Slow Cooker Heirloom Tomato Sauce

No, I still haven’t learned how to can.

Yes, I am seriously considering buying stuff to can with, especially since I love apple picking and Charlie can’t really eat raw apples, which leaves us with dozens and dozens of apples for hahas.

But, that has not stopped me from making tomato sauce! Two or three times now, actually. It’s even more worth it since we have a slow cooker that does the majority of the work for me.

You see, we’ve been getting a ton of tomatoes in our farm share nearly every week. Sometimes they’re in beautiful condition, and sometimes they’re a bit soft. We’ve been averaging at least two pounds a week, and sometimes we’ve been getting as many as four pounds a week, and that is a lot of tomatoes for two people to go through. Seeing as the strongest cultural background that I have is Italian (I have other roots, too, but none of those relatives are really around or celebrate their backgrounds), I figured that I should really learn to make an awesome tomato sauce.

This tomato sauce is pretty awesome.

Starting with really flavorful tomatoes is key. The heirloom tomatoes we’ve been getting from the farm are beautiful, in all different colors – yellow, orange, green zebra, deep reds. All of them have deep flavors. If you don’t want to go through the trouble, you can start with tomatoes from a can, but whatever you do, don’t pick sad, pale tomatoes from the store. Pick ones that are vibrant, like romas or on-the-vine tomatoes.

Now, the part that’s the biggest pain in the ass is peeling the tomatoes. Most of you probably know the trick of boiling a pot of water, dunking the tomatoes in for about a minute, and then fishing them out. The skins come right off after that. It works even better if you slice an X into the bottom before you stick them in the pot.

If you’ve got a decent food processor or immersion blender, though, and you’re low on spoons, time, or energy, you can make a more rustic sauce by just throwing the tomatoes in with the skins on. Yeah, skins, seeds, whatever. I had Bo’s immersion blender that he forgot at my house and decided to go for it, and it turned out just as awesome. Make sure you wash the tomatoes first if you’re going to go this route, cut out the stem, and this would be a good time to choose organic, since you’ll be eating the skin (tomatoes are a good time to choose organic, anyway, since the skin is so thin that the chemicals are said to leech through, as opposed to something like an orange or a banana that has a tougher skin that we usually don’t eat).

Here’s what my tomatoes looked like one of the times that I decided to peel them…

Ingredients

3-4 pounds fresh heirloom tomatoes, chopped (skins removed/seeded if you’d like)
1 stalk celery, minced
1 whole onion, finely chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
1/2 small pepper, finely chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh basil
3 tablespoons fresh oregano
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon earth balance (you can use butter, too)
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup wine
1/2 can of organic tomato paste (optional)

Directions

As always, slow cookers have vastly different times, so take this with a grain of salt and do what you think will be best for your slow cooker. Usually when I try a new slow cooker recipe, I stay at home for the first time making it, and then I’ll “set it and forget it” for future excursions.

Sautee the garlic in a pan in a bit of oil on medium heat for about one minute. Add the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes or until translucent. Remove from heat.

Dump the tomatoes, celery, onions, garlic, mushrooms, pepper, olive oil, wine, and bay leaves into the slow cooker. Wait until later on to decide if you want the tomato paste.

Cook on low for about 6 hours. If your sauce is looking pretty soupy (mine usually does), remove the lid and cook on high for about an hour, stirring occasionally.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to put in some tomato paste, and I have a can stashed in the cupboard, but the tomatoes have been so flavorful and rich that I haven’t had to. If yours come out a bit bland, though, it’s a good way to give it a bit of a concentrated punch.

Once it’s cooked down, you can salt and pepper to taste, add the tomato paste if you need it, toss that little pat of butter or earth balance in, and add in all your fresh herbs. You can let it simmer for a bit longer, but not too long, as you don’t want to degrade the herbs too much. Use it immediately, freeze it, or put it in a jar in the fridge and use it in a couple of days.

Planting the pumpkins…

It’s unbelievable how much our plants have grown in the past 10 days since I’ve posted. Some days, I feel like we will never reach harvest time. Other days, like today, I look at pictures that compare the size from only a week or ten days earlier, and I am amazed.

I woke up early again today despite the fact that I’d gotten very little sleep for two nights. I noticed that the temperature was only at 74 (and it was headed up almost to 90) so I quickly got dressed and went outside.

If you recall, the last time I posted, I mentioned that I planted some of my pumpkins for the fall. Three giant pumpkins sprouted in the area that is away from the main garden plot, and they were very close together, so I decided that it would be a good idea to transplant the middle one away. Since not all of our watermelons survived, we had a bit of space in that area, so I moved one of the giant pumpkin seedlings to over there. I was a bit nervous about it, but I used a trowel and just went for it and it went extremely well. Now, that long row looks like eggplant, eggplant, giant pumpkin, watermelon, watermelon, giant pumpkin, giant pumpkin, so our little markers aren’t quite accurate anymore, but at least everything has the space it needs.

The lumina pumpkins also sprouted in a tiny corner of the main garden plot. Sadly, none of the giant pumpkins that I re-sowed in the three sisters plot came up! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Since the four lumina seedlings were very crowded, I transplanted three of them to the three sisters plots (two in one, one in the other, and the fourth is near the three sisters with the single pumpkin). Hopefully they will thrive and benefit each other.

The peas that are separate from the three sisters are also starting to come up. The ones that are in the plot are various sizes – one of them will need to latch on to a piece of corn soon or I’ll have to build a trellis. The corn is getting quite tall, but it’s not very sturdy. We had a lot of wind when it was young, and it seems to be leaning a bit. I may try to build up some hills around them a little if I can without hurting the peas.

The herbs are doing awesome and we had wonderful homemade pesto last night with our copious amounts of basil. This photo is from when I first planted the seedlings from the CSA, and now it’s filled in even more.

I also did some weeding today, but it is impossible to keep up with and one day soon, Charlie and I hope to mulch the plants now that they’re a bit bigger. Charlie has taken a pretty big interest in the garden and has been a huge help. He usually goes out to water and weed in the evenings when he gets home from work, which is nice because I usually go out in the mornings.

We have had a few problems with pests. At first, we thought that it might be slugs, as our broccoli and a few other things were getting lacy. We set some beer traps around and got some slugs, but not ridiculous amounts. I saw a white moth today and I am now suspecting white cabbage moths, but unfortunately, I may have to spend some time picking them off the leaves if that’s the case! Haven’t gone back out to check yet.

More pictures coming soon!

Buying seedlings, but not from a giant corporation.

I’ve decided to buy some seedlings.

*gasp*

I know, I know. This whole time I’ve been talking about starting everything from seed. It’s better to start from seed because then you don’t risk bringing in the diseases and pests that might be hanging around your local Lowe’s or gardening center. Besides, the seedlings at our local Lowe’s looked pretty badly taken care of the last time we were there.

So, what put it in my head to buy seedlings, then?

Well, it’s almost June. June is when our CSA deliveries begin! Yay! We’re excited to have the fresh vegetables come in while my tiny seedlings are still attempting to grow. I went to our CSA’s webpage the other day to see if they’d decided on a start date for our deliveries yet (they haven’t – it all depends on the veggies) and what did I find but the annual heirloom tomato sale.

I’m not really interested in growing tomatoes. We get a ton of gorgeous tomatoes once the share starts coming in, and our friend Justin has been working on growing his tomatoes for months already, so his are going to be fabulous. We’re going to do some veggie swapping with him for sure, assuming that I’m able to get some veggies out of my seedlings.

A little poking around on the website made me realize that they have other seedlings, too, not just tomatoes. Obviously, these are people whose growing practices I support – I can’t wait to eat the food they grow this summer! It’s also a way for me support the farm a bit more since they do so much for the members. We really have one of the best shares around this area, in my opinion.

I am, of course, also a little nervous still about how small some of my seedlings are still, especially the herbs. I’m hoping that they’ll all prosper and be awesome, but buying some seedlings is another way for me to guarantee that we’ll have a crop of veggies in our backyard this year. Charlie and I talked it over a bit, and at the terrific price the CSA was offering – $3.00 a seedling/set of seedlings, depending on the plant, with a 16.5% discount if you buy at least $30 worth, we decided to go for it. (I don’t really know what they’re supposed to cost, but for super organic plants that are leaps and bounds ahead of mine, that are also contributing to the well-being of all the happy veggies I’ll get all summer, it seems quite fair.) They’ll come in 3″ pots and they’ll already be 6-8″ tall!

So what did I buy? Mostly herbs! Our thyme and marjoram are doing ok, but not fantastic, and our rosemary is doing pretty well if not a little spindly. I was planning to start the other herbs from seed outdoors when it got warm, but since the other ones have come up so damn slowly, I decided to secure my awesome herb garden a bit more. I bought five basil seedlings (large leaf Italian variety) – we’re going to be making some awesome pesto to put up for later in the year, two Greek oregano seedlings, one extra German thyme seedling, just in case, and two moss curly parsley seedlings.

And, since I couldn’t help myself, I decided to get two black beauty eggplant seedlings. We grill those suckers all the time in the summer, and probably will even more frequently since Charlie just got a brand new fancy grill for his birthday. I think I’m going to grow those in containers, but I need to do a little bit more research first. I’m hoping that Farmer Rich will be at the pickup on Saturday to give me a bit of advice!

The downside is that we missed the date for the pickup that’s near us, but the upside is that we get to go for a nice drive in the “country” and possibly stop in to see our friends Teresa and Mikey, who live not too far from the plant pickup location and are moving all the way to Texas next week.

Tobarnut Soup

Tobarnut Soup is Tomato, Barley, and Butternut Squash Soup.

[I should have posted this weeks ago! Oops!]

We had some tomatoes that were accumulating from our farm share, despite the fact that there has been a terrible blight that has affected the tomatoes in our area this season. Somehow, farmer Rich has managed to get us a variety of tomatoes, including some lovely heirloom tomatoes which we really enjoyed. I had about four large tomatoes (three red and one yellowy-orange) and two small yellow tomatoes, so I was plotting a tomato soup. When the butternut squash arrived this week alongside a few of the large tomatoes, I started imagining putting the two together. I’ve got a great creamy tomato soup recipe that I’m sure I’ll post here one day that I finally got around to posting, but for now, I’ve decided to combine tomatoes, roasted butternut squash, and barley for another slow cooker soup.

It may seem like our house is overrun with soup these days, but I like to put the soup in little individual containers and put them in the freezer. We’ve also had pretty much the entire household with some kind of cough and sniffles, though we’re not sure if it’s allergies or what. Either way, soup has been a very welcome meal.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium butternut squash
2 tablespoons flour
3 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
3/4 cup barley
1 tablespoon fresh basil
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons fresh parsley
1 bay leaf
1 cup light cream or milk (optional)
1/4 cup or so grated parmesan cheese (optional)
Salt and pepper

Directions

Cut butternut squash lengthwise and place face up on a lightly greased baking sheet. Roast the butternut squash in a 400 degree oven for about 30-60 minutes (depending on the size and shape of your squash) or until soft enough to scoop.

Let cool, then scoop out the part with the seeds and discard. Remove the skin. Mash the flesh, either with a fork, a potato masher, or a blender.

I’ve made this soup twice now, and the first time I made it where I blended the tomatoes before they went in, and the second time I didn’t. If you want a very smooth soup, you should do this, but otherwise, don’t worry about it – being in a slow cooker will break it down a bunch.

Toss the olive oil, onions, and flour together in the bottom of the slowcooker. Ideally, you’d do this in a medium sized pot, heating the oil on medium heat, then adding the onions, cooking for about 3-5 minutes or until soft, then adding the flour, stirring constantly, cooking about one minute, not allowing it to brown. But, since this is a slowcooker, and I was in a hurry and didn’t want to wash another pot, I just threw it all in and it worked out just fine.

Add the onion mixture to the slow cooker. Pour the chopped (or blended) tomatoes over the onion mixture and stir well. Add the mashed butternut squash. Stir well.

Stir the barley, basil, rosemary, bay leaf, and parsley in. Add a bit of salt and pepper, but you may need more later.

Set the slow cooker to “low” and check on it in about 5-6 hours.

When the barley is soft, probably after about 6 hours in the slow cooker, be sure to remove the bay leaf, then add the parmesan cheese (optional). Add the milk or cream*, if desired, and stir. Taste to adjust for more salt and pepper if needed.

*The barley tends to soak up a lot of liquid even once the soup is done cooking, so for my freezer portions, I omitted the milk, and I’ll add it back when I heat the soup.

Foster Cats Tomato Soup

A friend of mine was talking about restaurant quality tomato soup, and I thought I should dig this recipe out from my archives that I never got around to posting here.

This is called Foster Cats Tomato Soup because about a year ago, my sister, Bianca, needed someone to watch her cats for a few months. Our friends Micah and Casey stepped up to bat, and we would sometimes go over to their place in Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon to visit with the cats and have lunch. We’d take turns cooking, and when it came to my turn, this was one of the first things I made. Served, of course, with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Homemade tomato soup is much easier than you think, and it doesn’t have all the junk that the stuff from a can has in it.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 tablespoons flour
2 pound fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, juices reserved (I used crushed for time sake)
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh basil or 1/2 teaspoon dried basil (I used dried)
2 teaspoons fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (I used dried)
1 bay leaf
1 cup light cream or milk (I used heavy cream)
1/4 cup or so grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
(Optional) 1 cup ish cooked white rice (We cooked it in the rice cooker)

Directions

In a large nonreactive saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and carrot and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, 1 to 2 minutes without allowing to color. Add tomatoes with their juices, broth, tomato paste, basil, thyme and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer stirring frequently, 15 minutes. Remove and discard bay leaf.

In a food processor or blender, puree soup in batches until smooth (if you’re particularly lucky, you can use an immersion blender to accomplish this). Return to pan and stir in cream and parmesan cheese. Add rice (if using). Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Simmer until heated through, 3 to 5 minutes, and serve.

Eggplant Caprese Sandwich

Charlie’s school semester just started up again, and his courses are not only a bit more serious (he’s loading up on sociology and social work classes in anticipation of getting an MSW after his undergrad), but he’s got more evening classes than usual and he’s getting home a lot later at night. Our epic dinner preparations are one thing when we’re getting started early in the evening, but it’s another thing when he doesn’t get home until 9, 10, or even 11 o’clock at night because of the bus schedules.

Wednesday night, I wanted to prepare something yummy, filling, and relatively healthy for dinner, but I also didn’t want a lot of fuss. Our farm share for the week had included some fresh basil, garlic, and some gorgeous tomatoes. Add in an eggplant, some mozzarella, and a multigrain baguette, and I was ready to call it dinner.

This actually made way more food than we could handle and we ended up eating it for lunch today, too, so you’re looking at this serving about 3-4 people.

We decided that this would be a great item to serve to vegetarians at a BBQ, so feel free to toss the eggplants on the grill instead of in the oven.

Ingredients

1 medium eggplant
6-8 oz fresh mozzarella
1 large tomato
1/2-3/4 multigrain baguette
a large handful of fresh basil leaves
1/2 head of garlic, still assembled (for roasting)
balsamic vinaigrette (optional)
baby spinach (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375.

Put down a piece of tin foil or parchment paper on a baking sheet. Slice the eggplant into thick slices, discarding the top.

Brush a bit of olive oil over both sides of the eggplant, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper.

Meanwhile, cut the top off the bulb of garlic, exposing about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch. Drizzle more olive oil on this, then cover it in tin foil. Find space for it on the tray of eggplant.

Bake the eggplant the oven for about 25 minutes, turning once. The garlic will need to stay in for another ten minutes.

Let that cool. Slice your tomatoes, slice and toast your bread if you want to, and slice your mozzarella.

(Charlie did the actual assembly as I was busy making Nectarine Mini Muffins, but I’ll take a gander at what he did…)

Scoop the roasted garlic out of the head. Spread it on the bread. Lay down, in whatever order you like, the eggplant, tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, spinach (optional), and balsamic vinaigrette (optional). Eat a bunch, and save a big hunk in the fridge for tomorrow. The flavors all meld together and it’s even better the next day.

Arancini di Riso Barbabietole

These have got to be the best part of making beet risotto. You can obviously make these with any kind of risotto, but the color of the beet ones is just incredible. Eating these at Anne and Neil’s house was my first experience eating beet risotto, and really, my first experience eating beets besides somewhat funky ones that have appeared, unwelcome, in salads at certain restaurants.

Literally, the translation is Oranges of Rice & Beets, but what we’re making here are orange-shaped balls of beet risotto with little chunks of mozzarella stuffed inside, then deep fried. They’re amazing.

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe since a day or two after my Beer Beet Risotto experiment, but I never got around to it. Anne and Neil get most of the credit for the recipe, and Charlie gets the credit for the deep frying… He’s always in charge of the frying at our house!

I’d nearly forgotten about posting this, but we’d put the extras in the freezer, and on a busy night this week when I was out of spoons, we heated some up in the oven, and they were so tasty all over again. So, feel free to make extra, freeze them in an airtight container. When you want to eat them again, let them thaw for a good long while, then put them on a baking sheet in the oven at, let’s say, 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until they’re hot in the middle (you’ll be able to tell because the cheese will start to gooze out of them).

Vegan friends, don’t fear… I’m working on developing a recipe so you can eat these, too.

Ingredients

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
2 large eggs, beaten to blend
2 cups Beer Beet Risotto, cooled
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups dried Italian-style bread crumbs
2 ounces mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Fresh herb of your choice (I think we used basil)
Salt

Directions

Stir the eggs, risotto, Parmesan, fresh herbs, and 1/2 cup of the bread crumbs in a large bowl to combine. Place the remaining breadcrumbs in a medium bowl. Using about 2 tablespoons of the risotto mixture for each, form the risotto mixture into 1 3/4-inch-diameter balls. (You’re looking for large-ish meatball looking things, here, guys.) Insert 1 cube of mozzarella into the center of each ball. Roll the balls in the bread crumbs to coat.

Pour enough oil in a heavy large saucepan to reach the depth of 3 inches. Heat the oil over medium heat to 350 degrees F.

Working in batches, add the rice balls to the hot oil and cook until brown and heated through, turning them as necessary, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the rice balls to paper towels to drain. Season with salt. Let rest 2 minutes. Serve hot.

Spiral Herb Rolls

The other night Charlie and I made an amazing lasagna, which I’ll hopefully have time to post the recipe for later (it was sort of quasi-homemade… we didn’t make the past from scratch, and I made one of the two sauces from scratch). But first, here’s the recipe for rolls stuffed with fresh herbs.

The first herb we got from our farm share was oregano, and I knew I wanted to bake with it, and these seemed like a perfect complement to our meal. I made a handful of changes from that original recipe, though, so my version is listed below.

Ingredients

Dough:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (about 2 teaspoons if you’ve got a larger package)
1 cup warm water, 110 degrees to 115 degrees (I don’t measure, I just use hot water from the tap)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons butter or soy butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute bread flour if you want)

Filling:

*Feel free to substitute herbs of your choice, but the fresh herbs are key!

2 tablespoons butter or soy butter, melted
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
4 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
2 tablespoons fresh basil, minced
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, minced
6 garlic cloves, minced
I also threw in some green garlic, minced

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the sugar, butter, salt and 1 cup all-purpose flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining whole wheat flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a bowl coated with nonstick cooking spray, turning once to coat top. Cover with a slightly damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 12-in. x 10-in. rectangle. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese, herbs, and garlic to within 1/2 in. of edges.

Roll up jelly-roll style, making sure to roll it tightly enough (I didn’t the first time!), starting with a long side; pinch seam to seal. Cut with a very sharp knife into 12 rolls. (To do make evenly sized rolls, cut the log in half first, then into smaller pieces.)

Place rolls cut side up on a piece of parchment sheet on a cookie sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.