I’m still writing up all of my tomato adventures here, but there is another fruit making it’s way into my repertoire now. APPLES! I bought my first gallon of apple cider last night (first of the season, that is) and I am already dreaming of all the wonderful apple-y creations I will whip up.

There will be fun desserts like Apple Cake (see photo above) and French Apple Pie, as well as staples like fresh apple sauce, apple juice and well, plain apples. Plus, there is the yummy cranberry apple chutney that I will make and store for Thanksgiving.

Plus I have my eye on a few new recipes too . . . but more on those once I make them. Until then, just share in my excitement that it’s apple season!

And psst! Apples are really good for you too – low in calories, high in fiber and a good helping of vitamin C. Yay!

one

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! When I bought the 10 pounds of seconds tomatoes last weekend, I was worried that my ultimate goal of transforming them into a succulent sauce was, well, a bit lofty. But, fortunately, the plan worked like a charm and I was able to use my small batch process on a much larger scale.

There are many, many ways to make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. Some like to blanch the tomatoes for easy skin removal. Others remove the seeds as well. Some people do neither. I particularly like the flavor the tomatoes take on when roasted and the ease of cooking too. Plus, the skins practically jump right off.

I highly recommend lightly salting this. It will impart a more tomato-y flavor that can be adapted into other sauces (I am already dreaming of a spicy veggie filled sauce and Shawn has used one portion for a delectable meat sauce too).

Oh, and don’t be fooled by the two-day process. It isn’t as time consuming as it sounds. Really. I mean it.

Roasted Tomato Sauce
yields 16-18 cups of sauce

about 10 lbs tomatoes (can be seconds)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 extra large sweet onion, diced
1 bulb garlic, cloves removed and crushed
1 cup dried Italian seasonings
4 cans tomato paste, mixed with equivalent amount of water
salt, to taste
1 tbsp sugar

Day One: Roast the tomatoes.

Wash tomatoes and place them side by side in a baking pan (deep is better, though a foil lined jelly roll pan can work too).

Broil on high for 15 minutes on each side.

Spoon juices into a bowl or pan and set aside. Remove tomatoes and let cool (covered) for a few hours. Once tomatoes are cool, slip them out of their skins, remove stems and blemishes, and crush half of them. The other half, remove the skims and stems only. Place all the tomatoes into a large pot or covered bowl. Strain reserved juices (plus any juices from the bowl you cooled the tomatoes in) into the bowl with the tomatoes.

Refrigerate overnight.

Day two: Make the sauce

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium. When hot, add the onions and garlic, stirring frequently. Cook until onions are translucent – 5-8 minutes.

Remove from heat and spoon mixture into a food processor. Process into a paste.

In a large stock pot, combine the roasted tomatoes, the onion mixture and the Italian seasonings. Stir well.

Whisk together tomato paste and water. Add to the stockpot.

Set stove on medium-low and bring the sauce to a rolling boil (be sure it’s either covered with the lid ajar or that you are using a splatter guard. What a mess!). Stir frequently while boiling for 30 minutes.

Add salt (not too much though, you can always re-salt in small batches later) and sugar. Stir well.

Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 3-4 hours. Remove from heat.

Let cool to lukewarm before storing. Freeze in tightly covered containers.

——————————————————
Psst! September is an Eat Local Challenge month! How better than to prepare for a winter of eating local by making fresh tomato sauce with local tomatoes?

4 com

Nearly every weekend this summer has included a trip to my cousin’s farm. Will and I have carefully selected the farm-fresh and mostly organic produce and coveted it all week long. There were overflowing pints of blueberries that Will would finish before the day was out and tiny, sweet orange cherry tomatoes that would burst as we bit them. And then there was sweet corn, so crisp and sugary that we’d consume ear after ear.

But, as my cousin’s husband said this weekend, the season is quickly coming to an end. When we drove over to the farm on Sunday, we found giant, ripe, just-picked heirloom tomatoes and brilliant other tomatoes. Plus, several varieties of onions, gigantic cucumbers and other goodies.

With winter fast-approaching, we bought about 10 pounds of seconds tomatoes — ones that didn’t quite pass muster but are perfect for fresh marinara. We also bought several of the perfect red tomatoes and an heirloom. I immediately started dreaming of what to do with the lovely globes of goodness. The seconds were destined for marinara (more on that later this week . . . it was a lengthy process). The regular, ripe, perfect tomatoes I have tucked away for gazpacho (along with the cucumber and a red onion), which I will tell you about another day. But the heirloom, oh the heirloom. The gnarly, imperfect, gigantic heirloom was my wild card. Would I slice it and eat it bit by bit? Or perhaps transform it into something else.

But while flipping through a Barefoot Contessa cookbook, I found my answer. An heirloom tomato salad with blue cheese dressing. Ina Garten’s recipe didn’t quite meet my tastes (too much mayo . . . heck, mayo in general! ew!), so I worked out my own vinaigrette version.

Coincidentally, did you know that September is an Eat Local Challenge month? I am taking on the challenge this time. After a summer of doing my best to eat locally (and prepare for winter to do the same), I am ready to nudge my eating local forward with a solid footing for winter. So my challenge this September is to buy, prepare and store local produce for the long New England winter that will be here before we know it. I’ll be sharing my progress as I go as well.

Now. Onto the recipe.

Heirloom Tomato with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette
serves 4

1 extra large heirloom tomato (about 2 lbs)
1/2 red onion, finely diced
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp tarragon wine vinegar
salt and pepper
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

Slice the heirloom tomatoes into extra thin pieces. Arrange on a plate. Top with finely diced red onion.

In a bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and blue cheese. Spoon over the tomatoes.

Serve immediately.

——————————————-

This is my contribution for Sweetnicks’ ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Check out the Sweetnicks site for great fruit, veggie and antioxidant-rich ideas.

one

I was so thrilled when I signed the contract to write Families Eat Together earlier this year. I got right to work developing, testing and perfecting recipes. And the writing . . . there was so much writing to be done. I finished the first draft writing in May. That seems like so long ago now.

The title of this post is something I hear several times a week. And it’s something that I wish I had an answer for. But I don’t.

It’s coming. And it’s coming soon (within the next month, hopefully), but there have been some delays with the small publisher I signed with. I am doing my best to narrow them down to an actual release date and as soon as I have that, so will you.

But it will be here soon.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, the cookbook wasn’t published. Things didn’t work out with the publisher and I moved on.

2 com