Using the harvest

As we approach the new season, I thought I'd mention an important part of what goes into planning our garden, how we will use our harvest through the year.

This Monday we decided to make some paninni sandwiches for lunch and one of our favorite additions to our sandwiches are sun dried Roma tomatoes.

Here we have a bag of dried tomatoes from August of last year, that I'm going to make a batch of re-hydrated tomatoes with.

The first thing that I do when I re-hydrate tomatoes is to place a portion larger than what I actually want to eat (if you're going to make them, you may as well make enough to enjoy for a while.) and place them in a bowl.
To this I add some luke warm water, but just less than it would take to soak them all because I like to add a bit of balsamic vinegar to add some extra flavor to them too.

After an hour our so, the tomatoes will be tender and you can either eat them then or store them for later. To store the tomatoes for later, we place them in one or two small canning jars and add some olive oil to just cover them. This will store easily in the fridge for at least a week.

Now... to revisit our homemade ravioli recipe... sun-dried tomato and ricotta??? What's your favorite way to enjoy sun-dried tomatoes?
P~

And yet ANOTHER campfire use

So, are you tired of hearing about my campfire uses yet? I hope not. I have to say I've been really really pleased so far with the benefits that we've been able to get from it. We're using waste wood (If your food will be directly exposed to the wood smoke or flame, make sure that it is 'clean' wood not plywood, OSB or particle board. Those woods contain glues and chemicals and can be hazardous to your health. This does not apply to heating water for water bath canning. The jars are sealed and will be under water...no risk.) which in itself saves a lot of power usage but it also helps us to keep out home cooler during a normally very hot process. This reduces our energy use further by reducing our AC usage. Not only that, but best yet, in the words of MeadowLark ( a regular reader) "it involves FIRE - what could be un-fun about that?"
So, what's on today's menu? Chilies!! A few posts back I talked about all the produce that we were able to get from our U-pick-it farm. Part of that was nearly a full bushel of chilies. Aided by the miracle of modern refrigeration these fresh as could be chilies were put on hold until this weekend when we decided to fire roast them before canning them for the winter.
There's really not another way to make chilies taste better in my opinion. If you've never roasted them, any variety at all, you're truly missing out. And it's so easy. Make fire, put chilies over fire, when they're black or nearly so remove them and plunge in ice water (actually even just very cool water will work). After they've cooled for a few minutes, just work them under the water until the skins slip off. Ta Da... roasted chilies.Most of the chilies that we roasted were "Big Jim's", a very large, meaty and mild green chili like the kind you would find in the small cans at the local store. However, we also had some yellow wax peppers, some Ancho chilies, and some Jalapenos. Anyone ever heard of Chipolte peppers? You know, the trendy little spice that comes in everything from Doritos to high end Mexican food? Any idea what it is? Fire roasted Jalapenos, that's it and you can do it yourself.
Give it a try, you'll love it.
P~