23 September 2007

tomato season

It's that time of the year when there's so much food that's fresh and local that it's overwhelming. Part of this is that you know that in a month it could be snowing.

Between this week and last I've bought and used forty pounds of plum tomatoes, twelve pounds of cabbage and all sorts of other wonderful things. The tomatoes ended up as a tomato tarte tatin (no photo! and it was the best I've made!), twenty-two pints of canned tomatoes and probably twelve or thirteen pints of sauce (we had a housewarming that involved the tatin and lots of sauce with fresh pasta and olives). Best of all, forty pounds of fresh local tomatoes for a total of $25.

Sauerkraut is fermenting in the back room in what was the best birthday present ever: a two gallon "bluebird" crock. All twelve pounds of cabbage made it in there and it's now covered in it's own brine. (I only added salt, juniper berries and caraway seeds). It doesn't taste like it's there yet, but it's only been a week.

And that delicious savoy cabbage in the photo made it into a great Deborah Madison creation: savoy cabbage sautéed with lacinato kale and white beans. Very very satisfying.

4 comments:

  1. Do you remember that time that part of that 40 lbs of tomotsies ended up on the pantry floor, slash, my sweater? Yeah, it's still on my sweater. I'm in Texas. Love you.

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  2. Looks like you had a great weekend... Do you use a pressure canner for the tomatoes?

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  3. Just a hot-water bath for the tomatoes... I don't have a pressure canner, which limits my canning to the sweet (preserves, jams) or the acidic (tomatoes, pickled things).

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  4. What's this, no chili blog? For shame!

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