September 2, 2010

Skipping Town

car

No, this car has nothing to do with San Francisco.

I’m signing off early this week in order to take a very long weekend in one of my very favorite places on earth: San Francisco. Dan and I are heading out bright and early Thursday morning in the hopes of being in the Mission and consuming a giant burrito by noon. We’ll visit friends — including two who are getting married — see new babies and, of course, eat lots of food. (We have reservations as the esteemed Frances for Thursday evening and I am very excited.)

If you have San Francisco food recommendations, I’d love to hear them!

Posted by Frances in This & That
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September 1, 2010

An Addiction?

roasted tomatoes

Oven-roasted plum tomatoes with thyme and garlic.

I don’t know what else to call it.

It’s hard to explain why, a mere 48 hours before I’m due to leave on a long-weekend trip, I’d wander into the fields at my CSA farm and haul out another twenty-five pound bag of plum tomatoes. (You might remember the first twenty-five pounds—they’re resting nicely in one of my kitchen cabinets now.)

I only meant to pick a few. Really! But then the farm apprentice gestured to the five-gallon buckets they keep on hand for picking, and suggested I take one. “But I’ve already picked a full bucketful,” I protested weakly. He explained that there were enough plum tomatoes for people to have second bucketfuls, and who was I to decline? Indeed, in the field, the vines were overladen with ripe tomatoes and the picking took me all of about fifteen minutes.

And then several hours later, my sink looked something like this:

cleaning tomatoes

Right. This is about a third of the full load.

Since I’d already canned and frozen the first twenty-five pounds, I figured I’d roast these. I highly encourage you to do the same—roasting intensifies the tomatoes’ sweetness and gives them a bit of depth. And it makes your house smell deliriously good. For recipes, I’d like to direct your attention to my western Mass neighbors Eating from the Ground Up (a slow, low roast) and Happy Valley Locavore (a hot, fast roast and sauce). I split my batch in half, roughly, used one recipe for each portion, and stuck everything in the freezer. Time-consuming, but easy.

Here’s a wicked little suggestion: instead of olive oil on a tray or two, dot each tomato half with a little bit of butter. Amazing.

Now, to scrub the pans…

Posted by Frances in Canning & Preserving
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August 31, 2010

Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes

dried cherry and grape tomatoes

It’s a little bit tomato-centric around here. Specifically, cherry-tomato-centric. I don’t know how it happened, but I returned home from the farm last week with what seemed like a truckload of sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes, and it was important that I figure out a way to get them preserved, stat. Because as much as I might want to, it just wouldn’t be a good idea for me to sit down and simply eat them all.

sungold cherry tomatoes ready to go in the oven

I’d been eyeing the oven dried tomatoes recipe in Put ‘Em Up, and this seemed like a good place to put it to the test. That the recipe called for plum tomatoes didn’t bother me. Instead of pruney little tomato nuggets, I’d end up with raisin-sized, snackable little tomato chips. What I plan to do with them is another story entirely, because I have no clue—really.

dried cherry tomatoes packed in oil

I tossed half of them into the freezer, and the other half  I packed into a jar with some extra-virgin olive oil. I figured that after a few days of steeping, the oil would become tomato-infused, and might be nice to drizzle over…well, anything. (I’m keeping it in the fridge in the meantime.)

Those of you who have made dried tomatoes, what did you do with them? How did you incorporate them into winter recipes? Could I soak them a bit and toss them with pasta? What about in a hearty farro or barley salad with herbs? Soups?

Ideas, please, before I eat them all out of hand like tiny sweet potato chips. Oh, and by the way: this recipe will make your entire house smell divine.

Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes Recipe

Adapted from Put ‘Em Up by Sherri Brooks Vinton

  • Any quantity cherry, grape, or plum tomatoes
  • Enough olive oil to lightly coat
  • Salt

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Cut the tomatoes in half and toss with the oil and a bit of salt, to taste. Arrange, cut side up, on baking sheets, making sure the tomatoes do not overlap. Roast for 5 to 6 hours, depending on size, until the tomatoes are shriveled and browned in spots.

Posted by Frances in Canning & Preserving
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August 25, 2010

Pickled Cherry Tomatoes

grape or cherry tomatoes and dill

1/4 cup dill and 12 ounces halved red grape tomatoes

Just wanted to pop in here to point out that it was still technically summer, despite the cloudy mood Ms. Nature seems to be in, and despite the fact that for three nights in a row I was required to haul out the down comforter before bed. (But is there anything better than sleeping under a thick comforter while a cool breeze blows in through the window? Not much. Not in my book.)

pickled cherry or grape tomatoes

See them floating innocently there? Little do they know what I will do with them.

If the tomato vines in your garden look anything like the ones at my CSA, you might be concerned that tomato season is coming to an end. In the spirit of saving the summer and converting some ho-hum grape tomatoes into something a little more fun, I present to you this recipe for quick-pickled tomatoes. I should say, though, that it wasn’t exactly my idea, but was instead spurred on by a fantastic tasting pickled tomato I sampled at a friend’s house before heading out to pick up my farm share. My friend mentioned that she’d been using the pickled tomatoes in martinis, and I imagined her and her husband lounging on their front porch, feet up, sun streaming in, cool mountain breezes blowing by, chilled martini glasses dangling effortlessly in their hands.

Let me tell you, it sounded appealing.

martini garnished with pickled cherry tomato

A nice gin to use for your martini would be Berkshire Mountain Distillers’ Ethereal—it’s good, and I’m not a gin person.

These easy pickled tomatoes, then, are my last plea to summer. This weekend’s weather will be warm, and I’ll sit in the yard and soak it up, martini glass in hand, pickled tomato infusing its dilly goodness into the drink. Care to join me?

Pickled Cherry Tomatoes Recipe

Adapted from Bon Appétit, July 2010, via Epicurious

Grape tomatoes work just fine here, and in fact that’s what I used. I’m not sure how long these will last in the fridge, but my experience with quick pickles is that they do just fine for a week or two.

  • 3/4 c. apple cider vinegar
  • 3/4 c. water
  • 4 tsp coarse kosher salt
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 31/2-inch strip lemon peel (yellow part only, removed with vegetable peeler)
  • 12 oz cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, and/or pear tomatoes
  • 1/4 c. coarsely chopped fresh dill
  • 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • /4 tsp dried crushed red pepper
  1. Put the vinegar and 3/4 c. water into a small saucepan, and add the salt, sugar, and lemon peel. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for 20 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare everything else. Halve the tomatoes, and toss them with the dill, garlic, and crushed red pepper in a large bowl. Add the cooled vinegar mixture. Let stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours. Pack in a large jar and store in the fridge for a week or two.

Makes about 3 cups.

This post is a part of the Loving Local: Celebrating the Flavors of Massachusetts blogathon during Massachusetts Farmers Market Week—that’s this week!

The blogathon is hosted by In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens, with a little help from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and Mass Farmers Markets.

If you’d like, you can make a donation to Mass Farmers Markets at their website.

Posted by Frances in Canning & Preserving, Recipes
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August 24, 2010

A Joyful Step in the Right Direction

scallions

Scallions I’d just cleaned during my shift last week at Caretaker Farm CSA in Williamstown, MA.

The title of this post is taken directly from Jennifer Maiser’s response to Stephen Budiansky’s New York Times op-ed of last Friday, titillatingly entitled “Do Locavores Need Math Lessons?” Ms. Maiser is the founder of the Eat Local Challenge, whose 2007 One Local Summer really spurred me into this locavore thing more determinedly. As she says so well, “Food miles are a very small part of the reasons to eat locally.” This is nearly exactly what I said myself upon reading the op-ed.

Her response, along with many others, is part of a virtual roundtable over at Grist. It’s worth reading all the responses to get a good view of the the varied perspectives coming out of this movement (if you can call it that), but here are some of my favorite bits.

Local food is a worthwhile endeavor without an environmental story, and doesn’t need one to thrive.

— Blake Hurst, Missouri farmer

What does the desire to be a locavore say about our disjointed food system, and is there room for improvement by developing regional food systems?

— Dave Love, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

The local foods movement is not so much about choosing between what’s grown here and what’s grown elsewhere. It’s about having any sort of choice at all.

— Elanor Starmer, Food & Water Watch

Posted by Frances in In the Media
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