Cooking with your roasted tomatoes

Good day dear neighbors.  I hope everyone had a good weekend.  We had a weekend full of fun and fellowship with wonderful friends.

Today I want to continue with Friday's post about putting up your summer harvests.  I basically talked about freezing and drying your harvests.  I use these methods primarily when I do not have a large harvest.  If I have an abundance of tomatoes or other vegetables I prefer to can them.  Canning requires special equipment and detailed instructions that I will not cover on my blog.  If you are interested in this method of preserving your foods I would suggest you buy books on canning, call your county extension office or look on the world wide web.  There is an abundance of information out there to help you learn how to can.

The beauty of putting up all of your wonderful vegetables is, of course, enjoying them over the winter when you want the flavor of your sun kissed bounties. 

The roasted tomatoes and other vegetables can be tossed in stews, soups, and casseroles.  You can also add the roasted tomatoes to some cooked pasta or create a gourmet tasting pizza with them.

Now I want to share my recipe for an easy basic marinara sauce using your roasted tomatoes.  If you do not have roasted tomatoes you can use two cans of tomatoes from the store.

You will need:

1 minced onion
2-3 chopped carrots
2-3 minced garlic cloves
Pinch of dried hot pepper flakes
1 small can tomato paste
1 small can tomato sauce
3-4 cups roasted tomatoes
1-2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon each of dried oregano, basil and thyme

Saute the onions and carrots in olive oil until soft, add the garlic and hot pepper flakes and cook until you start smelling the garlic.  Garlic burns easily and turns bitter.  Then add the rest of your ingredients.   You can add vegetable broth or water if it is too thick.  Simmer for about 30 minutes to an hour.  If you like your sauce chunky, serve it as is.  If you prefer a smooth sauce you can run it in a food processor but be careful if it is hot.  I use a hand-held immersion blender.  If you have fresh herbs, add them the last few minutes of cooking. 

The carrots in this recipe adds sweetness without sugar and gives you beneficial nutrients.  You can also add other vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, yellow squash, or peppers.  This is just a basic marinara sauce and it is very versatile. 

Serve it over any kind of pasta or use it in any recipes that call for marinara sauce.   Enjoy!

Some beautiful basil in my garden



I hope you all will try this recipe.  It is delicious.  I welcome any comments or questions you may have about this recipe.

Have a blessed and peaceful evening.

SCL

Delight yourself in the Lord and he

will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalms 37:4



Putting Up Your Harvest

I have a brother.  Yep and a pretty cool one at that.  We have a few things in common besides being related!  He, like me is a vegetarian and he likes to garden.  Unlike me he is more athletic than I am.

He is a long distance bicyclist.  He's one of those people who rides for many, many miles and does it for fun!  He just completed an annual event called Freewheel 2012.  It draws hundreds of like minded enthusiasts to ride over 100 miles and I repeat, just the fun of it!  I find this very impressive.  If you want to see some neat photos he took on his ride visit his link at:  http://midtowndepot.com/fw12.

I'm sure by now you are wondering about the title of today's post, "putting up your harvest".  My cool brother asked me to share some tips on what to do with the bountiful harvests we get from our gardens.  Especially this year since everyone is getting so many cherry tomatoes.   Here are my easy to follow tips.

Peppers

We have a lot of peppers of many varieties but mostly banana and other small peppers.  Since I am not in the mood to pickle them this year I am freezing them.  They can be frozen fresh.  There is no need to blanch them if you don't want to.  Make sure you wash and dry them thoroughly.  Cut off the stems and remove the seeds.  You can cut them up or leave them as is.  Place in freezer bags and freeze.  They should stay good for at least 12 months.

I also roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  Again make sure they are washed and dried thoroughly, place them on a cookie sheet and toss them with some olive oil and salt.  After they have cooled down, place in freezer bags and freeze.

If you have large peppers like bells, anahiems or poblanos, I would suggest that you peel them after roasting.  Just roast them following the instructions above and place them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Once they are cool you just take the outer skin off and freeze.

Tomatoes

To freeze cherry tomatoes I roast them first.  Roast them in a 400 degree oven for about thirty to forty minutes.  Just until they have shriveled.  Roasting intensifies the flavor of these gems and makes them doubly delicious.  Just place the washed and dried tomatoes on a cookie sheet, toss with olive oil and salt and roast.  You can also roast these with garlic cloves, peppers and/or chopped up onions.  Then you have the makings for an easy to prepare marinara sauce this winter.

You can freeze just about anything your little heart desires.  My husband and I froze a bushel of corn in their husks.  We simply stuffed them in gallon freezer bags.  They will keep in the freezer this way for several months.

Miscellaneous Veggies

Remember to wash and dry and cut them to the size you want.

Okra - you can freeze them whole or cut up.  I do not blanch them.  They freeze well.
Squash - blanch squash for about three minutes, cool, dry and freeze.
Green beans and other beans - blanch for about three minutes, cool dry and freeze.

Herbs

Herbs can be frozen or dried.  Wash and dry them thoroughly before proceeding.

To freeze them, simply cut them up, place in ice trays, fill with water and freeze.  Once frozen you can put the cubes in freezer bags and simply toss them into your soups and sauces.  They will be mushy after freezing but it does not harm their taste.

To dry herbs you can use a dehydrator, a low oven or simply hang them up for a few weeks.

I bought an inexpensive dehydrator at Wal Mart which is very easy to use.   You can also use your oven on the lowest temp it has.  Just keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.  The most common method is to hang them up in a cool dark place.  Simply tie the bundles with string or twine, cover with a small paper bag and hang.  Check them every few days.

The herbs are ready when you are able to crumble them easily.  Then store them in plastic bags or small glass containers.  I prefer glass containers because I think these keep them fresh longer.  Dried herbs will keep for about a year.

There you go folks.  Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.  I welcome any feedback.  Please just be nice, I don't take criticism too well!

I will share recipes using all these wonderful ingredients in the future.

Thank you dear brother for today's blog idea. I love you.

SCL

Today is truly a day that I do not know what I want to talk about.  I didn't do much today.  I guess you can say I kind of took a day off.  Now yesterday, that was different.

I picked some  vegetables from our gardens and I  had a lot of tomatoes that a friend gave us including a bunch of cherry tomatoes.  From our gardens I had sweet banana peppers, eggplants and some blackberries.  The last time I harvested a bunch of the peppers I chopped them up and froze them.  This time I decided to roast them and then freeze them.  I also roasted the cherry tomatoes and froze them for future use in sauces and soups.

Ah Ha!  Whaddya have here?

Now comes the fun part.  We have a thieving, vegetable loving cat named Annabelle Lee.  We cannot leave any fresh vegetables on the counter or she will abscomb with them and chew them up.  This time I caught her in the act as I was taking pictures of my day's pickings.  She is obviously not afraid of me or she wouldn't have been doing this with me standing right there! 

Hmmm, now let's see what I want.

 As you can see in the photos she calmly approaches her target, scopes it out and makes her decision on what to take.  All this, of course while I am standing there with my camera.  All the while she thinks if she doesn't make eye contact with me, I won't see what she is doing.

Here it is.

Now you have to admit it, this is just down right cute.  She is one of our adoptees from the feral cat colony that lives in our area.  She was a baby when we brought her into our home along with her mother.  She has a unique personality.  She is very sweet and loving when it suits her, but if she is in "one of her moods" just leave her alone!  Well she is a female after all!



I'm out of here.

Needless to say I rescued the the errant tomato and put it up in our tomato safe place above the kitchen sink.  Afterward I spent the rest of the afternoon making six pints of peach butter. 


That is primarily the way my day went yesterday.  But, today was pretty much uneventual.  Except that I had my third horseback riding lesson today.   Even that went off without a hitch.  (Pun intended).

Have a good evening dear friends.  Until tomorrow.

SCL

Remembering Loved Ones

Good evening neighbors.  Tonight's post is a little difficult to write.  My husband lost a beloved aunt who passed away last night.  She and her late husband had a significant impact on his life because he lived with them when he was in high school.  Now she is reunited with the husband she loved dearly.

While we were on a visit to them a couple of years ago they decided to give us some of their things they no longer used or needed.  We went home with a carload of items that were near and dear to their hearts. Among these items, his aunt gave me her china dishes that her husband bought for her when they were engaged.

They met in Japan in the 1960's where they were both serving in the military.  He was in the Air Force and she was a nurse in the Army.  She told me when he asked her what kind of china she wanted she asked him what his favorite color was and he told her black.  So she decided on the black rose pattern.  As a person who collects almost anything that has to do with kitchen and dining items I was thrilled to be given this china.  It will always have a very special place in my heart. 

My husband's uncle gave him his model train collection.  This is not a small set that you set up around your Christmas tree once a year.  This is a set that we need to build an extra room on to our house to set it up.  He also gave him a 1970's pick-up truck that is my husband's work truck.  What a legacy to give to a person who was the closest to a child they could have.  Since they were childless, my husband was the son they never had.  

He has many fond memories of camping and fishing trips with them and how they rooted him on at his high school football games.

We were floating on clouds after that visit.  Not only were we given beloved items from these loved ones, we received these things from them.  We experienced the extent of their pride as they handed these things over to us.  We saw the pride in their eyes, the smiles on their faces and the love that they had for him.  This is what will remain in our memories forever

Until tomorrow friends. 

Have a wonderful evening.

SCL

If you water, it will rain

I pray a lot.  I ask God for the usual things, the safety of my family and friends, forgiveness of my sins and special prayer requests for people in my life and our church.  But mostly, I ask God for things throughout the day.

Sunday I prayed for rain because the TV weather people forecasted rain.  I thought if I asked God for rain I would be covered both ways.  Well, it didn't rain.  So I broke down and watered the flower garden yesterday.  Then I tried to pull weeds in the herb garden and they decided they weren't going anywhere.  I pictured the weeds with little hands down in their little roots holding steadfast to the dirt. 

My husband working in the herb garden in May

when it was just a baby and the weeds were sweet.

So I had the bright idea that I would soak that stubborn garden today with visions of getting those little buggers tomorrow.   I ran the sprinkler for seven hours while I was out today running errands with my mother.  Of course, I also hung some laundry on the clothesline before we left, too.  You guessed it.  It rained while we were gone and it rained even harder after we returned.  Now I have really wet clothes on the line but I'm looking forward to tackling those mean weeds tomorrow morning.

Because I knew I would be out and about today (and because I have a tendency to not want to be around a lot of strangers) I asked God to give me patience and to help me to play nice today.  Of course this time he didn't delay in answering this prayer.  It happened while I waited for my mother to get her prescriptions turned in at the pharmacy on base.  I don't know how many of you have ever had dealings with the military or any form of federal government agency, but if you have you do not want to be in a hurry and you have to put aside any phobias you might have about being up close and personal with a lot of people.  They pack you like a tin of sardines in that waiting room.

Of course when I have these kinds of errands with my mother I always take a book to read.  That way I can ignore people without them knowing that I am really ignoring them.  While I was reading a lady sat next to me at a time when I was looking up (not down at my book).  We made eye contact and that's when God said go for it.   I said nice dress and she just started talking.  I heard about the walk she took around the medical facility to kill time, about her son who was shot in a drive by shooting(he is OK now) and the man she had been seeing who, it sounds to me, is a cad.  She talked to me until they called her name  to pick up her meds.  All in all it was not an unpleasant experience.

God is good.  He knows what we want and he gives it to us in his own time.  However, Big Daddy,  in the future, how about a heads up on the rain.   Don't you know that we have to use a pump for our water?  Please check out yesterday's blog dear Father and you will see that our electricity on earth is not cheap!

Just remember dear friends and neighbors.  Be careful what you ask for.  When you talk to God, you WILL GET IT!

Have a wonderful evening.

SCL

Procrastinating

Have you ever had a task that you need to get done but you keep putting it off?  Today I  have been procrastinating on writing this blog.  When I procrastinate on one task, I actually get a lot of work done on other tasks that I have been putting off but then I find more things to delay working on.

I did laundry today which is not unusual.  I washed three loads of regular laundry, but I also washed the blankets our dog sleeps on which I have been putting off and I washed some vintage linens I recently purchased.  Then I hung these items on the clothes line.  Then it clouded up outside and I thought it was going to rain so I took everything off the clothes line and laid the still damp blankets on the patio chairs because I can't use my dryer right now.

You see, we signed up for smart hours with our electric company and if we don't use major appliances during the hours of 2 - 7 p.m. we get lower electric rates.  Because of this I have to put off a whole lot of things.  I can't vacuum, cook, clean, bake, iron or anything that requires loads of electricity.  Now isn't that just too bad? 

I planned to put up some peaches we bought over the weekend but I decided to put that task off and ironed instead.  I ironed clothes and table cloths until I had to stop at 2 p.m.  I collect vintage table cloths.  I love the old cotten ones that are soft from many years of washings and ironings.  The only problem is I put off ironing them and end up buying more when we go antiquing.  Then I have about twenty or so in my ironing basket.

In the meanwhile I have had this blog in the back of my mind all day.  I've had many ideas of what to write about.  Some of these ideas were our cats and dogs, the many things I collect, the weather, my gardens, food, which could include recipes, all the fresh foods we are enjoying from our gardens and the local farmer's markets, and the camping trips my husband and I frequently take.  No wonder I kept putting this off, all of these thoughts are exhausting.

So here I am  writing on this blog even though it is between the hours of 2 - 7 p.m.  I think it is okay because, you see, I am using my wireless laptop computer.  I'm using a satellite dish instead of electricity, right?

Another snag I found in writing my blog again is where to compose it.  I tried my "office" room but I found it to be too confining.  I tried with the computer on my lap but I hit too many wrong buttons while typing.  Finally I ended up on my cool old wooden school desk which I have painted pink.  This desk is just the muse I needed.

This is my cool old wooden school desk which I painted pink.



Well dear neighbors and friends, I will go for today.  I promise you all, I will do better in the future.  Writing is like a sport or art.  You only get better the more you do it. 

May you have a beautiful and peaceful evening.

Until next time.

SCL

Back from Sabbatical with a new name

Hello old friends.  I am back from my two year sabbatical with a new name and ready to renew our connections.

Back in the fall of 2010 we had a family emergency which took me out of town for a few days.  When I returned home I went into a deep depression for a while and I felt it was frivolous to spend time writing on my blog.  However, long story short, life goes on and so do I!

I chose my new name, Suburban Country Lady, because it better represents who I am than my old blog name and I wanted a fresh start. I still love God, my husband and family, gardening, reading and camping.  I am still a vegetarian who cooks meat for my husband and I still love animals.

So what's new you ask?  I had a milestone birthday this year and when I have a milestone birthday I must do something, well, out of the ordinary for me.  I gave myself two choices.  Jump out of an airplane or take horseback riding lessons.  I chose the latter because I could get more for my money and, frankly, do you think you could jump out of an airplane!?

I have had two riding lessons so far.  The first lesson was getting to know the horse.  I had to learn horse anatomy, how to brush it, put on the blanket and saddle and walk with it.  My horse's name is Spider.  He is a few years old, very sweet and gentle and he is used to work with handicapped children.  Does that give you an idea of how my instructor used my age to pick out my horse?  I am very thankful to her for that.

My second lesson I got on the horse and learned the basic commands and rode him the corral.  My instructor gives me praise when I do something right which makes me feel like a "good little girl".  I really like my instructor!  I will keep you posted on my new horseback riding adventures.

My husband expanded my herb garden for me this year.  It is doing beautifully growing and producing lots of herbs and weeds.  I have to get a handle on those weeds!  We got our vegetable garden in a little late this year.  We are getting lots of peppers right now and some eggplants.  Our tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes and I am anxiously waiting for the rest of our produce.  We also planted cucumbers, three different squashes, soy beans, green beans and okra.  I also have a beautiful large pumpkin plant that came up by our back patio where I threw a couple of halloween
pumpkins last fall.  I have three pumpkins growing on that plant. 

Well, enough catching up for now.  I am glad to be back and I look forward to hearing from you all again real soon.

Please come back again for a visit. Sit down with me and we can share a cup of tea and swap stories together.

Peace be with you all.

SCL