August 22, 2024 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Tomatoes

 

What's In The Box

Italian Garlic: Check out the link below for the Garlic-Scented Tomato Salad. This recipe is the definition of simple summer goodness and utilizes raw garlic. You may also use garlic in sauces to infuse a more subtle garlic essence, see recipe below.

Yellow Onions: This week’s onion variety is called “Calibra.” This is a sweet Spanish type of onion, which gives it a nice balance of natural sweetness and pungency. Use it raw in salads or thinly sliced on sandwiches or use them to make caramelized onions!

Green and/or Italian Zucchini: Check out this week’s recipe suggestions for preserving zucchini by turning it into pickles or relish. These condiments are a great addition to burgers, brats, and charcuterie platters!

Orange Carrots: Don’t be afraid to incorporate carrots into every meal of the day, including breakfast! Check out this week’s recipe suggestions which incorporate carrots into meatballs, salads, bread, and oatmeal!

Red Prairie or Red Thumb Fingerling or Gold Satina Potatoes: We are almost ready to dig our entire potato crop, possibly within the next week! This week your box will contain one of these selections. The Red Prairie and Gold Satina potatoes are waxy varieties best suited for roasting, boiling, or pan-frying. The Fingerling potatoes are more of a dry, starchy potato that is best when pan-fried, fried, or roasted.

Green Bell Peppers: Use this week’s bell peppers to make a salad paired with other vegetables from the box or check out the recipe below for a creative way to make a bell pepper omelet using rings of the pepper as a form in which to make the omelet!  

Sunorange or Red Grape Tomatoes: Wash in cold water, then drain in a colander or pat dry. Enjoy these sweet tomatoes roasted with salt, pepper, dried herbs, and olive oil.

Variety of Large Tomatoes: After a slow start to tomato season, the tsunami wave of tomatoes is starting to come in! What a harvest we had earlier this week with over 4,000 pounds picked on Monday and Tuesday…and that wasn’t even all of them! You have a 5-pound bag of tomatoes in your box this week. When you get them home, remove them from the paper bag and set them out on a plate(s) at room temperature so they may continue to ripen. Check on them daily, looking for the potential of any bad spots starting to form and/or noticing the changes in ripeness. Prioritize the most ripe to eat within a day or so for best flavor and highest yields.

Cucumbers, Silver and/or Green:   Cucumbers are a natural, classic pairing for tomatoes as well as other fruit in salads and salsas. Check out this week’s recipe suggestions for some cool ways to use cucumbers in this manner!

Green Beans: This is most likely our final week of harvesting green beans. Use them in an Easy Summer Vegetable Soup OR prep and freeze the vegetables for this recipe now and tuck it away in your freezer and make the soup during the winter when you are tired of eating storage root vegetables and sweet potatoes!

Amaranth Greens: This week’s cooking green is the beautiful Amaranth! This green thrives in the heat of summer and is dense with nutrients! If you don’t care for it, you may leave it in the swap box at your site, however if you like spinach, chard or other mild cooked greens, I would encourage you to give it a try and get the full advantage of the nutrients into your body!

Sweet Corn: We are nearing the end of sweet corn season, but we’re not done picking yet!! This week’s harvest was very light, but we wanted to include it anyway! Cook the corn on the cob, cool it and cut the kernels off the cob. Incorporate the corn into salsas, salads, soup, or fritters! Or if you are adventurous, check out the recipe inspiration below for some ideas about how you may use sweet corn in baked goods and dessert!

Beets: You will receive one pound of either baby red, gold and/or chioggia beets or medium sized gold beets. Roasting enhances the innate sweetness of the beet, turning it into candy! One method is to peel the beets first and cut into similar sized pieces. Toss with oil, salt, pepper and seasonings of your choice, then roast until tender!

BONUS: Melons or Cauliflower or Green Savoy Cabbage

We are finally seeing more melons ripening, but not yet enough for all boxes. While we’re still very much in the midst of summer, fall vegetables are starting to come in as well! This week we are starting to harvest some of our fall cauliflower and cabbage. Your box will contain one of these bonus item as supply allows.

Recipe Suggestions & Inspiration For This Week’s Box Contents

Garlic Scented Tomato Salad

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Green Beans Simmered with Caramelized Onions

Tomato, Pancetta & Caramelized Onion Risotto

Caramelized Zucchini Pasta

Small Batch Refrigerator Zucchini Pickles

Small Batch Zucchini Relish

Easy Indian Carrot Salad and Slaws with 5 Variations

Wholesome Carrot Cake Bread

Baked Carrot Chocolate Oatmeal

Chicken Carrot Meatballs

Cucumber & Green Pepper Salad

Bell Pepper Omelet

Easy & Fresh Mango Cucumber Salsa

Cucumber Apple Salsa

Easy Peach Cucumber Salsa

HVF Summer Farmer Skillet

Easy Summer Vegetable Soup

Spicy Amaranth with Zucchini & Black-Eyed Peas

Amaranth & Sweet Corn Stewed in Coconut Milk

Healthy Blueberry Crisp with Sweet Corn

Fresh Sweet Corn Pound Cake

Vegetable Feature: Tomatoes

Tomatoes are actually a fruit, referred to by some as a vegetable-fruit. Technicalities aside, tomatoes are a very diverse crop and are represented by a wide range of sizes from less than 1 ounce to as much as several pounds per tomato! They are also diverse in colors ranging from white to red to green. They may be either a modern hybrid or a traditional heirloom. Growing tomatoes in our valley can be a challenge, especially in wet years.  Thus, over the years we have worked to carefully select a lineup of tomato varieties that are delicious, interesting and attractive while also offering genetics with greater disease resistance and yields!  It's a challenge to find a variety that meets all of our criteria, but we are fortunate to have found some that fit the bill and do pretty well in our valley.  Here's a little glimpse of some of the categories we have.

Red Slicers:  This is one of the most common tomatoes, an old standby.  The varieties we grow have a nice balance of sweetness and acidity.  As far as texture goes, they are fleshy enough to hold up on a sandwich, yet still with enough moisture and acidity to create a pleasant eating experience.  These tomatoes are kind of an all-purpose tomato that is excellent on sandwiches, in salads, used for salsa or cooked into a sauce.

Golden Slicers:  Our golden varieties have been chosen specifically because they are good yielders, but also because they have a deep orange color, consistent sizing and a bit of sweetness.  In general they have more flavor than many gold varieties which are known to be lower in acid.  These are similar in use and texture to a red slicer tomato and add a beautiful contrast to a tomato plate.

Japanese Pink:  The Japanese certainly know how to do tomatoes.  This is another all-purpose tomato that has a nice balance of acidity and a discernible sweetness and is our top vote for “all-around” tomato.  It’s a bit softer than a red or gold slicer, yet still able to hold up nicely on a sandwich.  The reason the pink tomatoes are pink is because the skin is transparent allowing you to see the true color of the flesh.  Peel a piece off and hold it up to the light…you can see for yourself!

Heritage Heirloom Tomatoes

Heritage Heirlooms:  These varieties are improved heirlooms, offering the flavor of an heirloom but also with the characteristics of a hybrid that are important to ensure we have a crop!  These varieties have greater disease resistance and stronger yields. 

Some of our main varieties are pictured here and include a French marmande type called Marsalato.  This bright red tomato has fluted edges and a more flat appearance.  It is a beautiful tomato to eat raw, but it is also very flavorful when cooked.  We also enjoy a few varieties that have more of the "Striped German" appearance, bright gold with some red blushing.  We have three different varieties this year that fall into this category.  All three are quite beautiful and yield heavy, sizeable fruit that has red coloring through to the center.  These varieties have excellent sweet tomato flavor and are best for raw eating.  Lastly, we have a few varieties that fall into the "Purple" or "Black" tomato category.  These dark mahogany colored tomatoes usually still have some green on their shoulders even when fully ripe.  They have moist, juicy flesh that is more mild flavored.  

Red Grape Tomatoes:  This is a standard pop-in-your mouth tomato, but our main variety is one called "Valentine."  We were actually part of the grower trials to evaluate different versions of this tomato as it was being developed before it was released for sale!  We think this variety is superior for a variety of reasons.  First, it has higher lycopene levels, an important antioxidant.  This is also what contributes to its bright, red color.  This is also a noticeably more flavorful grape tomato, which is what we're looking for!

Sunorange Tomatoes: Those who know the sungold tomato appreciate it as one of the sweetest, most flavorful tomatoes on the market.  The downside of a sungold is its thin skin which makes it prone to splitting.  We grow a variety very similar to sungold named sunorange, except that it has a thicker skin.  This is a flavorful tomato that is very sweet.  It is excellent when roasted, added to pasta or used to make a sauce.

Roma Tomatoes:  Often described as a plum or paste tomato, romas are most often used for making sauce, salsa and preserving.  The reason they are used for sauce and such is because they are a fleshier tomato so you get more bang for your buck and less water.  This makes a nice sauce without spending more than a day in the kitchen.

Preparation & Usage

Tomatoes are delicious eaten both raw and cooked. Variety can be a factor in deciding which tomatoes are better eaten raw versus those whose flavor and characteristics may be enhanced with cooking. Some varieties are more “fleshy,” meaning there is more flesh and less juice. These tomatoes are often better choices for cooking down to make sauce and soup as they result in a thicker finished product. If you’re serving tomatoes raw, aesthetics may come into play as well.

Tomatoes are also a popular selection to preserve for use year round and there are a variety of ways you can preserve them.  You could do something such as tomato jam or make salsa and can it.  Of course you can also can tomato juice, diced tomatoes or make tomato sauce and can or freeze that as well.  I often don’t have a lot of time during tomato season for complicated preservation, so I tend to go the route of either freezing tomatoes whole or freezing tomato puree.  If you want to freeze tomatoes whole, simply wash them and cut out the core.  Pop them into a freezer bag and put them in the freezer.  When you thaw them, they will collapse and be juicy, but that makes them perfect for using in soups, chili, sauces, etc.  You can choose to either pull the skins off before you use them or I usually just blend them into the sauce.  For my quick method frozen sauce, I just chop up any extra tomatoes I have, skins and all, and cook them down on the stovetop in a wide pan.  Once they have cooked down, I cool them and puree them in the blender.  Pour the puree into freezer bags and lay them flat to freeze into “pillows.”  In the winter, when I have more time, I pull out the puree and turn it into spaghetti sauce, etc.

Storage Tips

The ideal storage temperature for tomatoes is about 50-55°F. If held at temperatures less than this for extended periods of time, tomatoes will suffer chill injury that affects the texture of the skin and flesh as well as robbing the tomato of its flavor. You may receive some tomatoes that are still a little on the green side. It’s best to ripen these on your kitchen counter at room temperature and eat them or preserve them as soon as they are ready. We do not recommend storing tomatoes in the refrigerator for more than a few days at most.

Cultural & Historical Background

Tomatoes may be considered a staple food in many American’s diets.  From a culinary perspective, tomatoes are used all around the world.  They are a New World (South America) crop thought to have been spread to Old World Europe by Spanish explorers.  They have since made their way all around the world and are included in the cuisine of many cultures including Mediterranean, Spanish, Italian, French, South American, Central American, Asian and American cultures.

Growing Information

Especially in a wet year, we can see disease set in early which causes the vines to die before the fruit is fully ripe.  Thus, we mostly plant more disease resistant hybrids and ‘heritage’ tomatoes which have some heirloom genetics in them, but also carry some modern hybrid characteristics which make them more attractive to our growing situation.

We use a stake-and-tie method for our tomatoes where we weave twine around the main stem and vines as the plants grow in order to keep the tomato plant upright and the fruit off the ground.  It’s a pretty labor intensive system, but it helps the foliage dry out faster and makes it easier to pick the tomatoes and keep them clean.

Additional Fun Facts 

I’m not sure anyone really knows how many varieties of tomatoes there are across the world, but I do know that one seed company, Tomato Growers, offers over 500 varieties in their catalog!

Turkish Shepard's Salad

Photo from Yasmin's book,
Ripe Figs

In the intro to this recipe, Yasmin writes:

“Variations of this crisp and refreshing salad appear across Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern kitchens, where they are an essential accompaniment to most meals. When you are cutting vegetables, the aim is to have an equal ratio of tomato to cucumber, so let that be your guide more than the quantities given below. Also, be sure to cut the tomatoes and cucumber into same-size pieces for uniformity of texture. And be generous with the lemon juice in the dressing—this is supposed to be sharp!"

And a note on sumac…. If you are not familiar with this ingredient, you may be able to source it from your local spice store (e.g. Penzey’s Spices) or in the bulk spice section at your local food co-op. Sumac is dark red in color and has a mild, slightly tangy flavor. It’s a really nice accompaniment to fruity flavors such as the tomatoes in this salad, sliced oranges, lemon, etc. If you can find it, give it a try!

Yield: 4 as a side dish

1 pound of cucumbers 4 medium tomatoes 1 green bell pepper or Italian frying pepper ¼ of a red or yellow onion Large handful of parsley leaves, finely chopped 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 3 Tbsp lemon juice, or to taste Sumac (optional) Salt and black pepper, to taste

1. Slice the cucumbers in half and use a small spoon to scoop out and discard the watery seeds. Chop the cucumbers into 1-inch chunks.
2. Quarter the tomatoes, scoop their seeds out, and slice them into pieces that are roughly the same size as the cucumbers.
3. Chop the green pepper and onion into slightly smaller pieces than the other vegetables (around ½ inch), then place all the vegetables in a large bowl.
4. Dress the salad with the chopped parsley, oil, lemon juice, ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your taste; this is supposed to be sharp, so add more lemon juice if necessary, and top with a good sprinkle of sumac if you have any around.

Recipe sourced from Yasmin Khan’s book, Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories form Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.