I have now satisfied my curiosity about the necessity of seeding and peeling fresh tomatoes when making pureed tomato recipes – like tomato paste.  To be specific, it’s a BIG WASTE OF TIME, at least when you use the thin-skinned, home-grown romas that I have this year.  The whole process took hours, but it could not have been any easier…

I pulled out my 9qt French oven and filled it with cored and (very) roughly chopped tomatoes until it was about 3/4 full.  I had my husband fill the pan with water until it just covered to tomatoes (have you ever lifted a 9qt cast iron French oven filled with tomatoes and water?), brought it to a boil, then set it to simmer until reduced satisfactorily.  I did not time this, but I let it cook at least 8-10 hours.  At this point, it was very late, so I let it rest over night. 

The next morning, I brought it back to temperature and cooked for about 10 minutes, sterilized some jars, and packed it up.  We could not believe the intense tomato flavor – the result was phenomenonally better than the parts.  (Our romas this year are a bit wan and watery due to strange Midwest weather.)  I now think that leaving the skin, seeds and tomatoey goo resulted in this incredible result.  At least, that is going to be my story, as I will likely never peel tomatoes for something like this again…

My huge pot of tomatoes cooked down to about 2 c. of rich, thick tomato paste.  If you are overrun with romas like we are, you ought to try this…the store product is nothing compared to what you get for so little effort at home.

When our summer squash first started to really gear up, I started to look for interesting, cannable recipes that would recall the summer bounty long after it was gone.  I personally love, love, love Meditennean food – including north African of all types – so I was very interested in trying the Tunisian Ajlouk Qura’a.

I threw together a batch of this about a month ago and my husband and I tried it out as a starter for a tasty weekend dinner of Chicken Shwarma, and I was impressed. So, I planned to make a big batch of it about now.  Unfortunately, I’m out of harissa, and it does not seem to be for sale anywhere on the northside of Indy.

Now, I could certainly make my own, but I wanted to see if I could find a reliable online source.  In my searching, I came across Savorique.com.  In clicking around this site, I have found a large number of items that I “have to have,” but just my luck – harissa is out of stock.  Oh well.  I guess I’ll be making my own afterall…

When I got home today I went out to the garden to harvest the ripe veg…an hour and four gathering baskets later, I had tomatoes, summer squash, and cucumbers covering the bartop of our counters.

I had to find something (quick) to do with the tomatoes that my husband had already picked over the weekend that did NOT involve blanching and peeling…so, I thought I’d try a new recipe:  Tilth’s Heirloom Tomato Ketchup from http://tastingtable.com.

It smells perfect and is bubbling away at the moment.  My brother-in-law is a ketchup fanatic, so I am certainly hoping this recipe is a keeper.  If so, there’s another stocking stuffer for him!

I’ve never really canned before – that is, until this year. We planted 9 summer squash plants, too many tomatoes to count, and about 30 hot pepper plants (jalapeno, serrano, cayenne.)

Needless to say, we’ve got a massive overabundance of fresh produce right now. Extremely reluctant to let anything to to the compost bin, we’ve been both giving away and canning as fast as we can (plus eating, of course.)

My great successes so far encompass several types of pickes: horseradish-mustard, spiced sour, and cornichon-style. We’ve also managed to put away several jars of spicy (e.g. with hot peppers) pickles to give as gifts this Christmas.

In addition to the pickes, we’ve canned two large jars of marinara, two different kinds of chutneys, a firey hot pepper relish, and some marinated summer squash.

The marinated summer squash is a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s “Cook your way to the good life” and is just one derivation of his tasty “master” recipe. I’m planning to get more jars and can some more summer squash this weekend if possible…I’m thinking that olive-oil marinated veg with fresh herbs would also make a good Christmas gift. This presumes, of course, that we don’t eat up all this tasty stuff before December…