Slow Roasted Tomatoes

It is the end of the growing season and while the days are still lovely, warm and clear.....the nights are bringing freezing temperatures. 

My tomato plants are now brown with just a few straggling red globes hanging grimly on.   Since we picked an abundance of cherry and roma tomatoes last week and I am sick to death of canning.....I am going to slow roast the tomatoes.

[insert photo here when I get around to it]

Slow roasting tomatoes is so effortless.  Cut the tomatoes in half and lay onto a cookie sheet, cut side up.  Drizzle or brush with olive oil until they are all covered and shiny.   Sprinkle with a little kosher salt, garlic granules, pepper and any herbs you may like.   Bake at 225 for several hours.

You want them to be dried and shriveled but still retaining some moisture.  In other words not shoe leather quality.

Cool and eat.  Or pack in olive oil in the fridge and enjoy.   They should keep for several weeks if completley covered in oil.

Forest Gump of Plums

I am the Forest Gump of plums.

This year all of our plum trees have gone into overdrive producing.  So many plums.  So many types.  I feel like Forest Gump


Wild plums, Italian plums, Santa Rosa plums.

Plum jam, plum jelly, plum pulp frozen to make more plum jam and jelly, plum bread, plum cookies, plum crisp, plum tortes, plum pies, plum sauce, dried plums, frozen plums, canned plums, fresh plums.  

FREE plums.  Please take some of these plums.  Begging people to come an pick them before our deck is totally spotted with rotten plums dropping off of the tree.

I can't stand to see the fruit go to waste so I spend my time preserving, cooking, freezing and drying.

Here is a recipe that freezes well.  The bread is better after sitting and 'aging' for several days, otherwise, it is cakelike, crumbly and doesn't cut well.  The Italian plums are a pleasing blend of sweet and tart that doesn't make the bread gooey.

Italian Prune Nut Bread

Yield: 2 loaves

1 cup butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4  large  eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp  cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sour cream
2 tsp lemon peel, finely grated
3 to 4  cups Italian prune plums - diced 1" pieces
1 cup chopped pecans


1. Pre heat oven to 350.  Grease and flour two loaf pans

2. Cream the butter sugar and vanilla until fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition

3. Sift together the flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda.  If you don't have cream of tartar use baking powder ( 2 tsp)

4. Blend together the sour cream and lemon peel.  Add the the creamed butter mixture alternately with the dry ingredients.

5. Stir until well blending then fold in the plums and nuts.

6. Pour into the two baking loaf pans and bake at 350 for 55 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Growing Fava Beans

• This year we really got cracking on our vegetable garden. The Dumbplumber, at my constant urging or nagging as he would say, put in some great raised beds. 6 beds that are 4 feet by 8 feet by 24 inches high and spaced just wide enough to run the wheel barrow through. We lined them with chicken wire on the bottoms and up the sides and then installed 1 inch PVC pipe at intervals along the sides before filling with dirt. This was so that I could use smaller size PVC and make hoops over the beds.
  
  Because it is cold here in the spring time due to the elevation, it is very hard to plant early. With the hoops running the length of the bed and covered with plastic it creates a tunnel/greenhouse to get an early start on planting. The other advantage is that to discourage the birds and deer, we covered the hoops with deer netting to keep the critters from gobbling up all of the young shoots.
  
  
  

There is no point in planting things that you can easily and cheaply get at the local grocery store. So, I try to plant things that are unusual or that are good trading stock with other local gardeners. This year I had a great crop of French Shallots (which are very expensive) and Elephant garlic. I'm trading with a friend who has a lot of Torpedo and Sweet Walla Walla onions. Yum Yum.

This was the first year that I had grown Fava Beans, so I didn't plant to many, as I wasn't sure if we were even going to like them. Picking the last of the crop today at lunch, we are planning to have them with dinner tonight.



Probably something with Garlic, Shallots, Lemon, Thyme (which I also grew) and shaved Assiago Cheese. If they are a success, next year I'll plant a LOT more as they were probably the easiest thing I have ever grown in the garden.

Next year I will be urging (nagging) my husband to put ground cloth and gravel between the planting beds to keep the mud and weeds down. I'm sure he is really looking forward to it. :-D