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.

August 24, 2023 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Tomatoes

 

Cooking With This Week's Box

Sierra Blanca Onions and/or Red Onions:

Creamy Eggplant & Caramelized Onion Dip
Photo from www.minimalistbaker.com

Tomato & Onion Salad 

Creamy Eggplant and Caramelized Onion Dip 

Italian Garlic:  

Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce 

Pasta with Garlic Cream Sauce 

Green and/or Italian Zucchini:  

Italian Grilled Zucchini 

Grilled Zucchini with Balsamic Glaze, Basil & Feta 

Silver Slicer and/or Green Slicer Cucumbers:  

Watermelon Cucumber Agua Fresca 

Smashed Cucumber Salad 

Teggia Shell Beans:  

Fresh Stewed Beans with Tomatoes
Photo from www.italianfoodforever.com

Fresh Stewed Beans with Tomatoes 

Fresh Shelling Beans, an article from MarthaStewart.com 

Fresh Shelling Bean and Tomato Salad 

Green Beans:  

Green Bean Salad with Toasted Almonds and Feta 

Italian Green Bean Salad 

Sweet Corn:

Mexican Sweet Corn Cake

Mini Coconut Corn Cakes with Corn Cob Jelly 

Macaroni Corn Casserole 

Macaroni Corn Casserole
Photo from www.southernliving.com

Green Bell or Green Italian Frying Peppers:  

Cajun Style Meatloaf 

Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya 

Jalapeño Peppers:  

Jalapeño Cornbread 

Grilled Pineapple and Jalapeño Pizza

Large Tomato Variety:  

Roasted Ratatouille (See Below)

BLT Pain Perdu Casserole 

80 Fresh Tomato Recipes to Make All Summer Long 

Melon Cooler
Photo from www.foodhero.org

Assorted Melons:  

Melon Cooler

Melon Sorbet 

Red Seedless Watermelon:  

Watermelon Salad with Cucumber and Feta 

Watermelon Margaritas 

Orange Carrots:  

Homemade Tomato Sauce 

Carrot Pancakes with Salted Yogurt 

Carola Gold Potatoes:  

Greek Potato Salad with Feta 

Roasted Potatoes & Tomatoes 

We are in the peak of summer, and it doesn’t get much better than a box full of sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans, melons and watermelons!  This week our focus is on tomatoes and let’s face it—there are so many different ways to enjoy tomatoes!  Our feature recipe this week is one of my favorites and it’s simple, Roasted Ratatouille (See Below).  I like to double this recipe and freeze it in portions. It’s a great way to preserve all of these summer flavors and it makes winter meal prep very easy.  I add this into scrambled eggs, use it as the base for pizza, toss it with pasta, or serve it over steak. And in the spirit of inspiration for how to use tomatoes, I found this article entitled 80 Fresh Tomato Recipes to Make All Summer Long!

Greek Potato Salad
Photo from www.thehealthfulideas.com

Potatoes are back in the box this week, but I’m leaning towards more cool fare which is why my mind went to a cold potato salad.  This Greek Potato Salad with Feta looks very tasty.  Along the lines of summer salads, check out this Green Bean Salad with Toasted Almonds and Feta or this Italian Green Bean Salad.

And what are you going to do with this week’s tasty, sweet corn? Well if anyone is up for an adventure, I hope you’ll try this recipe for Mini Coconut Corn Cakes with Corn Cob Jelly.  If you do try this, please post in our Facebook group, and let us know how it turns out!

Alright, I’m signing off so I can go check on things in the packing shed.  I hope you have a great week, enjoy some tasty summer fare, and get ready for more summer goodness next week including colored peppers and possibly some tasty canary melons!  

—Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Tomatoes

by Andrea Yoder

While this isn’t the first week you’re receiving tomatoes, we thought it would be an appropriate week to bring this summer favorite to the forefront!  This week we started picking tomatoes from our second field, but the first is still in strong production! While we are in the peak of tomato season, we hope to have several more weeks of tomato harvest, fingers crossed. Tomatoes are a staple crop that we rely on, not only during the height of the summer, but also as a vegetable to preserve for use throughout the winter as well. If you’re interested in putting some up for the winter, we encourage you to take a look at our Produce Plus offerings for next week.  Don’t wait too long to place your order as we never know for sure how long tomato season will be!  

Roma Tomatoes

We grow a variety of tomatoes but have tried to strike a balance between tomatoes that are interesting, delicious, and able to travel in a CSA box, but also ones that have good yields and disease resistance. We do our best to keep our fields healthy and productive, but in hot, humid, and rainy years disease can quickly take hold of a crop and result in a rapid end to the season. So, with these attributes in mind, we sift through the seed catalogs and narrow our selections to just a few possibilities. This year we grew four varieties of small tomatoes, two Roma varieties, twelve other varieties including gold and red slicers, Japanese pink, and a few heritage heirloom tomatoes.

Heritage Heirloom Tomatoes

Let’s take a moment to talk about these heritage heirloom varieties.  Many people look to heirloom varieties for the best flavor. Unfortunately, many lack the disease resistance and yields we need. In more recent year’s seed breeders have developed a class of tomatoes they are calling “hybrid heirlooms,” or “heritage” heirloom tomatoes. These varieties have an heirloom parent that brings the look and flavor of heirloom tomatoes, but they were combined with a more reliable hybrid variety that brings a more comprehensive disease package. This is perfect for our growing conditions as we can offer you a variety of interesting colors, shapes, etc. while still growing a tomato that has excellent flavor and actually has decent production!

Marsalato Tomatoes on the vine!

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 (e.g., Roma tomatoes and the ruffled red Marsalato tomatoes). 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, so you’ll want to choose a mix of those pretty heritage heirlooms.

Canned Tomatoes

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 to can or freeze.  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. If you’re interested in preserving tomatoes for use during the season, don’t think you need to have any experience or special equipment.  You can start simply with the basic method I described and build up to canning or more involved methods if you wish. 

Drying tomatoes is another great way to preserve tomatoes.  You can do this in a dehydrator or a low heat oven.  Slice the tomatoes into even thickness and lay them out in a single layer to dry.  Once dried, you can store them as slices or grind them into a powder.  This is a great preservation option if you are short on space.

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.  When you get your box home and unpack your tomatoes, we encourage you to wipe them dry of any excess moisture or condensation and then place them at room temperature where you can keep your eye on them. When they start to get soft, it’s time to prioritize eating that one!

Roasted Ratatouille

Photo from www.alexandracooks.com

Yield:  1 to 3 quarts

12 ounces eggplant, chopped into 1-inch pieces

20 ounces tomatoes, chopped into 1-inch pieces

12 ounces zucchini, chopped into 1-inch pieces

2 bell or Italian frying peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped

1 medium to onion, large dice

4 cloves garlic, minced

¼ to ½ cups olive oil

2 to 4 Tbsp white balsamic vinegar

2 tsp chopped fresh thyme

1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. 
2. In a large roasting pan, combine the tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions, and garlic. 
3. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, thyme, and 1 tsp of kosher salt.  Pour over the vegetables. Toss to coat. Season with pepper. 
4. Bake for 30 minutes, then stir well. Bake for another 30 to 45 minutes, or longer if needed until the vegetables are all very tender and the released juices are beginning to thicken. Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt and pepper as desired.
5. Once cooked, you may either serve right away or freeze it for later use. This dish may stand alone or serve it with pasta, polenta or spooned over bread.  It is also a great base layer for pizza or spooned on top of focaccia bread.

Recipe borrowed from www.alexandracooks.com.

September 2, 2021 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Tomatoes!

 

Cooking With This Week's Box

Italian Garlic:

Tomato and Roasted Garlic Pie

Roasted Garlic, Potato and Arugula Pizza

Red & Yellow Onions:

The Best Bacon, Onion Jam

Cheesy Baked Onions

Green Beans:

Creamy Green Beans and Mushrooms

Green Bean Spaghetti Carbonara

Sweet Corn:

Savory Corn Cobbler

Summer Corn Soup with Fresh Herbs

Red Grape, Golden Grape or Chocolate Sprinkles Tomatoes:

Roasted Cherry/Grape Tomato Salsa

Honey Roasted Grape Tomato Crostini

47 Recipes You Can Make with a Pint of Cherry (Grape)Tomatoes!

Red or Orange Italian Frying Peppers:

Sweet Pepper & Cheddar Clafoutis

Red Pepper, Lentil & Tomato Salad

Jalapeño Pepper:

Jalapeño Lemonade

Jalapeño Popper Dip

Variety of Tomatoes:

Brown Butter Tomatoes (See Below)

Mathilde’s Tomato Tart (See Below)

Red Seedless or Micro Seeded Watermelon:

Watermelon with Lime Salt

Watermelon Agua Fresca

Purple, Yellow or White Cauliflower or Broccoli:

Spicy Roasted Cauliflower

Spicy Cauliflower Stir Fry

Red Prairie or Red-Gold Potatoes:

Easy Breakfast Potatoes

Bacon, Potato and Egg Casserole

Hello Everyone!

Tomato and Roasted Garlic Pie
photo by Laura Murray for epicurious.com

This week we’re talking tomatoes!  There are so many things you can do with tomatoes, and sometimes less is more!  This week I’ve included a simple recipe for Brown Butter Tomatoes (See Below).  I love pretty much anything with brown butter, which is why this recipe caught my attention!  Serve these with scrambled eggs and it’s a meal!  I also included a recipe that has been circulating in our Facebook Group.  Mathilde’s Tomato Tart (See Below) is originally from smittenkitchen.com.  It’s a simple recipe, but best made when tomatoes are in the peak of their season!  If that tart doesn’t fit your fancy, perhaps you’d prefer this Tomato and Roasted Garlic Pie!

Peppers are also moving into their peak season alongside tomatoes.  There’s one jalapeño tucked away in your box this week, but it’s a big one!  Use it to make Jalapeño Lemonade or Jalapeño Popper Dip.  On the sweet side of things, I included a few of my favorite pepper recipes from past years including Sweet Pepper & Cheddar Clafoutis and Red Pepper, Lentil & Tomato Salad.

Jalapeño Lemonade
photo from sweetcayenne.com

We’re nearing the end of our sweet corn and green bean season, but it looks like we’ll have corn at least one more week and maybe another bag of beans.  Watermelon harvest is starting to slow down, but it’s not done yet!  We’re pretty much done picking melons now, which may leave you wondering “Just what will they put in my CSA box if all these things are ending?!”  Don’t worry, we have more things waiting in the cue including Green Top Celeriac and Leeks!  Over the next month we’re going to experience that overlap between summer and fall.  Sweet potatoes will be coming in later this month along with winter squash.  It truly is a bountiful part of the season and one to celebrate!---Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Tomatoes

By:  Chef Andrea Yoder

Left to right from top left corner:  Japanese Pink, 
Marsalato, Dark Star and Mai Tai Tomatoes

While this isn’t the first week you’re receiving tomatoes, we thought it would be an appropriate week to  bring this summer favorite to the forefront and give it a little more attention!  This week we transitioned from picking tomatoes from our first crop and started harvesting from our second field.  We hope to have several more weeks of tomato harvest, but as with everything in farming, it depends on the weather!

Variety Selection: Choosing tomato varieties is no small deal and it can easily become overwhelming when sifting through hundreds of possibilities!  We try to strike a balance between tomatoes that are interesting, delicious and able to travel in a CSA box, but also ones that have good yields and disease resistance.  We do our best to keep our fields healthy and productive, but in hot, humid and rainy years disease can quickly take hold of a crop and result in a rapid end to the season.  This is also why we plant 2 crops in hopes of extending our season. This year we grew four varieties of small tomatoes, three romas, and fifteen other varieties including gold and red slicers, Japanese pink and a few that fit into our category of “black” tomatoes.

Marsalato Tomato

Many people look to heirloom varieties for the best flavor.  Unfortunately, many lack the disease resistance and yields we need.  In more recent years seed breeders have developed a class of tomatoes they are calling “hybrid heirlooms,” or “heritage” tomatoes.  I reached out to Rebecca Morse who is our seed rep with Osborne Seed in Washington.  She visited our farm earlier this summer and was a wealth of information about tomatoes!  Here’s what she had to say about these ‘Hybrid Heirlooms:’  “Consumers love the look and flavor of heirloom tomatoes, but these old varieties rarely have any disease resistance, often produce only a couple fruit per plant, and don’t hold up to handling.  Breeding companies are working on creating these new hybrid varieties to have the look and flavor of the heirlooms that people want, and the comprehensive  disease package and commercial productivity that growers need.  We have been seeing more gorgeous colors, stripes, sizes, and shapes in development, so expect to see new commercial introductions every year!”

Mai Tai Tomato

So what is “Good Tomato Flavor?”  Well, that’s up to each person to a certain extent, but in general it’s a balance of acidity and sweetness.  As Rebecca says “I think that tasty tomatoes have a balance of acid and sugar.  Without the acid, they don’t taste as sweet.  Without enough sugars, they taste bland.”  You may also notice flavor of tomatoes is enhanced when you serve them with just a bit of salt or vinegar, both of which can wake up the taste buds and help to bring the sweetness or acidity to the forefront.

Preparation & Use: 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.

Dark Star Tomato

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: 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.

Mathilde's Tomato Tart

photo from smittenkitchen.com

Yield: 8 servings

For the crust (pâte brisée):

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ tsp granulated sugar

½ tsp coarse or kosher salt

½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 large egg

1 Tbsp water

For the filling:

3 large very ripe tomatoes, sliced crosswise ¼-inch thick (about 1.5 pounds)

Coarse or kosher salt

1 small garlic clove

1 cup basil leaves, loosely packed

2 cups parsley leaves, loosely packed

2 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for brushing

1 Tbsp smooth Dijon mustard (double it if you like mustard; skip if you don’t)

2 oz hard cheese, thinly sliced of coarsely grated (provolone, gruyere, cheddar, etc)

Freshly ground black pepper

1. Make the dough: Place flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor.  Pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Add egg and water to the food processor, pulsing to incorporate.  Pulse until dough comes together.  Turn out dough onto a sheet of parchment and shape into a disk.  Place another sheet of parchment on top and roll out to an 11-inch disk.  Slide onto a plate or tray and freeze for 10 minutes, until firm but not so hard that it will crack when bent.  Line a 9.5-inch tart pan, preferably one with a removable bottom, with the dough.  (A pie dish or cake pan lined with parchment could work as well, just keep the sides 1-inch high.)  Trim excess dough (reserve in the fridge for patching) and prick the bottom with a fork.  Freeze for 20 minutes, until solid.
2. Bake shell: Preheat the oven to 375°F with rack in center.  Place the tart pan on a rimmed baking sheet.  Weigh the crust down with parchment paper and pie weights, dried beans, or rice (that you don’t plan on using for anything else).  Bake crust for 20 minutes.  Remove parchment and weights.  If there are any cracks or breaks, you can patch with the remaining dough.  Bake for 5 minutes more.  Remove from oven and let cool.
3. Make the filling: Meanwhile, place tomato slices on a rimmed baking sheet and lightly sprinkle with salt.
4. Combine garlic, parsley, basil, and ½ tsp salt in a food processor.  Pulse until finely chopped.  Add olive oil and pulse until a spreadable paste forms.  You might need to scrape down the sides of the food processor a few times.  If making the herb mixture in advance, store in the refrigerator with plastic wrap pressed against its surface.
5. Blot tomatoes with paper towels to remove excess liquid.
6. Using a small spoon or offset spatula, spread Dijon mustard evenly on the bottom of the crust.  Evenly distribute cheese on top.  Dollop with herb mixture and gently spread to cover in a thin layer.  Top with tomatoes, overlapping.  Cut smaller pieces of tomatoes to fill gaps.  The tomatoes shrink while roasting, so keep them sung and the tart pan full.  Lightly brush tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.
7. Bake the tart until tomatoes are softened and the crust is golden, about 50 minutes and up to 1 hour.  The tomatoes should be deeply roasted.  Allow to cool slightly then serve warm or at room temperature.

NOTE: You can make the dough a few days in advance and refrigerate.  You can also bake the crust one day and make and bake the filling another, as I did.  Leave at room temperature; no need to wrap.  Leftovers of the finished tart keep in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.

This recipe was recommended by a member in our Facebook group.  Several other members tried the recipe and have given positive reviews, so we thought it was one worth sharing with everyone!  You can view this recipe with the full commentary at SmittenKitchen.com.

Brown Butter Tomatoes

photo by Joseph Deleo for food52.com

Yield: 4 servings as an appetizer, 2 servings as a light lunch

2 large or 3 small ripe beefsteak tomatoes

6 Tbsp unsalted butter

Flaky sea salt, like Maldon

Coarsely ground black pepper

Baguette or other country bread, for mopping up the butter

1. Core the tomatoes and slice them ⅓ in thick.  Divide the tomato slices among 4 plates, overlapping the slices just a little.
2. Place the butter in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and set over medium low heat.  Let the butter melt completely.  It will begin bubbling.  Let the butter simmer away, cooking off its water, until it begins to smell nutty and brown.  Swirl the pan every 30 seconds or so.  When the butter turns the color of a hazelnut, remove it from the heat.  Use a soup spoon to ladle it over the tomatoes.  They’ll sizzle!  You want to dress the tomatoes with the butter as if you were pouring ganache over a cake—be generous!
3. Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper, then rush the plates to the table so everyone can taste the tomatoes while the butter is hot!  Mop up the butter and tomato juices with good bread.  Toast to summer!

Recipe by Amanda Hesser for Food52.com.