Happy Thursday! Here’s what’s in the box this week:
-Tomatoes-slicing -Roma tomatoes -Cherry tomatoes -Sweet Corn -Peppers -Half doz farm fresh eggs -Swiss Chard
Since your baskets have been about 70% tomatoes for the past couple weeks, I’ll give you a couple recipes that will use up quite a few.
Roasted Tomato Sauce
Ingredients -4 tomatoes, washed and quartered -3 whole cloves of garlic -3 Tbsp olive oil -1 Tsp Italian seasoning -Salt and pepper to taste
Directions -Toss the quartered tomatoes with olive oil, garlic cloves, and seasonings in an 8x8 baking dish. -Roast at 375 for an hour. Chack at 45 min or so to make sure they are not burning. -Remove from oven and mash with a tomato masher, or lightly process in a food processor.
Slow Cooker Tomato Basil Soup
Ingredients -2 lb tomatoes (I would use a combo of Roma and other) -1 red or orange bell pepper -1 medium yellow onion -6 cloves garlic -1/2 cup olive oil -salt and pepper to taste -1 tsp dried oregano -1 tsp dried thyme -1 tsp tomato paste -2 cups vegetable stock -1/2 cup fresh basil leaves Directions -Preheat oven to 425. -Roughly chop tomatoes and bell pepper. -Peel ad quarter the onion, and peel garlic cloves. -Add everything to a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. -Roast for 30 minutes, until slightly browned and fragrant. -Transfer the roasted veggies to the slow cooker. Add the other seasonings, tomato paste, and vegetable stock. -Cover and cook on high for 2 hours. -Puree the soup until creamy using an immersion blender or a standing blender. -Stack and roll the basil leaves, then thinly slice. Add to soup and stir to incorporate. Save a bit to garnish bowls with.
When preparing tomatoes for sauce or soups or what have you, I wanted to share my mom’s method of preparing tomatoes, because it’s pretty genius. Quite frankly when I first saw her using a tomato on a cheese grater my first reaction was “What the heck are you doing? And then my little brother came in the kitchen and had the same reaction. But when I actually saw the finished product, I was impressed! Easy prep with minimal effort!
This week’s basket is a bit thin, so I supplemented with some farm fresh eggs! The greens and melons have taken a serious hit with this heat, despite the shade tunnels I have put up over individual rows and the shade cloth stretched over the high tunnel. I’m not sure the melons will recover, which is a serious bummer because I was so looking forward to some watermelon!
Next year I am contemplating constructing a couple of caterpillar tunnels, which are probably not what you’re picturing in your head. They are basically small high tunnels, just tall enough to walk through. They would be for only one crop at a time, and I would rotate the crops the way I do the rest of my fields. This way, I can have all of my peppers covered, and all of my brassicas covered. I have this crazy idea that I can use insect netting to cover the whole tunnel, instead of just small low tunnels like I do at the moment. It would be much more time efficient and space efficient. I am always looking at ways to improve and make next season’s baskets better than the last!
By the way, I wanted to show y’all some weird stuff that can happen to veggies when the weather gets wacky. When we have decent rainfall, then a drought, followed by a decent rain, we can experience this weirdness:
When we have a lot of rain at once early in the season, tomatoes can grow in gnarly patterns like this:
And I’m not sure what the heck caused one of my cherry tomatoes to make a stripe like a beach ball:
I will be sending out a bonus blog post this weekend containing a poll with some questions about your experience with the CSA thus far in the season and some preferences moving forward. I would be super appreciative if everyone could take a couple minutes and respond. It will only be a few questions, definitely less than 10.
Have a great week!