Eating Mr. Stripey!

The trials and tribulations of Mr. Stripey finally come to an end.

Last time we checked on this darn plant, one of the tomatoes had blossom end-rot, allegedly, and the combined weight of the three tomatoes was bowing the plant to the ground, so i had to use stop-gap measures and lay the stems across an extra cage.

Blossom end-rot:
In the end, that tomato looked like this:

Gross, huh? But think about how beautiful it would have looked if it didn't have that weird rotten spot??

the other two looked like this:







They ripened quickly. We kind of ignored the garden for only a week or two (tell you the truth, I needed a break. After the zucchini plants died, i lost heart. The beans haven't been producing like I hoped, the sugar snap peas never really came in, and well . . . sometimes you just need a break.)

Anyway, when we went back out to check, there were three ripe as hell Mr. Stripey tomatoes hanging there, ready to eat!

If there is anything I learned this year from gardening, it's to plant ten or twenty tomato plants next year. I just need more. Much more!

So what do you think this bounty looked like inside?


hooo-boy, it was such a treat!!


Look at those striations! Here's a closeup


Look at all that meat and the fact that there is practically no seed to get in your way!

This was the most delicious tomato salad. I did not adulterate it with green onions or blue cheese like the last one I exhibited here. Just kosher sea salt, extra virgin olive oil, the merest sprinkle of 15 year old balsamic, and a drizzle of truffle oil. The truffle oil really took it to that next level. And you know what made this so good? I finally got to eat a BIG FAT JUICY TOMATO from my own garden.

Now, DARN YOU MR. STRIPEY, i wish you produced more than three tomatoes!! Because I swear to you, these tomatoes were the most delicious I have tasted in my life. I'm not joking you, and eating a fat tomato every day for lunch in the summer is a tradition of mine. I am a tomato connosseiur. I love them.

These were really, really, reallly good.

I won't be replanting Mr. Stripey, though. So if anyone wants it, it'll be outside in my trash.

Tomatoes are carb free . . . . ???

man, i bought around $15 worth of heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market this past weekend


whooooo-weeeeee! Look at those Cherokee Purples!!! I got three of those big suckers

And then five of the yellow tomatoes, I dont know what they were, Lemon Boys or whatever. The yellow tomatoes were markedly sweeter than the Cherokee Purples, but just take a look at how meaty the Cherokees are - barely any gel and seed!


Here's a great closeup


Here you can see the beautiful color striations, green, purple and red (well sort of, it's still the same crappy lighting in my kitchen, although I put it on a white platter this time)

So much meat!

I made the most delicious tomato salad with these tomatoes. I was trying (and failing) to recreate the most delicious tomato salad I have ever had in my life. It was at my best friend's wedding, last year at Citronelle in Washington, D.C. I don't think any of us were quite expecting a salad of heirloom tomatoes to explode in our mouths and then shimmy around like velvet to be washed down with a nice white wine like a song the way that chef's tomato salad was, but man, what did he use? I've always wondered? It was a wedding, he could have served us the same old tomatoes with slices of buffalo mozzarella and basil and we would have stuffed it in our mouths. As for me, I wanted to do these tomatoes the same justice.

So I found this recipe from Gourmet Magazine, circa July 2000.
"

• 3 tablespoons extra–virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons malt vinegar
• 3/4 teaspoon packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (preferably flaky sea salt or fleur de sel) 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 lb ripe tomatoes, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced diagonally

• Whisk together oil, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Arrange one third of tomatoes in 1 layer on a large plate, then drizzle with some dressing and sprinkle with some scallion. Make 2 more layers of tomatoes, drizzling each with dressing and sprinkling with scallion.

Cooks’ note: Tomatoes can be sliced and dressed, without scallion, 6 hours ahead and chilled, covered with plastic wrap. Sprinkle scallion over tomatoes just before serving."

Here's our version:


I added a little bit of roquefort cheese, leftover from the huge cheese block I bought at Costco weeks ago for the arugula roquefort steak dish.

Closeup:


I'd love to know how others make their heirloom tomato salads. Many recipes suggest balsamic vinegar and I do not like balsamic vinegar for salads, although I have some from Little Italy in NYC that is 20 y/o and pretty good. It is just too sweet, I think. I used tarragon vinegar instead of malt vinegar in this salad and it turned out good.

But, surprisingly, the real stunner in this meal was THE SHRIMP.

You should really get yourself some shrimp and keep it in the freezer. It's so easy to prepare as an easy dish - with pasta, with greens, , etc. etc. I love it! It's the summer version of frozen meatballs! :)

Anyway, this month's issue of Cooking Light had this great recipe for "Jerk-Spiced Shrimp" and we made it and I AM IN LOVE!!!
Ok, here is the photo from Cooking Light:


The Recipe:

1 tbls sugar ( I used light brown sugar and I recommend it)
1 tbls paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground thyme
1/8 tsp ground allspice
2 tblsp olive oil
1.5 lbs peeled and deveined large shrimp
Cooking Spray

- Combine spices. Toss shrimp and oil in large bowl and toss to coat. Sprinkle spices over shrimp and toss. Thread shrimp evenly onto skewers. Place skewers onto grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 6 minutes or until done, turning once.

ALL I CAN SAY IS MAKE THESE AND MAKE THESE NOW!!!!!!


I will definitely be making these at at least one party per year from now on. These are so freaking delicious that we were looking at one another with puppy dog eyes, sadly, asking if there were any left. Thankfully, there was a LOT of the tomato salad.


All in all, I love summer. You can make a lot of no-carb meals. Nice and healthy! This shrimp recipe is called "jerk-spiced shrimp" by Cooking Light but it is not really spicy enough for a true jerk name. Still, it is so tasty that I thought about cooking up another batch tonight. Wowza! I had five leftover shrimp for lunch today and they were just as good.

I highly recommend these recipes!

DESTRUCTION IN THE GARDEN

Much like the beginning of the summer, Alexandria, Virginia saw days and days and days of rain this past week and weekend. At times it was so torrential i wondered if it was hailing. (My parents in North Carolina did have hail, grape-sized.)

I was kind of glad that the garden was getting watered without me, but when I went out to inspect the weeds that had surely sprung up, i was horrified at what I found.

Here is a photo of a healthy zucchini plant, on or about July 7, 2009, so almost two months ago. (Note, that it has grown much much bigger, but this gives you an idea of what it looks like.)

Now, a week ago, the leaves of this plant were so large that they reached the newspaper on the right side and were equidistantly stretched out all around. With beautiful squash blossoms beaming at me every morning and zucchini growing. Did you know that zucchini blossoms open in orange glory early in the morning and look like tiger lilies, sort of? They don't stay all twirled up all the time - in the morning they are open and glorious. I notice this from my shower window in the morning and I have been meaning to post about it for you.

Well, that is unlikely to happen due to this tragedy:
The leaves have been shredded and beaten into the ground.

Here is the horrifying closeup.

It would be impossible for photosynthesis to occur with these shredded leaves, not only because the leaf area does not exist anymore (mostly) but because the xylem and phloem in the stems has been destroyed. Xylem (zylem) and phloem are the tubes in the stem that carry the and water throughout the plants. I remember this from 7th grade biology, believe it or not. Our teacher made us sing a song about it, a really simple song, and she told us at the time "you feel stupid now, but you will remember this the rest of your life" and she was right. So: xylem carry the water up, phloem carry the food down. (i.e., xylem carry water from the roots up to the leaves, where photosynthesis occurs, and then the food is made there in the cells, and the phloem carry the food down to the roots, etc.)

So, in this plant, the xylem and phloem is pretty much brutally bashed out of commission:

Those are the main stems of Plant 1 and Plant 2. they were beaten open by what I can only imagine was hail and now there are ants taking up residence like it's an open house. I see no evidence of either xylem or phloem.

Then there are such exhibits as this:

Stems such as this have just given up.

After coming to terms with the devastation, I reminisced over times gone by.


Photos like these remind me to Carpe Diem. Look at all the sturdy xylem and phloem.

If you think I am not shedding a tear, I am. Mister Siren and I had words over a lack of sensitivity to the destruction. It was like losing a child. I'm serious, people! I was looking forward to a bountiful harvest of zucchini all summer, and i get - - - - - destruction. I feel like a pioneer in a year of famine or something.

There were other casualties:

My husband tried to repair the damage with scotch tape out of sympathy for me and his own dinner salads.

If the plant does not repair itself, all of these tomatoes will be at stake

Please mourn with me. This is way too sorrowful to mourn by myself.

RIP, zucchini.

Everyone loves tomatoes

yep. it's true. I do. You do.

and so do the fauna out in the yard.

case in point:
something got this one good.

and the other side?
even the little hidden baby ones are not safe:


i don't know who, or what, is killing my tomatoes:

but you have to be VERY vigilant in the garden

Salad Nicoise

So, what do you do with a handful of green beans?


I've learned a lot about planting green beans (and peas for that matter). First of all, I need to do rotated crop plantings (planting a new row every week or two so that I have enough green beans produced all summer.) Because we LOVE green beans. One of the things I remember most fondly as a child is that, over at my best friend's house, her mom had planted low bushes of green beans, and when we were out playing all day (locked out of the house! go play! don't come in!) we would swoop by these bushes every few hours and snap off some beans and pop them in our mouth. They were so good. And the bushes seemed to produce many beans per bush.

That was kind of what I was expecting from the beans I planted. Well, a), the beans were definitely one of the most hardy plants in the garden, but b) they weren't the variety I thought I had planted. Not the best friend's mom variety, anyway. They grew much taller and were not as bushy. You've seen the photos in previous posts. c) they produced great beans, but only about three per plant total, and these came in sporadically, so in all, i got a handful at first, then a second handful, then just a few more. I don't know if I'll get any more this season, maybe so.

Still, what to do with a handful of green beans? This same question has faced the author of a great and funny blog, "Gardening Without Skills," whose okra is really taking off and presents her with several okra every couple of days. Like me, she wonders, what do I do with a couple of okra every couple of days?

Since I have tomatoes and lots of lettuce in the garden, the answer was given to me by another great blog, (Simply Recipes), and I think is a great solution for using whatever handfuls you have around after harvesting your garden! Salad Nicoise! As the author of "Simply Recipes" relates, this French salad, when served in France, is composed of anchovies, raw vegetables, yadda yadda yadda. She suggests that you serve it with tuna steaks carefully marinated and seared, a nicely homemade herbed vinaigrette, and a bunch of other delicious stuff.

Here is hers:

Ingredients

Vinaigrette
1/2 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, minced
1 Tbsp minced fresh thyme leaves
2 Tbsp minced fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano leaves
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad
2 grilled or otherwise cooked tuna steaks* (8 oz each) or 2-3 cans of tuna
6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and either halved or quartered
10 small new red potatoes (each about 2 inches in diameter, about 1 1/4 pounds total), each potato scrubbed and quartered
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 medium heads Boston lettuce or butter lettuce, leaves washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
3 small ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into eighths
1 small red onion, sliced very thin
8 ounces green beans, stem ends trimmed and each bean halved crosswise
1/4 cup niçoise olives
2 Tbsp capers, rinsed and/or several anchovies (optional)

Method

*Marinate tuna steaks in a little olive oil for an hour. Heat a large skillet on medium high heat, or place on a hot grill. Cook the steaks 2 to 3 minutes on each side until cooked through.

1 Whisk lemon juice, oil, shallot, thyme, basil, oregano, and mustard in medium bowl; season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.

2 Bring potatoes and 4 quarts cold water to boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoon salt and cook until potatoes are tender, 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a medium bowl with a slotted spoon (do not discard boiling water). Toss warm potatoes with 1/4 cup vinaigrette; set aside.

3 While potatoes are cooking, toss lettuce with 1/4 cup vinaigrette in large bowl until coated. Arrange bed of lettuce on a serving platter (I used two serving platters, shown in the photos). Cut tuna into 1/2-inch thick slices, coat with vinaigrette. Mound tuna in center of lettuce. Toss tomatoes, red onion, 3 tablespoons vinaigrette, and salt and pepper to taste in bowl; arrange tomato-onion mixture on the lettuce bed. Arrange reserved potatoes in a mound at edge of lettuce bed.

4 Return water to boil; add 1 tablespoon salt and green beans. Cook until tender but crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain beans, transfer to reserved ice water, and let stand until just cool, about 30 seconds; dry beans well. Toss beans, 3 tablespoons vinaigrette, and salt and pepper to taste; arrange in a mound at edge of lettuce bed.

5 Arrange hard boiled eggs, olives, and anchovies (if using) in mounds on the lettuce bed. Drizzle eggs with remaining 2 tablespoons dressing, sprinkle entire salad with capers (if using), and serve immediately.

Serves 6.

For mine, I used green beans from the garden, pictured here:

I used a delicious tomato from the garden, pitted against a tomato from the store. We did a taste test of the garden tomato from the store tomato, and although the store tomato had a great amount of wonderful tomato scent, when you bit into it after biting into the garden tomato - it tasted like , uh, shredded wheat. Which is sad, considering how great tomatoes from the store usually taste to me. WHY do tomatoes grown in my own yard taste 50000000 times better than the ones I buy in the store? Why can't they taste the same? It makes me sad.

Anyway, all i can say is that I am pretty happy I am growing my own tomatoes and I wish I had several more reliably producing plants.

In addition to the tomato and the green beans, I used greens from the garden, as usual.

I loosely followed the blog's recipe for the vinaigrette, but I did not use fresh lemon juice b/c unfortunately, lemons are no longer 3 for a $1.00 like they were three years ago, and I have never been able to get over the hike in prices on citrus. Or maybe I never will be able to. I lived in FL until I was about 12 and I just think that citrus should be cheap, period. You should certainly not be paying $0.98 for a lemon or a lime, and I won't do it. I'll buy the bottled stuff which is just as good. In my opinion.

So, i used that for the vinaigrette, and I kind of cheated on the herbs - I used basil and tarragon, b/c that is what I have in the garden (no oregano, no thyme . . . . maybe next year I'll start growing those). I love how the hot potatoes soak up the vinaigrette. Oh, and I did not pour out the potatoes and then restart the water for the 12 beans I had. I just threw them into the last minute of the boiling potatoes. It worked just fine.

I put down all of my greens, sort of found whatever was in the cabinets that I could use, and assembled it on a plate . . . . I think this entire salad probably came to $7.00 for two people between the cost of the olives, potatoes, eggs, capers (all of which I had laying around, but let's say you had to buy them . . . ) ANd I bought a $4.50 can of albacore tuna to make it fancy - which, I think they are cutting corners on the solid albacore b/c it looked like chunk light tuna when I opened it and I was pretty mad.

But anyway.

VOILA.

I could not finish mine and Mr. Siren had to polish it all off for me. Thankfully we went out dancing and I worked it off. I think this is a great meal for several reasons:
1) you can use whatever handfuls of stuff you have from the garden
2) It's pretty darn economical
3) it's packed with protein and really healthy, and also has the added bonus of being no-carb.

Thanks, Simply Recipes!

Mr. Stripey Produces!

This darn plant has FINALLY begun looking up. Well, why not, it's almost ten feet tall, and it's mid-July now.

I received several pieces of advice on some gardening forums about the issues I have been having with Mr. Stripey. As I have mentioned on this blog before, this particular variety of tomato is notorious for either under-producing, getting leafy and big, or being light on flavor for the fruits it does produce. Now, it seems like the plants you put in the soil, etc., do really well, but only people in certain areas have the right conditions.

Anyway, we've seen the photos of the plant getting taller and taller:
(it's even taller now)

And it kept producing these flowers that were really non-flowers. See Exhibit A:
They would open up, and contain no petals, no stamen, no . . . . (what's the opposite of stamen? Pistol? i think there is another name. I think pistol and stamen are on the male flower? Uh oh, i think i am getting this entire flower anatomy thing wrong)

Part of the advice I received was that there was either a phosphorous deficiency or some other kind of deficiency that I cannot remember right now. Everyone agreed that the plant did not need any more nitrogen, because more nitrogen (such as is contained in Miracle-Gro) only makes your plants grow bigger and grow more leaves, etc. - NOT the problem this plant has. We needed this plant to STOP growing and start producing fruit.

I also was told to stop watering so much. The plants were a bit overwatered because of constant rain. I think this did make a big difference for this plant and the other tomato plants.

However, the biggest difference, I think, was made by:
Go Schultz!

Look what happened less than three days after I used Schultz!
REAL flowers started appearing, the kind with petals! I was totally biting my nails while waiting to see if they would turn into full fledged beautiful flowers.

And they did:

I picked the Schultz fertilizer b/c it had the lowest content of nitrogen, and the highest of phosphorous, and the plant really seemed to respond to it - very quickly. I have not seen any other flowers on Mr. Stripey, though. I have seen more non-flowers. I am hoping that it bears some more fruit.

In response to this flowering, I have gone at the rest of the plant and mercilessly pruned it, as per the pruning instructions I posted previously. Remember, you can prune all branches below the first flower cluster . . . I didn't do that much, but there really is just too much greenery on this monster taking the nutrients out of the soil, and away from fruit production.

Here is Mr. Stripey now:

And the next flower cluster produced:
I think this is destined to be a non-fruit bearing flower cluster. See here:

It's weird and I don't understand it, but there it is.

Well, I can't wait to see these tomatoes when they finally ripen! Because the plant is so tall, and that tall branch was not caged, the weight of the new fruit has weighed it down and I bet they are almost going to be laying on the ground soon. I'll have to find some way to support the branches so that does not happen.

Let's all raise our glass to Mr. Stripey!

Salsa Garden

Hey, i know that i didn't post something awesome and patriotic for 4th of Ju-ly for ya'll and i'm sorry. I really am. I let you down? But listen, I know you had plenty to read, because every single blogger and their mom put up some kind of 4th of Ju-ly content for you to read. I'm still trying to work through it.

I've really slacked off lately, but work and sequential houseguests have kicked my butt. However, that's kind of what this post is about. I think last time I posted, I said that I wanted to serve homemade salsa to some of my houseguests. Well, guess what? I DID!

Not EVERY ingredient is from my 'lil 'ol garden, but some of them are. I used tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro from the garden, and I stripped it bare.

Thankfully, the tomatoes ripened right on time (that is, the Early Girls did)

(Does the Early Girl start to look a little bit wilted in these photos to you? I noticed it started looking wilted. Then one day when I watered it a million ants ran out of the container. I think the roots may be having some problems. It has not perked back up, sadly.)

The tomatoes off of this plant are not large, they are small. About the size of roma tomatoes. Which is perfect for salsa.



I had previously picked some to save them, so I had about four of them. I had to buy some more from the store to round out the recipe, because I wanted to make a biiiiiiig bowl. My homemade salsa is always a hit.

So, the recipe is:

Tomatoes: 8-10 romas preferable
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Couple cloves of garlic, chopped (always use fresh)
1 Red onion, chopped
Several limes, squeeze to taste
Salt, add to taste

and 1 jalapeno, chopped up small, I prefer to keep the seeds in!


The jalapeno plant has just been growing crazy. I mean, if you want a dependable reliable crop from a plant, I suggest planting a little jalapeno plant. Take a look at this sucker.

Big peppers on the bottom, more growing on the top. Constant rotation of production.

For the salsa, don't underestimate the need for the salt. Or the fresh garlic. I usually use 3 big cloves. That's me, though, and there's never enough garlic in our house. Then there's the lime. If there is something missing, it's probably lime. The problem is that it makes your salsa watery - but what you want to do is pop it into the fridge tightly covered with saran wrap for a good amount of time (at least an hour) to let the flavors gel . . . . and when you serve it up you can use a slotted spoon to put it in a pretty dish, like I have here.

Don't mind the obvious stovetop placement, as I have found this is the one place in my house I can take decent food photos.

However, (back to the subject at hand), once all of the salsa is gone you will find that you and your compatriots will be scooping up the salsa juice in frenzy, desperation, and nostalgia as you reminisce about all the unbelievably delicious salsa that was in the big bowl only moments ago. That's why I recommend using Tostito Scoops as the proper chip for this salsa. So does my husband.

I don't mean to toot my own horn about my salsa recipe. It's just that a) people rave about it, b) i personally love it, and c) i didn't make it up. Some man in Costco or Sam's Club told me how to make salsa when he gave me a salsa maker in, oh, 1999 or something, and i did buy the salsa maker (some plastic thing with some weird blade) and fell in love with that salsa and have been making it ever since.

How many times can I type salsa in one post???