Kitchen Garden Journal

What better way to use that last primo tomato of the season than on a final summertime B.L.T.? All B.L.T.’s are not created equal, and this one had to be perfect. 

Care must be taken to select the best bacon, the proper bread, and the right condiments.

Tomato: Kitchen Garden Cuostralee (heavy red late season heirloom) 

Lettuce: Kitchen Garden green butterhead

Bacon: Niman Ranch Maple Smoked

Bread: Whole Foods baguette rolls, toasted whole for a warm and crusty exterior and a moist, soft interior

Mayo: Cains

Chips: Laurel Hill Sea Salt

Pickles: Clausen Kosher Dills, minis

Beverage: Coca Cola Classic, on ice, in a glass

Discuss.

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It's one of the ironies of our farming life that at a certain point in the season we have to leave the farm behind and drive far away in order to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Of course we crammed as many veggies into a cooler as possible before heading off to Maine this weekend and the tomato tart pictured here is at the top of our priority list when we meet up with our friends on Isle au Haut.

Enjoy your week. We fully intend to...

P.S. Many many thanks to our fabulous crew for keeping the show going while we're gone!

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Here's the recipe.

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Why is it that the moment for canning and preserving always falls on really really hot days? Everyone with childhood memories of canning remembers two things: the smell and the heat. For many, sadly, the trauma of the heat curtails nostalgic longing for the intoxicating aromas of jam and tomatoes.

Lately, the humidity has been awful and, of course, I seized my opportunity for canning on a particularly disgusting evening. I set out to repeat the most delicious product of last year’s repeated bouts of sweaty, tomato-vapored kitchen delirium: sugo.

Sugo means “sauce” in Italian. Jars of pre-made tomato sauce like Prego are called sugo pronto, ready sauce. My sugo isn’t really a heat-and-serve thing that you just dump on boiled spaghetti, but it does save a lot of time later when making richly flavored sauces.

Sugo is basically tomato puree that also includes onions, carrots, red peppers, celery and herbs.  It’s like tomato puree and vegetable stock all rolled into one. I usually add it to meat sauces for pasta, but it’s great for other things like vegetable soups, dried beans, beef stew, and Spanish rice. It has a distinct sweetness from the onions and peppers and aromatic depth from the carrots and celery. You can feel all the warmth of summer on those cold winter nights.

And, most importantly perhaps, it’s a great way to use up some of the piles of partially rotting but perfectly usable tomatoes, onions and peppers that inevitably accumulate around the farm this time of year.

The method is very similar to my recipe for tomato puree. Basically, what you do is coarsely chunk up all the tomatoes and toss them in a big pot and bring it to a boil. Then, toss in coarsely chopped pieces of all the other vegetables and stew them in the tomato liquid until they’re soft. I also threw in a big bundle of basil and celery leaves that I took out before pureeing . (I also removed the celery so it wouldn’t make the sauce a yucky color: never puree red and green together, it looks like puke. If you have very light colored celery hearts, go ahead and puree them, too.)

So, for Christmas I asked for a mechanized solution to making this and here’s the verdict: the Kitchen Aid food mill attachment is really messy. I have never made such a mess of my clothes while canning; it even shot hot tomato water in my eye. (WTF!) Will I go back to the hand crank method? Hard to say. It was quicker and less physically exhausting, but not by much.

Anyway, if you want to make this—and I encourage you to do so—you can follow the procedure for tomato puree. You’ll find all the little tips and tricks I’ve learned in that post from last year. 

So happy canning, and please, take a shower.

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Wow. I had never cooked okra this way until recently, despite the fact that for years some of our most dedicated okra customers have been Greek, and this is the way they make it. Most people associate okra with food from the Southern US (fried okra, gumbo, etc.), but it is a very popular food in most of the world other than Northern Europe and the northern US. It is widely consumed in Africa (where it originated), South-Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and Japan.

¼ cup olive oil

2 large onions, finely sliced

1 pint tomato puree, plus a little water, if necessary

Scant pinch each of cumin, coriander and cinnamon (optional) 

1 generous pound of okra, stem removed but left whole

Salt & pepper

Heat the oil in a tall-shouldered wide skillet with a lid.  (I used a straight-sided 14” skillet). It’s a lot of oil, but don’t skimp. You want it to be swimming in oil by the end.

Add the onions and saute gently over medium heat until very soft and beginning to caramelize, about 10-15 minutes. Add the tomato puree, spices and okra and mix well. The okra should be packed into the pan and the liquid should not quite cover the okra. Add a little extra water if necessary. Bring to a simmer, cover and stew over low heat for 20 to 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve warm, with rice, or at room temperature with bread as part of a spread of meze. It’s also great cold, just fished out of the leftover container and eaten with the fingers.

Is it slimy? Yeah, but in the best way possible.

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• 2 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. cooking oil
• 2 lbs. lean lamb shoulder (cut in 2-3 inch pieces, dusted with flour)
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 tbsp. flour
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 cups chicken broth
• salt and pepper, to taste
• bouquet garni (2 sprigs thyme, 3 sprigs parsley, and 1 bay leaf—tied together)
• 8 small new potatoes, peeled
• 8 baby carrots, peeled
• 8 small turnips, peeled and halved
• 8 cipollini onions (peeled) and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 cups frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 350F. Heat oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat and brown the lamb. Sprinkle with the sugar on both sides and let brown for 2 minutes longer (that will give a nice caramelized touch). Transfer the lamb to a large oven-proof casserole dish. Reduce the heat to low and add the chopped onion and garlic and cook gently for about 8 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook until lightly colored (stir constantly). Add the wine and tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly). Add the chicken broth and stir in the tomato purée. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then pour over the meat in the casserole. Add the bouquet garni.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and add the all the vegetables except the peas. Cover and return to oven and bake for 30 minutes. Add the peas and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Discard the bouquet garni and serve straight from the casserole with a loaf of crusty French bread.

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• 1 lb penne pasta
• 5-6 brightly colored sweet peppers
• Olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 8 oz sweet Italian sausage meat
• 1 pint tomato puree
• Salt & pepper ½ cup heavy cream
• Freshly torn basil leaves

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove stems and seeds from peppers and cut into bite sized pieces. Toss with a liberal amount of olive oil. Roast peppers for 1 hour on a large baking sheet, stirring from time to time, until limp and blistered. Set aside. Heat the pasta water. Brown the sausage meat in a little olive oil in a wide heavy skillet. (We like to use Pekarski’s sausage from their family smokehouse in S. Deerfield. They use plenty of fat and a nice amount of fennel seed in their mix.) If you have links, squeeze the filling out of the casings. When the meat is nice and brown, add the finely minced garlic and sauté for another 2-3 minutes. Add the tomato puree and roasted peppers. Cook the sauce for 10 minutes or so to meld the flavors (just long enough for your pasta to cook).  Remove sauce from the heat and stir in the cream and basil leaves. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (For a spicy version, add a few shakes of pepper flakes when you add the garlic.) Combine with the pasta and serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Even better the next day.

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Potatoes and peppers are a really amazing combination. When I was working on an olive farm in Italy, the grandmother would heat up a big pot of their oil (the best and freshest I've ever had) and fry potatoes in it. Then she would fry whole peppers in the same oil and when they were cooked, slip the skins off. Then she would put everything in a pan together and let it bubble away on the stove so the flavors melded together. This version is a simpler preparation that gives similar delicious results.

• 2 lbs potatoes
• 2 lbs sweet peppers
• 1 lb or less plum tomatoes
• 1-3 heads garlic
• ½ cup Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper

This dish takes advantage of all the flavors of summer.  Cut potatoes into bite sized wedges for roasting.  Cut the peppers into quarters or wide strips (you want them in fairly large pieces).  Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters.  Peel the garlic cloves and leave whole.  Put everything into a large mixing bowl and start pouring on the olive oil, salt and pepper.  Mix well and spread it all out in a single layer of a baking sheet or two.  Bake in a very hot 450° oven for 45 minutes to an hour, scraping and turning every so often, until the potatoes are golden and tender and the peppers and tomatoes have dissolved into a concentrated, smoky tasting sauce and everything is floating in oil.  You could add some fresh rosemary to this dish if you wanted, to no ill effect.

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This year we’re growing over 50 varieties of tomatoes. About half of these were grown from our own seeds, and half are new varieties that we got from heirloom tomato seed companies. Now that the tomatoes are in full production, the pressure is on to select fruits for saving for next year. I’m about 2/3 of the way through this process, and the seeds are piling up.

Saving your own tomato seeds is really simple, and almost always results in better seeds. With our own seeds, we have nearly 100% germination and purity. By contrast, purchased heirloom tomato seeds can often be low germinating and totally impure. Of the purchased varieties in our patch, only about half have turned out 100% uniform. (This, of course, can be part of the fun of collecting heirloom tomato varieties. We’ve already saved the seed from one “sport,” or off type of mysterious origin.)

Tomatoes are “inbreeders.” Their flowers have both male and female reproductive parts, and about 99.9% of the time, the pollen from each flower pollinates itself, resulting in stable genetics from one generation to the next. This means that seeds from a tomato will produce the same variety the next year.

So to save seed, simply select a nice specimen of a variety you like. Cut it open, scrape out or squeeze out the seeds and juice into a little cup. Cover and let sit for 2-3 days until it ferments and develops a layer of white mold on the surface. (The fermentation process breaks down the jelly-like substance that clings to the seeds.) Pour the liquid and seeds into a fine mesh strainer and run water gently over it. All the pulp should wash away freely, leaving only pure, clean seed. (If there is pulp that hasn’t fully broken down, fill the cup with water. The seeds will fall to the bottom and the debris will rise to the surface. Simply pour off the pulp until you are left with clean seed.)

Pat the excess water from the bottom of the strainer with a dish towel and then transfer the seeds to a plate and spread them around. They take a few days to dry. Transfer to envelopes and make sure you label everything carefully!

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“Toasting” the ingredients either on a grill, hot dry skillet (comal) or under the broiler until the skin chars gives this salsa its special character. Raw, it’s great for dipping tortilla chips; cooked, it becomes the red sauce found in the red or green squeeze bottles at a California burrito bar, great for squirting on just about anything.

Ingredients:
2 lb tomatoes
1 lb smallish onions (extra surface area)
1 large head garlic
3-4 chilies
1 bunch cilantro
lime juice (1-2 limes)
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 tsp salt

Method:
Toast the ingredients on a hot surface until the skins are blackened: tomatoes and chilies are left whole; onions are quartered; garlic is left unpeeled as individual cloves. After toasting, “sweat” the tomatoes and chilies in a covered bowl or container so the skins loosen. Leave until cool, then peel and discard the skins. Peel the onions and garlic and scrape off any excess char.

Squeeze as much liquid out of the peeled tomatoes as possible. Blend or puree tomatoes, onions, garlic and chilies together in a blender or food processor. Add lime juice, vinegar, sugar and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings so that it tastes good to you. Personally I think the secret to a delicious salsa is the added sugar and vinegar. It really heightens the sweet-sour flavor of the tomatoes. Remember, this is a condiment, after all.

When making a red salsa, it is important to use only red, orange or yellow colored chilies. If you use green chilies, they will turn your salsa an unappealing puce color if blended with red tomatoes. If all you have is green chilies, chop them by hand and add to the rest of the pureed ingredients. Same goes for the cilantro: always hand-chop it rather than blending it. It makes for a much nicer appearance.

At this point the raw salsa is done. If you wish to make cooked salsa, heat a few tablespoons of cooking oil in your tomato sauce pan and add the sauce. Simmer until reduced by about 1/3 and thickened. It becomes a completely different sauce when cooked, turning and orangey red and having the pronounced sweetness of cooked onions.

Keep it for winter:
You can make a huge batch of this and can it, as I’m doing today, raw or cooked. Sterilize your pint jars, bring the salsa to a slight simmer and hot-pack the jars. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. The high acid and sugar content of this salsa makes it pretty foolproof and easy to can.

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