Last weekend was "winterize the garden" weekend. We pulled up all the remaining plants, took down the tomato house, and added some of the composting soil to the garden before turning it all over.
I have a lot of hope for next year's garden. I can't wait to research some of our mistakes from this year and do even better next year! Sometimes I think it's too much work, but then I go out and pick some veggies for dinner and I think "this is so fun!" Plus, next year the girls will be that much more excited about picking food with me, and who knows... maybe they'll even be able to help me with the weeding!
I brought in ALL of our green tomatoes a couple weeks ago. Like, tomatoes coming out our ears. And this "ripen with bananas" trick is working really well!
These are some of them this week. All you do is switch out the bananas every few days and "harvest" your tomatoes as they get ripe. (I keep the box closed but not tightly... and I check weekly for bad fruit because they rot quickly.) As the bananas ripen, they off-gas some sort of magic that helps the tomatoes ripen, too!
What am I doing with all these tomatoes? Bruschetta. Buckets of bruschetta!
No recipe really... just tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt, pepper, a splash of olive oil and baslamic vinegar, and boom. Bruschetta. It's delicious. In the absence of a yummy loaf of crusty bread this week I tried "Italian flavored skillet potatoes"...
...Jesse thought it was a tad weird to combine potatoes and tomatoes in such a manner. But I was feeling adventurous. (and also needed to go grocery shopping so I was out of... everything and anything. and it was lunchtime. This was my solution.) Potatoes, butter, oregano, parsley, salt and pepper. Medium high until well browned. I love using cast iron for this. Get's em nice and crispy.
Top with fresh bruschetta and feta cheese (kind of ironic that I had fancy-pants cheese in the fridge but no bread anywhere!) and eat happily. The kids ate the "shetta" and not the potatoes, which they usually love. Weirdos.
Does anyone else agree with My Love that potatoes and brushetta don't mix? I thought it was pretty yummy. And a simple yet satisfying lunch. Okay, okay, and I was pretty proud of myself for throwing something "themed" together when we really had nothing going on in the fridge/pantry. But I digress...
Bye-bye garden, see you next season! Hello huge box of green-turning-red-tomatoes. Bring on the bruschetta!
interesting - - I knew you could do that banana trick with not-quite-ripe pears/avocados/tomatoes in a paper bag, but I never thought of doing it on a larger scale in a closed cardboard box! good one! are you getting enough at any one time that you could can some?
ReplyDeleteThe amount that I have would probably only make a few quarts... and we're going through them fast enough (in eggs, as bruschetta, as a soup topping)that I don't have any in danger of going to waste, yet. I'm hoping to finally graduate to tomato canning next year. Then I'll finally feel like a "big girl" in the gardening department ;o) XOXO
Deletebruschetta is the reason I started liking tomatoes. I cannot believe you would ruin it with vinegar and potatoes. Hmm, maybe that came off a little strong. Let me rephrase. Bruschetta is delicious. Potatoes are delicious. The two should probably never meet. the end.
ReplyDeleteHaha how do you make your bruschetta-that-never-meets-potatoes? ;o)
DeleteNever knew that about the bananas. I'm definitely going to have to try that next year. We had a bunch of green ones this year and I had to wait ever so patiently for them to ripen on our windowsill. Thanks for the tip! :)
ReplyDeleteNo prob bob! I had like, two boxes (as you can see) so I wasn't going to be putting them on every window in the house ;o) This worked well. In fact, I'm about ready to use the last of them this week for dinner!
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