Wordless Wednesday

You say Tomato, I say Tomahto

Do you say tomato, or do you say tomahto? Either way, this post is about, you guessed it, tomato!

Summertime means fresh tomatoes. I love fresh tomatoes! I very rarely buy tomatoes from the store and/or when they are not in season. I love eating them fresh from the garden with a little salt and pepper. I love making tomato salad with basil, mozzarella cheese. I love eating tomato sandwiches or BLTs. I love making salsa and pasta sauce....


If you love tomatoes as much as I do and if you have abundance of tomatoes from your garden, you would probably like the recipe that I found. I have made a lot of salsa this year and I've made enough pasta sauce to last us for the next 2 or more years! But I still have tons of tomatoes, what should I make next? Then it hit me! How about tomato jam? So I went on a search quest and found some tomato jam recipes. I made this recipe right away, it is so good on crackers with some cream cheese! Mmmm....


Sweet n' Spicy Tomato Jam - From White on Rice Couple

Note: I made some slight changes, will note them in red

1 lb (455 g) Tomatoes, roughly cut (some varieties may need to be peeled)
1/2 c (45 g) Golden Brown Sugar
1/2 Serrano Chili, seeded & finely diced (or whatever chili you like) I used 2 jalapenos because I like it hot!
4 whole Cloves
1″ stick Cinnamon, preferably Vietnamese Cinnamon I didn't add any cinnamon
1-2 T (15-30 ml) Red Wine Vinegar, depending on how tangy you want it I added 1/2 tablespoon more
1 1/2 T (20 ml) fresh Lime or Lemon juice, lime is our preference I didn't have any lemon/lime so I used Balsamic vinegar instead

1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, then simmer over med-low heat. Stir occasionally and gently. Simmer about an hour or until the mixture thickens to a jam-like consistency (who’d have thought.)
2. Put tomato jam into sterilized jars. For longer storage, can in a water bath (cover with water about 1″ above jars & simmer for about 15 min.) or just store in the fridge to keep for a couple weeks.

Wordy Wednesday

Thank you for all your nice comment from last Friday's post. We are very excited about the new addition to the family and I really cannot wait for his arrival!

We have been busy, it's canning season and I have lots and lots of tomatoes! Here's the first batch of salsa I made. It's SPICY! Remember last Wednesday post? Those were roasted jalapenos that I freeze. I was going to use them in my salsa but I have since then gotten more jalapenos from the garden, so those will stay in the freezer for later consumption.

Oh, for those of you who were a little worried about my not wearing gloves, don't worry. I have learned it the hard waybefore(I wear contacts) so anything to do with hot peppers, you bet I'll be wearing gloves!

Zucchinis

If you are a gardener, by now you probably have zucchinis coming out of your ears! What to do with all that zucchinis? You can eat them right away, or freeze them for later use, give some away to families and friends but you are still left with loads and loads of zucchinis!

Have no fear my friends. I've got some recipes for you to help you "get rid" of those zucchinis. I was over at my friend's Lena's blog and saw her grandmother's recipes for pickles. I thought I would give that a try but use zucchinis instead(I don't have as much cucumbers yet). I hope they will taste good.

I've also went online and searched for some Zucchini Pickles and Zucchini Relish. I've never made these recipes before. If you do try them, please write back to me and let me know how they turn out.

You can also make zucchini bread(s). Hubby loves zucchini bread, that's the only way he would eat zucchinis. The recipe I have is actually a Banana bread recipe, I just adapted it to make zucchini bread. It's not a very sweet bread. If you like them to be sweet, please increase the sugar amount. I've also heard that zucchini & blueberries bread is pretty good. I've found a recipe but have not try it out yet.

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup shredded zucchini
• 1 1/2 AP flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 5(or smaller) loaf pan and set aside.
• Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well and scrape the sides of bowl after each addition.
• Stir in shredded zucchini and vanilla.
• Combine all dry ingredients(except nuts) and add to wet mixture. Mix well.
• Fold in chopped nuts if desired.
• Pour into prepare pan and bake for 30-35 minutes(for 9 x 5 pan).

Please also check out Vegetable Gardener In the Kitchen section and search for zucchini. There are some mouth-watering recipes.

Rhubarb-Apple-Ginger Butter

A co-worker of mine brought in a bunch of rhubarbs, and if you know me, I never pass up any free fruits/veggies(the ones that I don't have growing). So I brought some home with me and then figured out what to do with them later.

I've seen a recipe for Orange Rhubarb Butter on Food In Jars and I was going to make that. But my computer was "out of commission" so I couldn't get to the recipe. What's a girl to do? I made up my own! The end product is sweet with a little tang. If you do try this recipe, will you please be so kind and come back to let me know what you think? Thank you.

Rhubarb-Apple-Ginger Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 cups chopped rhubarb
• 1 cup chopped apple
• A little less than 1/4 cup finely minced ginger
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup orange juice

Instructions:

• Mix everything in a medium saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil.
• Lower the heat to low and simmer for about an hour. The end product looks somewhat like apple sauce.
• Immediately ladle hot butter into canning jars and process jars according to canning instrustions. It will make about 2 pints. I did not can this batch, I just put them in air-tight containers and store them in the fridge.

Garden Update

One word to describe this years garden: Dissapointing. :(

This year is not a good year at all for me. My tomatoes have all be ravaged by blight. I'm not the only one. This is the problem this year for most farmers in the northeast.
Fortunately, I still have something in the garden for me to harvest. We have decided that due to the blight problem we should pull our potatoes, that way we at least get the ones that are good. I planted about 2 pounds of potatoes(Yukon Gold and Dark Red Norland) and the picture below shows what I got from it. Not many but at least I got something.

The garlic I planted last Fall did great! I planted German Extra Hardy. They were pulled about 4 weeks ago. We have used a few heads already and they are delicious! Note to self: plant more garlic this Fall.


My cukes and zukes are doing good this year. I had initially started the seeds I purchased but those didn't grow, so I went to the local nursery and bought 1 plant each. These are the zukes and cukes I picked over the weekend. I have picked a few times before this and made an awesome Zucchini Apple Bread this past weekend. Don't worry, I will post the recipe sometime this week or next week.


Also from the garden: cabbages are looking good as well. I haven't harvest any of them yet but should be soon. My purple haze carrots are/were excellent! Sorry no pictures. I really should have taken some pictures of the carrots because they are really cool looking. The outer edge of the carrots are purple but the inside is orange! I gave some to my co-worker and her daughter's first reaction was:"Eeewww...I don't want those moldy carrots". A few days later, she asked her mom to ask me for more "moldy" carrots because they tasted really sweet!
I have also planted some cool weather veggies for the fall: radishes, fennels, napa cabbage and peas.

Since I have no tomato this year, I had to buy them. This weekend we went to a local farmer and bought 1 bushel(roughly 50lbs) of tomatoes for canning. We made mostly tomato sauce and some hot salsa. Out of the tomatoes we got, we made 5 jars (pint size) of salsa and 20 jars (quart size) of tomatoe sauce. I am heading to pick up some more tomatoes for sauce as soon as I finish posting this post.

And lastly, I will leave you with a picture of some sunflowers. Have a great day!

Cheesecake and Swimming Dog

A few weeks ago I posted that I wanted to make some jams and liqueur. Here's the update:

1) Made 6 jars (8oz) of cherry jam.

2) Made 6 jars (8oz) of double-berry (Blueberry & Raspberry) jam.

3) Prepared 2 pint size jars of each Cherry and Red Raspberry for liqueur. Will be straining the fruits out this weekend and add sugar to the vodka. Then let it "age" for 6 months and I'll have Cherry liqueur and Raspberry liqueur.

Also made a cheesecake using the Blueberry & Raspberry jam 2 weeks ago. It was delicious! Here's the recipe for the cheesecake, it's really a very simple recipe from kraftfoods.com. This is my "go to" recipe for cheesecake and I always add different things to it to "spice" it up.

Double-berry Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 premade graham cracker crust

2 pkg (8oz each) cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 - 1/2 cup blueberry-raspberry jam

A handful of fresh blueberries, crushed

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add in eggs, 1 at a time, mix well. Scrape sides of bowl. Add vanilla.

3) This next step is totally up to you: you could mix the jam and the crushed blueberries in with the cream cheese or you could pour 1/2 of the mix in the crust and mix the other 1/2 with jam and blueberries.

4) Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hrs before serving.

Now go make this cheesecake and your family will love you even more! :)

I will leave you with a video of Samantha, taken during our June camping trip.

This Week

I have a few projects I intend to do this week:

1) Make cherry jam - We went to pick tons of cherries last Sunday(7/12) and I am plannig to make some cherry jam. I've never made cherry jam before nor have I eaten cherry jam. So this should be interesting.

2) Make cherry liqueur - Yes, I want to try it. I made some raspberry liqueur last year and it was very tasty. So with the amount of cherries we picked and the 2 bottles of vodka(I'm not an alcoholic, please don't send me to A.A meetings, I bought 1 bottle for our party and our friend brought another bottle) that I had on top of my fridge, I am going to make cherry liqueur. If you are interested in making some liqueur, please check out this site.

3) Make triple-berry jam - I didn't make any strawberry jam this year but raspberries are in season. I will try to pick some from my neighbor's yard(that is if the weather cooperates) and then buy some blueberries and strawberries to make this.

I'm sure some of you have noticed that I haven't talk much about my garden. Well, there is really not much to talk about. It's not doing very well. I do not know what is the matter, I want to blame it on the wacky weather we've been getting but I couldn't because my neighbor's garden thrive. I have tested the soil and I have fertilized but seems like things are just not growing. Potatoes, corns, cabbages seem like the only ones that are growing. Bok choy and napa cabbage are just starting to grow(after more than 2 months being transplanted!). Cukes and zukes...I'm mad at them. They just don't seem to want to grow at all. The zukes are the same size now as they were when they were first transplanted but they are blooming. Weird. Tomatoes, I'm very dissapointed, not much going on there either. I'm not really giving up yet but at this point, I doubt that I wouldn't get much this year. :(

Autumn

Did I tell you that Autumn is my favorite time of the year? Yes it is. I love the cooler weather, fall foliage and fresh apples.

One of my plans this weekend is to make and can Apple Pie Filling. I have never made this before and have found a recipe from Freshpreserving.com. So I think I'll give that a try and I would also like to share it with you.

Apple Pie Filling
Makes about 7 (16 oz) pints

Ingredients:
12 cups sliced peeled cored apples, treated to prevent browning* and drained (about 12 medium)
Water
2-3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup ClearJel® (cooking starch used for preserving)
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2-1/2 cups unsweetened apple juice
1-1/4 cups cold water
1/2 cup lemon juice
7 (16 oz) pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:
1.) PREPARE boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Set bands aside.
2.) BLANCH apple slices, working with 6 cups at a time, in a large pot of boiling water for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm in a covered bowl.
3.) COMBINE sugar, ClearJel®, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large stainless steel saucepan. Stir in apple juice and cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, and cook until misture thickens and begins to bubble. Add lemon juice, return to a boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Drain apple slices and immediately fold into hot mixture. Before processing, heat, stirring, until apples are heated through.
4.) LADLE hot pie filling into hot jars leaving 1 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.
5.) PROCESS jars in a boiling water canner for 25 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

*To treat apple slices to prevent browning, apply Ball® Fruit-Fresh® Produce Protector according to the manufacturer\'s instructions or submerge cut apples in a mixture of 1/4 cup lemon juice and 4 cups water.

An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Two years ago we were very fortunate to have a customer who had a pear tree in her yard and we had a chance to pick all the pears we wanted from the tree as she only picked a few for herself. The pears that we picked, most of them were canned to be enjoyed at a later time and they were simply delicious! Dear Dottie had since then sold her house and moved out of town.
A few months ago we finally finished the last jar of the canned spice pear.

Well, it's apple picking season in upstate New York and I got thinking "why not try canning some apples?" So, that's what I did last weekend. I didn't pick my own apples, I bought 3 lbs of apples from our local apple orchard(just down the street from me, how convenient!).

The recipe I used came from Pick Your Own. This is a site I love visiting. I have learned a lot about canning and freezing from here. She has step-by-step detail instructions and pictures. If you have never done any canning and preserving before and would like to learn how, this is the site to go to.

I used a light syrup solution for these apples. You can get a list of how much sugar and water to use according to your taste(light, med. heavy syrups or with fruit juice and so on) from here. Because I only had 3 lbs of apples, I had leftover syrup that I just poured out.

1) Peel and core the apples. Slice the apples to 1/4" - 1/2" thick. If you have a corer/slicer, it would make your job easier.
2) Blanch the sliced apples for about 5 minutes. Drain the apples.
3) Make the syrup.
4) Fill the jars with hot apples and hot syrup, leaving 1/2" headspace. Wipe off the reams, place lids on jars and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

I'm planning to buy some more apples and this time I'll try to can some apple pie filling.

When Life Gives You...

...Raspberries, make JAMS! That's what I've been doing lately.

Before raspberry season started, I said to myself: "Self, gotta go pick some raspberries this year. Better go find out where and when they are available". Well, came to find out, my neightbor across the street has tons of raspberry(red and black) bushes and he said I can pick them because he doesn't pick as much. Woohoo!

So I picked and I picked and I picked somemore.....I think I'm addicted to berry picking. Should I sign up for BPA(Berry Picking Anonymous)?

I've been making jams with these delicious berries. I managed to make a batch of Black Raspberry Jam and 2 batches of Red Raspberry Jams.
I don't normally eat toast or english muffins for breakfast. So, how do I get to enjoy my own homemade jams? Easy, use them in baking. But I have also recently tried something different. Instead of buying flavored yogurt for breakfast, I buy plain yogurt and I just mix in 1 or 2 teaspoons of jam with 8oz. of yogurt and some fresh fruits(or not) . Delicious!

And as for baking, try this:

Raspberry Cheesecake
Recipe taken from Philadelphia Cream Cheese Homepage, with my own twist!

Ingredients:
2 packages of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or raspberry extract
3 tablespoons raspberry jam (for marble effect)
1 pre-made graham cracker crust
3/4 cup raspberry jam (for extra flavor!)

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Mix cream cheese and sugar(with your stand mixer or using hand held mixer) until smooth and creamy.
3) Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time. Scrapping bowl after each addition. Mix until blended.
4) Spread 3/4 cup raspberry jam over graham cracker crust then pour in cream cheese mixture. 5) Dot top of cheesecake by small spoonful with the remaining 3 tablespoons of raspberry jam. Cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect.
6) Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes or until the center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight before serving.

Now go make some and enjoy. If you are nice, you could share but I won't blame you if you don't want to share! :-)