Tag: Five Feline Farm

What I Did With the Tomatoes

Last week I posted about using up the last of the home grown garden tomatoes. As part of the final garden tasks for the year, the plants were removed and the last green tomatoes harvested. These slowly ripen in the garage allowing us the opportunity to have fresh, local tomatoes through a winter freeze.

Attempting to cram too many tasks into a day left me with limited time to do something with the tomatoes. So I resorted to a tried and true, relatively quick method of using up a random quantity.

Placing the tomatoes in a colander in the sink, I poured boiling water over them then rinsed in cold water. This made peeling easier. The next step was to squeeze out the seeds, quarter and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkled with my favorite Tuscan Sunset Herb blend from Penzey’s and drizzled with olive oil, these baked at 350º convection for about 45 minutes.

The baked tomatoes were dumped into a stock pot and blended with an immersion blender. (If you do not have one of these awesome kitchen gadgets, you need one. Stop reading right now and order on Amazon. Several inexpensive models are available and it is worth it.) Back to the tomato sauce: season to taste with salt and pepper, then keep warm while making the rest of the meal.

This is a super versatile sauce, but sometimes there is nothing like simple spaghetti noodles with this fresh sauce topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese. I added a quick salad and cheesy bread. Simple, satisfying and fresh.

This meal did not use up all of the sauce; what is left will make a tasty lasagna several days later. I will layer wide noodles with sauce, mozzarella and ricotta. Lasagna always makes enough for leftovers and is even better the second time around in my opinion.

At the end of this round of sauce, which took less than an hour of active time, we will have at least three meals. Not bad for November tomatoes.

I still intend to get out the Julia Child cookbooks, but when you run out of time during the day and just need to get something quick on the table; fix an old favorite and don’t apologize.

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094-Honey Bee’s Book is Available

We are excited to announce that Honey Bee Comes to the Farm, a children’s book authored by our youngest cat. This full color book can be enjoyed by children of all ages.

There is also discussion about other writing projects and much more!

Keep coming back, it’s going to get interesting.

If you would like to order Honey Bee Comes to the Farm, just click the link. It is also available through AmazonAmazon or our on site Mercantile. We are open every Saturday through Dec. 21, 2019 plus special hours on Black Friday.

Tomatoes in November?

Yes! We still have a few ripe garden tomatoes.

It has frosted here in Central Illinois and the tomato plants are gone from the garden which means the remaining green and half ripe ones are in the garage to slowly finish ripening. End of the season tomatoes are not sizeable enough for slicing, although diced or quartered onto a salad still tastes fresh and amazing. Most of the remaining will be used as cooking tomatoes. Only a few are ripe at a time, so it becomes a challenge to use up varying amounts. 

The Options

One option I have used is to juice a couple of small batches and store each in the refrigerator until there is enough to justify getting out the canner. Using this method, I canned 6 more quarts of juice. Now we have the base for 6 more pots of chili, or with some additional seasoning, this could be 24 more Bloody Mary’s. 

Now on the kitchen counter awaits another small group of tomatoes. What to do with these? 

A fresh sauce perhaps? Cooked and pureed with Italian seasonings, these will give a taste of summer in a lasagna or some other pasta dish. 

Or maybe chop along with the end of the garden peppers and make a season ending fresh salsa. 

Following the directions in a previous post about Sunshine Mary’s, I could do a traditional, fresh Bloody Mary with these small numbers of tomatoes.

What if I consult the Julia Child cook books and try a French dish with tomatoes? 

The possibilites abound. Any of these will make for a fine meal. 

And the winner is…..

Come back next week to find out what delicious creation I made.

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093-Five Feline Farm is a Thing

Today’s episode is a fun discussion about the growth of our farm business, the on site Mercantile and how we are becoming a “thing”. We even make up new nicknames.

Keep coming back, these are the kinds of things that make life interesting.

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