Red and green

Around here Fall brings much colder temps. I dont like it. I have been doing garden clean up for a couple weeks now and in amidst this came the last batch of vine ripened tomatoes.


My friend, gnightgirl, has been raving about her slow roasted tomatoes. How they are so fantastic and that she uses them all winter long in chili, pasta sauce, and pizzas(just to name a few).

Okay. Well I need to try that, too. So, along with my last harvest of san marzano tomatoes, I get out all that I will need.

Once you have washed your tomatoes, you slice them in half. Straight down thru the stem.


Then, you coat them in olive oil and whatever herbs you desire. I used basil and oregano.

After that, find a baking sheet and place them cut side down. I actually sprayed mine first with some cooking spray.


Place in a 250 degree oven for 6-8 hours.

This would mean that mine would be done at:

In the meantime, my basil that I have been drying is all set to be stored. See how it looks kinda brown and crispy....thats good.


My trusty kitchen helper has offered to help. But first, he had to get his stool.

And drag it into the kitchen.

We put the dried basil into the food processor.

And grind it up. You can grind it as coarse or as fine as you prefer. G? He would have preferred very fine, I think...for as much as he liked to push the button on the processor.


Then, after you have it all ground up, you transfer it to an airtight container.


Voila!


Between this small tray and what I had drying downstairs we ended up with about 6 cups to use over the winter.

Back to the tomatoes, tho. When they are all done they will look like this. (At the end of the cooking time you can remove the tomato skins if you want to. I found that to be a bit time consuming, so I just left mine on.)


Now, you can pull them out of the oven whenever you prefer really. You dont have to let them roast the whole time. It really just depends on how you like them. I didnt want mine super dry and leathery, so I took mine out early. In fact, my tomatoes were pretty small since it was the end of the season and all...so from start to finish I think it only took them about 5 hours to get to where I wanted them to be.

He likes them, too!

As far as storage....well, this was my first time making these. I was worried that since my tomatoes were still a bit moist that when I went to freeze them that they would all stick together in a big clump. S suggested I flash freeze them. I had already been allowing them to cool on sheets of wax paper. So, I simply put my tray of tomatoes in the freezer for a few hours. At that point they were fully frozen and I took them off the wax paper and put them into a freezer bag.

Now, just like gnightgirl, I can have yummy, roasted tomatoes all winter long. And this will make her happy cuz then I wont have to ask her to share.

B is for Basil

And Basket.


And a basket with basil.


With the temps hovering in the high 30's at night, I thought it best to harvest all of my basil before I lost it due to a freeze. Ideally, you want to harvest your basil before it begins blooming. It is said that once the basil blooms it changes the flavor somewhat. Being the great rule follower that I am, I generally push that a bit. And if I see some blooms and Im not ready to use my basil then I just pinch the blooms off and that gives me a few more days.

So, after I hauled all that basil inside, I then decided to take it back out to the patio so I could cut of all the roots.

But, before I could do that G wanted to pick out some basil plants for grammy.


A little discussion over just which ones are going to go in the bag.


This one, while upside down, must have made the cut.

Grammy listening very intently to my instruction on how to make the pesto.

After I gave grammy her basil and she made her way home that meant that I had to get to work. Sigh. The weighing of the basil begins.


This is what one pound of basil looks like.


This is what one boy doing his homework and five pounds of basil looks like.


I decided to dry all this basil since I have some pesto stored in the freezer already.

Most of the basil I tied into little bundles of about 2 stems or so.

I did read tho, that you could tear the leaves off the stem, and put them in a dish and dry them out that way. Making sure to toss them around a bit every day to help them dry out. I thought I would give that a try this time as well and see which process I preferred.


After doing that, I grabbed my trusty stool and headed downstairs.

Then I hung all my little bundles up.

It normally takes about a week to dry them out fully. And they will begin to brown and look not very pretty. But thats okay. Once they are thoroughly dry all you have to do is strip all the leaves off the stems and smash them up a bit. Store them in an airtight container and you can have freshly dried basil all winter long. It makes a very nice addition to pasta sauces, pizza sauces, and many kinds of soups.

For the love of Pumpkins

I heart pumpkins. Maybe because one of my favorite colors is orange? Maybe because they are so fun to grow in the garden? Maybe because it means that fall is right around the corner? Maybe because I love eating things that are made with pumpkin? I cant know.

What I do know is that my pumpkins had been harvested for about 10 days and it was time to process them into yummy, orange goodness.

You start with a freshly bathed pumpkin.


Cut it in half. This can prove to be a challenge, especially if you have a larger variety of pumpkin. Just make sure you have a really sharp knife. That helps a lot.


Scoop out all the seeds and scrape out as much of the stringy pulp as you can.

Place them cut side down onto a baking sheet. I actually coat my baking sheet with a bit of cooking spray so that the pumpkins dont stick to the sheet.


Put them into a 350 degree oven for about one hour. (and I assume no liability if this does not turn out for you unless it is exactly 930 when you do it.)


When you can easily pierce them with a fork then you know they are good to go.


Let them cool until they are easy to handle. Id say about 20 min or so.

Scoop out all the cooked flesh.

At this point, I cover my bowls of pumpkin with a towel and let them set for an hour or so. I find that this helps draw out some of the extra moisture that most squash contain.

Then I place the cooked pumpkin into a colander to drain off the excess liquid.

After that I puree the cooked pumpkin in the food processor until it is smooth.



Most preserving information that you read strongly suggests not to preserve pumpkin by canning it. So, I store all of mine in freezer bags.

This time I processed 6 pie pumpkins and ended up with 24 cups of cooked pumpkin. You can use it for pies, breads, muffins, waffles, cakes....That should last me well until next season....right?


And if cooking and preserving pumpkins isnt for you, well, find a friend that has a lovely flock of amazing chickens and put those pumpkins in a box...then send that box to that friend....she will know what to do with those pumpkins when they arrive. Not that I did that. But its a good idea. Im just sayin.

Around here

The weather has been treating us wonderfully. Nice, mild days, cool nights, and even a few good rain showers in there.

This has made for plenty of great veggie harvests.

The annual canning festivities have begun. Once again, these things will take up residence on my counter for quite awhile.


So far, we have processed zucchini relish.


Bread and butter pickles.


And dill pickles.


Earlier in the season we noticed that our San Marzano tomatoes were having some issues. Blossom End Rot to be exact. The San Marzanos are very prone to this ailment, but also, it is most generally caused by a calcium deficiency. So, we added some lime and then really increased our watering frequency.


We thought we were out of the woods until we began getting ripe tomatoes that looked like this inside. Blech.


Apparently, BER can also affect the inside of the tomato as well. So, what looks like a perfectly great, ripe tomato on the outside, is rotten on the inside. After lots of research and reading we discovered that this ailment will normally go away on its own as long as the tomatoes are getting enough calcium and frequent watering. If the tomatoes are allowed to get too dry then when they do get watered it is hard for them to be able to absorb the right amount of calcium that they need. So, we continued on with the watering and added one more lime application.

And yesterday we cut into this!!! This made me so happy.


Its no secret that I am awful at container gardening...and yet, every season, I try again. Now, in my defense, this little kettle didnt get filled very long ago...but, well, Ill keep my fingers crossed.


A little visitor in the flower gardens.


And this was a great, happy surprise just today! My first one this season.


These are actually the biggest ones I have right now in the garden. I cant wait to see them all in bloom!


And this guy? Can you tell he doesnt belong here? I just couldnt bear to move him. Not when hes doing so well....what do you think? Pumpkin? Cantaloupe? Squash?