Harvest,Toad & Recipes Post

I have just pulled all the beets, they had all grown to a good size and they were in the way of me being able to plant more broccoli. After pulling the beets I found the little toad in the photo below the beets. The toad blends in very well, I am surprised I even noticed it was there. After taking a couple photos of the toad I picked it up and moved it to the shade of the brussel sprouts.



I feel like I should have a drum roll before this photo, Tomatoes, finally. So far I have picked 3 cherokee purples, 1 moonglow & 1 japanese trifele black and still waiting on aunt ruby's german green & hillbilly potato loaf. I have also added a tomato count to the side bar, I have keeped up the weight count pretty well so it should be even easier to keep count of the tomatoes. Next year I am planning on having ripe tomatoes by july 1st at the latest. I am going to start them earlier, keep potting them up under lights until I can plant them out. Then plant them out either in a cold frame or plastic tents to get a jump start on the season.

Recipes

My mom made Bacon, Tomatoes Sandwiches with some of the tomatoes:

toasted bread
butter
mayonase
crispy bacon
sliced tomato

Butter toasted bread, then spread mayonase and top will tomato & bacon.

Simply, Fast and very tasty.

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I made the dish above, it is a take on Insalata Caprese salad. I can not take full credit for it through, I took inspiration from Bobby Flay, he used chiles and a few other things though. I thought that those ingredients would take away from the fresh mozzarella & tomato taste so I made a hybrid recipe, so here we go:

Insalata Caprese, Dan's way

2 large or 4 small fresh mozzarella balls (bocconcini)
2 large or 4 small tomatoes
salt
light flavored oil ( I used grapeseed oil)
red wine vinegar (or balsamic, white wine etc)
chives from the garden

Start of by adding a bunch of chives to a blender or food processor and add oil until it is at the level it will blend together readily. Once the oil turns green strain into a squirt bottle or bowl and put aside.

Now cut up the tomatoes and fresh mozzarella about a 1/4" thick. Place one tomato on the plate and then partly cover the tomato with mozzarella and season with salt, it takes a good amount of salt to season the tomato & cheese. Continue this until the plate is full.

Once it is arrange and seasoned drizzle the chive oil and vinegar over the dish. The rule of thumbs for oil to vinegar is always 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar so aim for this.

When it is all dressed let it sit at room temperature so the flavors meld together. I made it before starting dinner, this seemed to offer enough time for it to marinate.


And enjoy!

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Anyhow, I am off to Toronto this evening with my Sister to pick up her Fiance. If I am blogging again in a couple days it means she did not kill me on the highway! Pray for me, lol.

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