into which pots, and of course, running out of potting soil. Eh. You do what you can in a few hours, pack it up, and if you're anything like me, you run out to Home Depot and the WalMart, whose garden center is closing BTW so the soil and what's left is SUPER cheap.

Patio & Lemon Bay Tomatoes

Champion Tomatoes, Zucchini and Cucumber, and three varieties of Peppers - Green, Yellow, and Red

Yellow Squash, Cantaloupe, a large Strawberry plant, and a wee baby strawberry plant.






More pictures to come of our patio/stoop container garden and the newest addition to our 'roof deck' - a delicious bucket of fresh herbs.Our patio is progressing nicely aside from our perennials having just wilted, not from neglect as I have been going Poppa Bear on this garden, but more we think just the humidity and the shriveling heat. I'm hoping they come back. Some of our marigolds have and there are buds on the Shasta Daisies. My fingers are crossed and I do welcome any gardening fertilization, nutrient, and any other advice anyone may have. Bring it on in the comment section.

"In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." - Margaret Atwood

Spring has finally arrived to stay, after a long winter with segue ways into summer-like temperatures and dips into winter chills. A lot has been happening around here as well as in the State of Pennsylvania that has put blogging on the back burner. Bigger things have been happening in PA,  more having less of a positive spin but which have played out and affected our household; countless other less fortunate households even more so.

There's a joke that comes up during elections about how Pennsylvania is really Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Kentucky and Alabama in between. "Pennsyltucky" has never really affected the outlying areas, mostly because we've been a blue state. (Yes, this is a wee political tangent, but it won't be long, I promise.) However, with the first Republican Governer in something like, 12 years, the budget cuts that have been resounding from Harrisburgh have been loud enough to remind us who has the giant red pen slashing services. One thing that has affected our household that really is two fold are the cuts to social services. This is one article which highlights the social service cuts in the PA Dept of Welfare. Why does this affect us? We don't recieve services but as a 3 year post-grad school professional with degrees in Social Service and Law and Social Policy, this tightens the already tiny opening for available positions to be posted. Add to that the macro take I went on my MSS and we are in even more trouble - it seems program evaluation, data analysis and research, which are my nerdy fortes, are on the back burner of a back burner.

The other sad aspect is the Department of Agriculture cuts in total of $550 million dollars. This is ginormous!  Not only does this affect the agriculture industry in terms of consumers, farmers, industry, and inspection, this trickles down to an individual level I think we can all understand, if not first hand, but from watching news footage over our years on the planet: hunger. I volunteer with the Food Bank of our local community organization in our neighborhood, the West Girard Community Council. Today this impact mean that today's biweekly cupboard had less food to offer to our participants.

While I did not intend to lay on thick the depressing political issues, it's a lens into where I'm coming from and the issues I'm thinking about. And through it all, there are positives. Like baking bread, joining a CSA (which our first pick up is today!), testing new recipes, inventing more recipes, getting our garden tilled and in order for the spring, and of course, grinning proudly as the buds shoot up as we smudge dirt across our sweaty brows. Stay tuned to this and more as the weather continues to warm.

Halibut a la Procencal over Mixed Greens

Late last summer we decided to try a subscription to Cooking Light Magazine and we have been far from disappointed.After flipping through a dish makeover edition in some checkout line, we figured 'Why not?' and have been blown away, not only by the
variety of delcious recipes but also the magazine's efforts at promoting cooking and eating in-season.

That said, this recipe was one that we ear-marked and a few weeks ago we found it by shuffling through our tagged magazines. (Seriously, it's ridiculous. Overall the sticky tabs help, but since there is so much that we tag, it's sometimes difficult to find what we're looking for within 5 minutes :)

I hit Reading Terminal for my ingredients, and got about 1 pound of Halibut, asking them to cut the fillet along the blood line into 2 similarly sized pieces. Iovines was next. The recipe calls for bagged salad greens, but I knew we could do better, using some of the ingredients to match the greens to really create a complimentary food profile. I picked up fresh Mustard Greens, arugula, as well as my herbs - fresh thyme and parsley - and then  headed over to the Fair Food Farmstand for a bag of Mesclun and a few shallots.

Much better than '1 package of salad greens' if I do say so myself.

Now to cook. I combined approx 1 teaspoon of herbes de Provence with approx 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice and about 1/4 teaspoon of salt and rubbed it over the tops of the fillets. I heated about 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a skillet and once hot, dropped my fish in on medium heat. It cooks for about 3 minutes on each side, or to whatever specific done-ness you prefer; just be careful not to dry the fish out. I also squeeze a little bit of lemon over the fish and make sure to instead of just using the herb rub on one side of the fish, once I flip it, I sprinkle the same on the reverse. What can I say? I like flavor in my food and not just on one side of the protein.

Remove the fish, sprinkle fresh thyme and parsley on it and cover it with tinfoil. I pop the plate in the oven or in the microwave just so it stays warm.

Finely chop about 1/4 cup of shallots and add approximately 7 teaspoons of olive oil back into the skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the shallots for about 2-3 minutes until they're tender. Remove the skillet from heat, adding about 4 teaspoons of lemon juice, a pinch more of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon), 1 teaspoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon of Dijion mustard, and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. You can omit Kalmata Olives, but I love them and encourage you to leave them in the recipe - finely chop about 4-5 pitted olives and gently stir these in.

Combine your greens in a medium to large sized bowl and toss with your dressing. Make sure you toss it well so that the shallots and olives don't end up at the bottom of the bowl and left out until you're scraping the bottom toward the end of your meal.

And that's it. Serve the fish on the warm greens and voila! Pure deliciousness. We also had some fresh french bread with our dinner.

Apology+Blog=Apololog

Dear Readers,
I know you must think I have flippantly decided that no longer is the blogosphere for me; I must say you are wrong in that assumption. The truth is I have been cooking AND eating AND taking pictures of said deliciousness AND writing down the names and ingredients and directions for each recipe AND gathering information to post, but I. just. haven't done. it. I know, friends, I know; I suck it. Big time.

 The last several months have been rough around the edges and have flown by, creating an interesting jumble of events stretched over a couple of months. I spent some time in the unemployment hole, but fortunately that pothole remained a pothole and did not turn into a black hole, sucking away at my soul forever. (Dramatic, arent I?)  I am 100% employed again, with a great organization doing really exciting work, and while I'm sill at that brand-new-and-a-wee-overwhelmed stage, it's okay. That will resolve itself once I get a better grasp of the acronyms and their corresponding words.

My Librarian and I spent the two weeks over the holidays in Southern California. I got to eat citrus and avocado and enjoy the lush, vibrant colors that attacked my vision at the farmers market since it was all seasonal and local! It was incredible - I never thought late December would find me meandering down a palm tree lined street in a hoodie and jeans surrounded by meyer lemons, avocado, grapefruit, organes, satsuma tangerines, persimmons, tomatillos, and much, much more? If there is one thing I will not miss on the East Coast if ever we move it will be the availability of fresh, ripe grapefruit and oranges.

Last week we celebrated our 4th Anniversary with dinner at the brew pub that, although wasn't technically a date, was our first date, even if it was a non-date.It was sweet and quiet, and I think that our actual anniversary falling on a weeknight made it what it was. No wait for our table, no frazzled and fried waitstaff, and while we did go to a restaurant with a brew pub in it, you'd never have known. Our waitress was such a doll; she brought us a free dessert to top our evening off.

So...all that food I cooked and ate over the last few months, all that fresh produce we gorged on in Southern California and more will be coming (this time I PROMISE!) very soon. Spring is almost here (on the East Coast) which means a whole new crop of meals with COLOR! (the root vegetable time of the year always gets me down...). It also means it's time to start anew on our garden with new containers (the two year old plastic storage bins kicked it after being battered by the elements), bulbs, seeds,and more. Stick around; the mouthwatering morsels will make you cry. If you miss it, you'll cry even harder.