Thursday, August 7, 2008

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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10 comments:

  1. Haha, cute toad and very cool recipes. Both recipes look delicious, and that food shot was great! I am getting hungry. I love all the variety of tomatoes there! Yum. I think I may plant beets this fall.

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  2. The sandwiches sound great! The tomatoes too. I am suddenly very hungry!

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  3. Great harvest from the garden! Food looks so yummy to the tummy. lol.

    Toads do blend into their surroundings. I was out today sprinkling some smelly stuff around a plant the deer like to much and something jumped up. I had put the stuff on a poor toad! I chased him all over the flower garden before finally catching him and giving him a little rinse off with the garden hose. I was fearful the smelly stuff may harm the big guy. He only peed on me once and never yelled so I guess he was not too traumatized...

    Enjoy you sis time….

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  4. DP- Good luck with the beets.

    kathy- The sandwiches is very good.

    Skeeter- Giving a toad a bath, that must have been a first!

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  5. Well Actually no Dan. I have given many a toad, frog and lizard a bath after accidently getting them with bug spray, bunny deterrent, etc. Just call me the reptile groomer!

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  6. Looks like yummy tomatoes, nothing nicer than a tomato sandwich.

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  7. Skeeter - They are defiantly good creatures to have around so it is good to look after them.

    I remember having a lizard when I was younger, it got out of the cage and we found it in the tub a few days later. My mom freaked!

    Rosemary - tomato sandwiches are really good, especially with garden fresh tomatoes.

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  8. Gotta treat the toads well, I wish more would take up residence in my garden.

    Those guys are pest eating machines!

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  9. hydroponica - Toad are really handy to have around. I used to see massive ones around the house but have not seen any of them lately. There has been a lot of baby ones around this year though. I would out for a bike ride along the Grand River and there was hundreds of them jumping around on the trail.

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  10. Oh, those sandwiches and tomatoes look awesome! Looking forward to more recipes :)

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