I told a friend about the tomato abundance and she told me a few ways to use tomatoes. One of the things that I never thought of was to mince them up in a blender then freeze the juice for winter. I figured that if I could do that I could also mince them up into a juice, pour the juice into a pot and toss other stuff in which is what I did last night.
Into a frying pan went olive oil, one chopped up red onion, some cauliflower, and spices, caramelizing the onions until they were unrecognizable. This got poured into a pot that had half a gallon of tomato juice on medium heat to get rid of some of the liquidity. As this was brewing, there was a London broil in the oven that got chopped up into little pieces then tossed into the "soup." I let this concoction smolder for half an hour or so then served it up. I watched as my son finished every drop down to the last molecule. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with the tomato blending idea. I think back to the days when I would buy progresso soups and bottled spaghetti sauce- wow, those products taste good till you read about what is in them. Chemicals that are hard to pronounce, HFCS, salts, preservatives, and all kinds of S#*t that I have made a commitment not to consume or feed to my kid. Last nights dinner had only the healthiest ingredients except for the unknowns in London broil. I guess trying to live more healthily can be cumbersome. After I left the meat section, I looked for shampoo that didn't have a lot of bad stuff in it, a task that seemed to be more time consuming than I thought it would be. I learned during my pesticide supervisors license classes that chemicals are very easily absorbed through the skin- what better way to poison yourself than pouring chemicals into your hair every day? That is a conversation for a different blog. I pick this amount daily. What to do with all of them??? People who have taken some from me run for the hills when they see me, knowing that I'll ask that question again-"hey, want some more tomatoes???" No they don't, and neither do I but I will from November through June so a friend told me what to do.
Put them into a blender with seasonings and pour into Tupperware then plop into the freezer with the beans (tons of beans!). I had no idea it could be that easy. .
Ok, summer is horticulturally over. Rip out and totally remove from the garden area all wasted plant parts on dead looking crops. If you don't the spores and eggs from this year's pathogens will destroy your next year's garden. Removing all plant parts will make next year's work a little bit easier and less chemical intensive. Squash vine borer killed all my cucumber vines, all the squash and zucchini also. Next year I'm spraying whatever I need to to kill that bug and protect the plants. After I clean up those rows I'm going to try planting some of the plants you see in the picture. I won't forget to put a little Harrell's plant food into the hole because these plants need food to produce food for us, something many people overlook. This was my first year with a veggie garden, and it turned out great, but I've learned a lot about planting-which plants require chemicals, which ones don't, Which ones I get tired of eating and those I wish I had more of.
Last night, realizing that I was tired of eggplant I looked at the kale and cabbage and tossed them into the garlic butter with cauliflower and broccoli with homemade tomato soup and Italian pasta... wow. Who needs meat? Well, I do but not as often as I thought I wanted it. When I eat some types of plants like kale I feel like Popeye after he squeezes the spinach can- some nutrients go down the throat into the bloodstream, and through the body to the tips of the extremities causing muscles to bulge and flex. Ok, so I exaggerate but you know what I'm saying. So cool to look at a plant that I used to frown upon and be so satisfied. Its time to rip rip out the cucumber, squash, etc because the vines shriveled from squash vine borer and plant garlic, radishes, and other cool season veggies. The heirloom tomatoes are as big as basketballs and the plants are puttin' out so many it's not even funny. Every single day they are served up sliced with balsamic vinegar and Morton seasoned salt as an appetizer while everything else is cooking. Grocery store trips are now only for non-food items. Awesome. I've probably lost eight or ten pounds, eaten the healthiest food on the planet, and saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars not to mention time and fuel going to the store. Sure wish that: 1. The season was longer 2. I knew how to preserve excess food 3. That I knew about more varieties of food 4. That I knew which plants needed which chemicals applied on which schedule. I guess there's more to it than meets the eye and growing your own food requires effort, knowledge, skill, and education. |
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