Better Homemade: Bloody Mary Mix

A few years ago, I discovered that "The Best Bloody Mary Grows in the Garden," and I think you should give it a try! I still don't have an exact recipe, but what you see above should give you an idea of proportions. I did end up adding another hot pepper because my flaming-hot serrano lost almost all of its heat when I seeded it.

If you can make a smoothie, you can make the most delicious tomato juice and/or Bloody Mary mix you've ever tasted. You can blanch and peel the tomatoes, but I put everything in a blender and strain it through a sieve, which I think is superior because (1) it requires no heat, (2) less mess, and (3) it's actually faster overall.

You can click the link above for the recipe, or just look at the picture. I use tomatoes, sweet onion, cucumber, hot pepper, juice from 1-2 limes, fresh horseradish, worcestershire, salt, and pepper. Throw it all in the blender and let it rip, then strain through a sieve. Fresh and delicious!

#MakeYourOwn

My Neighbor's Garden: tomato in the flowerbed

My very first post on this blog was about planting edible landscaping, and my first foray into that endeavor was putting squash into my flowerbeds. In the four years since, I've gradually been digging up and planting my only prime, full-sun space...which is the front yard. 

Now, I live in a rural/suburban area, and several of my neighbors have always had gardens. But this year, I've seen all sorts of wonderful edibles springing up in front of people's houses, and I decided I want to start sharing some of them. The house above is one I pass by daily, when I take my dog for a walk. Sometimes I chat with an older gentleman who has a morning cigarette on his porch. There are always lovely flowers/bulbs blooming here, and it's always a treat to pass by. This year, I was really pleased to see a few tomato plants keeping the flowers company (you can spot a few ripe ones if you look closely!).

Keep it growing folks!

Season's First Eggplant = Eggplant Parmesan with Roasted Tomato Sauce

We returned from vacation to find our first beautiful eggplant. Usually, I like to make Eggplant Parmesan with a fresh tomato sauce, but all the growing tomatoes are green and I've used up last summer's frozen tomatoes. But my pantry always has a jar or can of organic whole tomatoes, and I have plenty of fresh basil, so dinner is on. 

Roasting canned tomatoes is a great way to bring out their flavor, so that's my plan for the sauce. You can use a jarred sauce for this if you want (and I use plenty of that for pizza and such), but your eggplant will thank you if the sauce is fresh....and it's really easy.

First, preheat your oven to 350F. Then, find a pan in which the tomatoes will fit snugly, but not be on top of each other. A 9" square/round pan is usually great, and most people have these in the kitchen. Add a touch of olive oil, chop an onion, add a dash of red pepper flakes, and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes or so. You want the onion to soften, but not brown.

While the onion is roasting, drain (and save!) the juice from your can of tomatoes. We'll add this back in later, but we want the tomatoes to roast, not stew. I actually had a half tomato from the garden so I chopped that into large chunks. Grab a few cloves of garlic and peel them. If they're large, split them down the middle. You can also see some shallot I found that needed to be used.

When the onions start to soften (as you can see, mine were not quite translucent yet), add in the drained tomatoes, garlic, shallot. I added a splash of olive oil, salt, and pepper and stirred it up. Now it goes into the oven for 30-40 minutes to slow-roast.

While that's roasting, it's time to work on the eggplant, which needs to be sliced thinly (maybe 1/4" slices). You can see two tins: one has some seasoned breadcrumbs, and the other has a beaten egg with a little water added to stretch it. Dip the eggplant slices in egg wash, then in the bread crumbs, and put them on a cookie sheet. Roast them at 350F for 5 minutes, then flip and roast for another 5 minutes.

I found this no-fry technique for eggplant here a few years ago, and I strongly prefer it to frying the eggplant in a skillet. It stays crisper, is healthier, and I don't have to have both the stove and oven going in a Tennessee July. I don't make eggplant parm in the winter....eggplant is a SUMMER vegetable and the flavor is far superior when it's fresh. 

Also, when I pick eggplant fresh, I almost never find that it's bitter, or that the skin is tough, and I never have to salt it ahead of time. Word to the wise: TASTE a piece of the raw eggplant to be sure! In fact, taste everything as you go. You'll learn a lot about how flavors develop.

Above, you can see the tomatoes after about 35 minutes in the oven. They smell divine.

Next, roughly tear the basil leaves, and mix them + the reserved tomato juice all in with the roasted tomatoes. This is then set aside to cool a little while we finish roasting the eggplant slices. (Taste it.)

Once the sauce cools a little, dump it all into the blender and let 'er rip. Then, (of course) taste the sauce and see if it needs salt or pepper. This is also basically how I make my fresh tomato sauce (minus the roasting of the tomato). With roasted or fresh tomatoes, it is unlikely you will need any sugar. Sauce made this way will look a little pinker than jarred sauce, and it should taste really fresh.

Now, at this point, you can (1) set everything aside and assemble the dish shortly before you eat, (2) assemble the dish and store it in the fridge to bake later, or (3) assemble and bake now. If you put it in the fridge, I recommend putting it in a cold oven so it can warm as the oven preheats.

Assembly: put some tomato sauce in the bottom of your dish. Layer in the eggplant slices. Top with grated mozzarella and grated parmesan. Then start over, until your dish is full.

Here's the dish, ready for the oven. Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes until browned and bubbly. (So, check it at 30 and see how it looks, but know that it won't need more than 45 to cook thoroughly.)

Here's the finished dish, ready for dinner! I've set up a "glory shot" here, with the homemade bread in the background. Three out of four family members rated this dish a "10," and we picked up some more eggplant at the local Farmer's Market to enjoy the bounty of the season!

Buy seasonally. Cook simply. Eat well!

Dog Days: Garden Tour August 2013

Espalier

In the transition to edible landscaping, I have to practice patience, as I wait for the blueberries to reach their mature height of 5-6' (still another year or two off). My fig is a cutting from the fig that grew outside my bedroom window when I was a girl. (That espaliered tomato on the left is Matt's Wild Cherry, by the way, which only needed the merest help from a small trellis to grow right up the wall!)

Breakfast

The figs are ripening now, and are an amazing treat halfway through a gardening "workout". This fig is the direct descendant of the very first fig I ever tasted. 

Brandywine

My tomato harvest this year is paltry, compared to years past. I planted them late and staked them late. I put them in my sheet-mulched bed, which I am still finishing, so things there had to fend on their own, in large part. I was a little surprised to see how well my Brandywine (started from seed, no less!) fared, so you can bet I'll plant that one every year. This plant is beautiful, and I expect it to keep producing till frost. 

Chard

This is the first year I planted chard, which has stayed lush and delicious all spring and summer! Excellent sauteed, or made into a "sauce" with ricotta cheese (thank you, Moosewood Cooks at Home, for a recipe so delicious my 5-year-old requested leftovers for breakfast). 

Pollination

My favorite new "edible landscaping" structure is my stone circle in the middle of the yard. This year, I planted it with Scarlet Runner Beans to form a teepee (that yes, the kids can play in). I planning to rotate crops here. After the first frost, I'll put in a cover crop, along with diggables (garlic, shallot, maybe some carrots), do a design with different color lettuces in the spring, then tomatoes for summer.

Spicy

Porch

I've had good luck with pepper plants this year, including one in a pot on the front porch. Jalapenos, a "salsa" pepper from a local nursery, and sweet red peppers are all *almost* ready to harvest. The spicy salsa peppers are ready when they turn red (maybe two more weeks, now that they've gone from green to yellow).

Fallow

This time last year, my front beds were bursting with tomatoes and flowers. This year, as I've cut back herbs and removed spent flowers and cabbages, I've left spots bare/mulched, so as to plant fall vegetables. Above, you can see the bottom of the cherry tomato from the first picture. All those small bunches of green plants scattered across the bareness are oregano and parsley that have self-seeded (or been moved by me in clumps). By October, they'll have filled in the areas around the fall vegetables, acting as ground cover. 

Autumn

First starts for fall: cauliflower, broccoli, chard (many colors), fennel, mustard green, kale.

As an aside, I learned this year that "Dog Days" aren't really in August at all, but are in July. They

Best Bloody Mary Grows in the Garden

As today is the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S., I thought it fitting to begin the day with Labor (today: laundry and organizing) and then go for a pre-lunch Bloody Mary. Imagine my dismay when I realized that we had no Bloody Mary mix in the pantry. I did spy some V8 juice, but I'd much rather drink that plain than mix it with anything.

Looks delicious, doesn't it?

In general, I try to find the advantages of every situation so I told myself, "well, a V8 isn't really festive, but I guess all in all it's a healthy option," when I remembered that I have a freaking Kitchen Garden! I have an abundance of fresh tomatoes and herbs and such. Surely there is no need for me to go without my beverage of choice on this holiday. It's not exactly urban homesteading, but it's a nice degree of self-sufficiency.

I am glad I embarked upon this endeavor! And I strongly encourage you to try this. 

If you can make a smoothie, you can make your own Awesome Fresh Bloody Mary!

Here are my ingredients: fresh tomatoes (Super Sioux and Martino's Roma), fresh parsely, fresh basil, one fresh serrano pepper (most of seeds/pith removed) leftover chopped tomatoes/onions (in bowls) from last night's dinner, cucumber, juice from one lime, horseradish, worcestershire, salt, pepper. Lemon is for garnish. 

Chop tomatoes, cucumber and put in blender with other ingredients. Puree, taste, and adjust seasonings.

Now, some people may prefer to peel the tomatoes beforehand, but that is way too much trouble (and heat, and energy) for me. After pureeing, I just strained out the seeds/skin with a sieve, as described here. Seriously easy. The whole process, start to finish (including taking these pictures and two interruptions from children) was less than a half-hour.

Wow...could it be better than Zing Zang?

Becky's Bloody Mary Mix...I like the sound of it! The tiny chef inside said to put it in the fridge for an hour to let the flavors marry, but the tiny scientist inside wanted to try right away and an hour later to see if there was a difference. The tiny bacchanalian agreed with the scientist, so I went ahead and made an experiment.

The result is a Bloody Mary with a nice initial "kick" from the pepper and a nice depth of spice from the horseradish. I was pleasantly surprised by the sweetness from the fresh tomatoes. I loved the citrus and cucumber mixed in there -- very refreshing! As I suspected, the flavor was overall better on the second one. I also went low on the salt, with the plan of doing a salt-rimmed glass, but (as you can see) I forgot, so I ground a little sea salt right on top and let it "melt" into the beverage as I sipped. That was quite nice also.

Who needs a mix???  

Inside My Fridge - August 8, 2011

I still have loads of cucumbers! In addition to cucumber salad and many batches of icebox pickles, the last of which you can see bottom-center. I tried a version of this tomato-cucumber soup that was quite nice, but need a creamy, cold cucumber soup this summer, so I'll find one this week.

We have oodles of pattypan squashes, which are possibly now my favorite squash. I've been slicing them and layering in a pan with olive oil, salt/pepper and a bit of parmesan, then baking. Simpler is better for truly fresh food and it doesn't get much more simple than that. My dad has promised me several of the cute-and-tiny pattypans which I plan to stuff with cheesy breadcrumbs and maybe some bacon. My husband wants to try an oyster stuffing for these as well, so if anyone has any recipes, let me know.

The paper bag contains some not-totally-ripe tomatoes from our CSA. This is a great tip for those massive heirlooms you grow at home that split if you leave them on the vine, but are green on top if you pick them when the bottoms are ripe. Just put them in a paper bag for a few days; this captures the ethylene gas and allows them to finish ripening to delicious perfection.

Also, you may see the store yogurt on the bottom shelf and wonder if I've given up making my own. Funny story there...my three-year-old became constipated, which given the amount of fresh (mostly raw) fruit and vegetables she eats is rather odd and the pediatrician recommended adding some probiotics and specifically mentioned Activia so we immediately procured some. A little research over the weekend indicates that, yes, homemade yogurt does indeed contain lots and lots of probiotics, so that's good to know for certain. Oh, the funny part of the story? As it turns out, between my husband and myself we'd given her an inhuman amount of cheese over the previous two days. Communication failure there...

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Hornworm!

I found several of these hornworms on my tomato plants last week. They can be hard to spot so I don't look for them, but instead what is missing...in this case, the leaves at the end of the stem. In the last two years I was not vigilant (to my chagrin) because they are voracious eaters and can defoliate an entire plant in a day or so. You can also look for dark pellets on the leaves; these are their droppings.

They seem to appear just when my tomato plants are full of green fruit and then they eat everything. This year, I've been on the lookout and given the plants a daily visual inspection. Thus far, this easy approach has been effective! I just cut off the bit of plant they are eating and dispose of both. While I will happily smash squash bugs (with gloves), I am a bit too squeamish to just squish a hornworm.

I believe this is actually a tobacco hornworm, based on some brief googling this morning. This site has some wonderful information about the life cycle of this interesting garden pest. If I ever see one with wasp eggs, I'll be sure to get a picture.

Never peel a tomato again

These?  I'm gonna be eating in January with some fresh Amish pasta from my CSA.

Don't you hate peeling tomatoes?  And then seeding them?  It's a lot of messy, messy work.  But it's worth it for homemade marinara, right?  I thought so....until I received a harvest bounty from my father of several pounds of cherry tomatoes.  I really wanted to make marinara, but how could I peel all those teeny, tiny tomatoes?  

I thought, "Well, I have a 'puree' option on the blender."  I could not believe how easy it was to make a tomato puree with whole tomatoes, a blender and a strainer.  I just had to see if it worked with big tomatoes as well, and am happy to share the delicious results!  Just half/quarter or roughly chop the larger ones and leave the babies whole, as shown in the photo above.

Puree till smooth in blender, then press through medium strainer.

Fill the blender about 1/3 full and add a splash of water.  Pulse until tomatoes are well-chopped and moving freely (add more water sparingly, if necessary).  It can be helpful to stir or shake the blender between pulses.  Once it's going, hit puree. And let it go and go -- I probably left it on for a good minute or two.  Then set a medium or med/fine strainer in a bowl and pour.  You can see my setup above.

Push the tomatoes through the sieve with a spatula.  I think I ended up with a lot less tomato in my compost bin this way.  But also, I didn't heat the stove (for this portion anyway). I didn't use ice cubes.  I had minimal cleanup.  Judging by what's left in the sieve, I think this marinara has more fiber, though it is lovely and smooth in texture.

Looks like the makings of a "marinara mix" seed drying operation, no?

It took me about a half hour to garner a gallon of tomato puree this way.  That's barely enough time to get your water boiling and the first batch of tomatoes peeled with the traditional method.  Granted, I added some water, so I have to let it cook a bit longer, but that doesn't require my constant attention....just good smells and occasional stirring.

Before you start the whole puree process, go ahead and chop a few cloves of garlic (to taste -- I used a good half a head) and mince an onion.  Let those cook slowly on LOW/MED heat while you handle the tomatoes.  Just before I added my tomato puree, I tossed in 1/4 tsp of chipotle chili pepper powder.  You could also add some red pepper flake as the onion/garlic cook.  I also added 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and grated in some nutmeg.

The puree will be pinkish-red and foamy.

Raise the heat a bit since the tomatoes are cool and, well, there's quite a large volume being added to the pot.  I had about a gallon of tomato puree.  What you want is a nice gentle simmer and you should stir regularly.  If you come to stir after 15 minutes away and the surface is smooth and unbroken, then raise the heat a bit.  If you come to stir after 15 minutes away and it's bubbling actively, then lower the heat (I might even pull it off the burner for a minute or two).  I put the lid on after adding the tomatoes to help it come to a higher temperature more quickly.  Then I removed the lid so it could reduce.  I found that my "blender puree" seemed to have a pinkish foam on the top for an hour or two until it reduced. 

Herbs outside today include basil, parsley, oregano and thyme.

You can add whatever herbs you like and/or have on hand.  I cut what you see above and ended up with about 2-3 Tbsp parsley, 3Tbsp or so of basil, about 1.5 Tbsp oregano and 1 Tbsp thyme.  I also grated in a small carrot.  After it simmered for an hour or so, I tasted, then added salt, pepper and a combination of agave nectar and white sugar.  All seasonings are "to taste," but keep tasting as it reduces and add a bit here and there.  Oh, and you really do need to add the sugar to counter the acidity of the tomatoes.  If you want less refined sugar, you could add some more carrot or grated beet, but be sure to *taste* as you go and after another half-hour.

Halfway done.  I added more basil toward the end.

Stir it regularly.  Once it's getting close to the consistency you want, hit it with an immersion blender.  My goal is to wind up with something that coats a spoon nicely with small flecks of onion or herb, but I want a well-integrated sauce with a smooth consistency.  

Before the immersion blender, my marinara almost seemed "separated," perhaps because of the extra fiber from the bits of skin that made it through.  It was nice immediately after a stir, but heavy on the bottom after about 10-20 minutes.  However, after using the immersion blender, it was a smooth texture, dotted with bits of tomato or onion or herb.  Perfect!

Now, if you don't have an immersion blender, you can always blend it in batches.  It really makes a big difference in the texture of the finished product, so if you're at all unsure, just do it  After blending, if you want a "chunky" sauce, you'll need to add in some diced (skinned/seeded) tomatoes, but I didn't do that because I am okay if I never have to skin another tomato again.