On a fluke, I went across the road to Farmer D's tomato patch to look around. See if I could scavenge a few tomatoes here or there. Want to know what I found?
A patch of Romas that I'd never seen before.
It was like that movie, The Secret Garden, where the girl finds a, well, secret garden and is so blissfully happy there. Yeah, it was just like that but with tomatoes. It's like that secret tomato patch appeared out of nowhere, just waiting to be found. Oh how I love secret tomato patches :)
So I started picking and left with a bushel of really beautiful Romas plus a bunch of big yellow slicers. And about a half-bushel of various peppers for pickling. And a dozen eggplants. Yep. Time to haul the canner back upstairs.
I already have salsa and sauce aplenty, so this week, I'm concentrating on stewed tomatoes and crushed tomatoes. I love stewed tomatoes for pasta dishes, as a base for soups and stews. Okay, truthfully, I could forgo the pasta or soup and just eat them out of a can with a fork. They're that good. Crushed tomatoes are great for soups, but my mom uses them in place of ketchup over top of meatloaf...and that's good too. Sweet but not too sweet. Altogether delicious.
And oh the eggplants. Due to the crazy unstable weather, Farmer D's plants set tons of fruit, but they never really got any size on them. Bigger than my fist, but smaller than a cantaloupe...that's the best size description I can offer. So there's a 50ft row of eggplants across the road ready to be picked because no customers wanted itty-bitty eggplants. Shame on the whole lot of them.
I don't mind itty-bitty eggplants.
My plan for the eggplants is to slice them, blanch them, then dehydrate them. From what I can reckon, dehydrated/rehydrated eggplant has a texture comparable to mushrooms; sort of dense, sort of chewy. It sounds like they'd make a delicious dish of eggplant parmesan in the dead of winter, and boy can my family put away some eggplant parmesan.
So that's the plan. Dehydrated eggplant. Stewed tomatoes. Crushed tomatoes. Pickled peppers.
Have you enjoyed any food preservation surprises lately?
5 comments:
I pulled out my pressure canner this afternoon ...first time this year. I was cleaning my cupboards today and came across a pound of dried split peas. I just LOVE split pea soup when it's cold outside ...or if I've been sick ...it's one of my favorite comfort foods. So I did some spontaneous canning this afternoon. The one pound bag yielded five pints of homemade split pea soup. They all sealed and are cooling on my counter overnight. Yum!
That sounds delish...I ought to do the same! I canned up some veggie soup last week, but some lentil or split pea would be fab too!
Wow, looks great.
My kids love eggplant....especially in chili.
Connie
Every Tuesday, we go out to our farmer and ask what hasn't/can't sell. I always get wonderful surprises, and she knows I'll take anything. Teeny tiny leeks last week (I dried them), leeks that grew too close together and stayed small, sweet potatoes that suffered a gopher attack (not pretty but I just need to cut off the bitten parts), hot peppers that grew in funny shapes, wonderfully sweet tiny carrots, tomatoes that have spots or cracks. People are so picky, because I'm filling my pantry with fabulous food for next to nothing.
TE-I've never tried eggplant in chili....sounds interesting!
CD-I hear ya! I sort of felt funny about taking this produce initially because it looked beautiful to me! Farmer D insisted that it wouldn't sell because it wasn't round enough, long enough, red enough, hot enough, too hot, too sweet. Whatever. I'll take it all!!!
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