Turkey Tracks: Roasting Tomatoes

Turkey Tracks:  September 15, 2011

Roasting Tomatoes

September is the “red” month in Maine.

Or, in other words, September is when our tomatoes turn…red.

September is when my kitchen gets really interesting:

Those gorgeous yellow and Black Krill tomatoes on the left–and more red tomatoes–come from my neighbor Susan McBride of Golden Brook Farm.  The large red tomatoes to the right are ours; they’re Brandywines, and I think they are probably the best eating tomato in the whole world.

I’ve made a dense tomatoes sauce that I freeze in past years.  But, now that we don’t really eat pasta very much–too much of a carb hit–I looked around for a different way to preserve tomatoes for the winter–and, indeed, for early summer since our tomatoes take much longer to ripen.  Remember that summer doesn’t really arrive in Maine until July 4th!

Last year I made tomato soup and froze it, and it’s been so delicious all year.  And, I roasted tomatoes and put them into smaller jars.  It takes a LOT of tomatoes to fill a pint mason jar.   But, the flavor is dense and very rich.  So that’s what I decided to do with this year’s crop extras.

ROASTED TOMATOES

Start the oven at 375.

Put on a pot of water to boil–a large one if you have it.

Put a large bowl filled about half way with ice in  your sink.  Add some water, not too much as you don’t want to spill out the cold water when you put in the tomatoes.

When the water boils, drop in tomatoes to fill the pot, and after about a minute, lift each out and drop it into the ice water.

Let your pot reboil and add more tomatoes, etc., until all are done.   Meanwhile, take out the cold tomatoes, run a paring knife around the stem section to remove it, and slip off the skins.  Chuck up the tomato into a baking pan.

For about five pounds of tomatoes, add a chopped up onion, 4 to 5 cloves of garlic smashed and roughly cut, a couple of handfuls of basil, some salt, and a drizzle of really good cold-pressed, organic olive oil over the top–no more than 1/4 cup total.  Mix it all up with your hands–GENTLY.

Here’s what things look like at this stage:

Cook the tomatoes for about an hour, then stir gently.  Now you have to start checking on them about every 30 minutes.  And, when they start to “cook down,” more frequently.

The smell all over your house will be absolutely mouthwatering!

Here’s what they look like all finished up, which will take at least 2 hours total:

Load the tomatoes into pint mason jars–a canning ring funnel is a great help with hot food going into mason jars.  Be sure to leave at least an inch at the top for freezing expansion.  Cap the jars and put them upside down on a counter so they form a vacuum–you’ll see the cap is pulled down.  And, yes, you must freeze them.  You cannot can tomatoes cooked in oil–too dangerous.

Use these gorgeous tomatoes to enrich winter soups, to drizzle over meatloaf or stuffed peppers–saving a bit for some sauce on the side, or over pasta.

Enjoy!

Turkey Tracks: Love Lies Bleeding: Hope’s Edge Flowers

Turkey Tracks:  September 2, 2011

Love Lies Bleeding:  Hope’s Edge Flowers

Today is Friday, and on Friday’s I got out to Hope’s Edge, our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) farm,  to pick up our food.  I take a Mason jar and a pair of scissors along with me and cut a bouquet of flowers from the three long rows of flowers Farmer Tom plants for us each year.  I can fill the jar with water so the flowers don’t wilt hopelessly on the way home.

How pretty is this view?  Not even Hurricane Irene diminished this view.

Each week the selection of flowers changes as different varieties come into their own.

Here’s a bouquet from a few weeks ago.  Outrageous, huh?

That amazing dark pink draping “flower” is called Love Lies Bleeding.

Here’s last week’s bouquet:

And, here’s a picture John took on a recent visit that I really like:

Hope’s Edge folks are hard-working folks who raise the most amazing food for us to eat!  We are so blessed!

I wish for you a CSA program like Hope’s Edge.

Books, Documentaries, Reviews: My Read Pile September 2011

Books, Documentaries, Reviews:  September 2011

My Read Pile–September 2011

Just finished Sandor Ellix Katz’s WILD FERMENTATION.  LOVED IT!  I can’t think why I have not gotten it sooner.  I’ll be writing the next Mainely Tipping Points on it.  I sat down and read it straight through, and in hours had a cheese ball dripping whey and had a quart jar of kale fermenting.

THE CASE AGAINST FLUORIDE has been written by 3 MAJOR scientists who know what they’re talking about.  The EPA recently lowered the amount of fluoride allowed in municipal water systems.  And, most people get way too much fluoride already in tooth paste–especially children who SWALLOW it.  (Try telling a two-year old not to swallow tasty toothpaste!)  So, more on fluoride later, but meanwhile know that it is very dangerous, that it’s a waste product of industry, and that you should filter it out of your water.  Better still, read about it and try to get it out of your local system.  The time is right!

TOOTH PASTE RECIPE

By the way, the best recipe for toothpaste is just to mix baking soda with good sea salt–equal proportions.  But it in a jar and dip your wet toothbrush into it.  If you want some flavor, get some essential oil of peppermint and use one drop on the wet toothbrush.  Or, some essential lime oil, sweet orange, or one of the oils that are ok to put into your mouth if you rinse them out.  Peppermint essential oil has some nice anti-fungal properties, among other good effects.

Turkey Tracks: New Chickens

Turkey Tracks:  September 2, 2011

New Chickens

Over the summer, I have replenished and expanded, by one, our chicken flock.

First, two of the older Copper Black Maran hens went to Rose’s farm.  She wanted more dark brown eggs, and we have the new CB chickens, so she will keep the best of those roosters and try to place the rest.  Remember, that we got a “straight run” of 15 CBM chicks from Tom Culpepper last May.  Half of all “straight runs” are, statistically, male.  To no one’s surprise, we have 7 CB Maran roosters.  Indeed, half of all just-born farm animals are male.  And, you cannot keep a lot of males.  Rose has a big flock, so she may be able to have two strong roosters.  But, maybe not.  They still have to go into the same chicken house at night.  Anyway, Rose now has breeding stock to reproduce the CBMs next spring, and I have a back-up CBM rooster.

Napoleon, or “Nappy,” has been rehomed to a lovely woman just starting a flock up north of Belfast.  Rose has agreed to part with one of the two older hens so Julia can have a pair and can raise babies.  Nappy was a terrific rooster with the hens–he took such good care of them–but when they were laying or when he was fenced, he was very protective of the coop and the hens.  He was just too aggressive for the grandchildren or for Jessica’s children–when she comes to take care of the house, chickens, and dogs when we go to Charleston or otherwise travel.  As beautiful as he was–and he was GORGEOUS, it wasn’t worth the risk.

Valentine, otherwise listed here earlier as Chickie Honey Ginger, changed her name when she got a bit bigger.  She’s a sweetheart–a Freedom Ranger meat bird/layer.  She’s HUGE, and, at first, layed a tiny little rosy brown pullet egg when she was only barely four months old.  Here’s a picture.  The larger, darker brown egg is Chickie Annie’s, a CBM who is a year old now.  The cool thing about Valentine’s eggs are that, even as tiny pullet eggs, they are almost always double yolked!

Here’s a picture of Valentine with our 3 “older” hens now–the two wheaten Americaunas, Sally and Nancy, and the CBM chick I raised last summer, Annabelle, or Chickie Annie.

Valentine is only about 10 days older than the CBMaran chicks and the “blue egg” chicks Rose raised this spring.  But, she’s TWICE their size.  She kind of moves between the older hens and the newer three, 2 CBMs and 1 wheaten Americauna from Rose’s rooster William–part of Rose’s “blue egg” chick bunch this spring.  The new girls are scared to death of the old girls and scared of us, though they are gradually settling in now and will come close to us.  I took this picture of them hanging out on the edge of the “chicken briar patch,” the raspberries, about a week ago.

That’s Pearl and Rosie, with our new roo, Pretty Pierre.  Ninja is in the briar patch.  These names come from the grandchildren this summer.

Here’s a picture of Pierre, the best I can do at the moment since he’s new to the group and is only just learning his roo duties.  AND, how to crow.

When Pierre first came, Valentine was very taken with him.  She tried to follow him, and that totally freaked Pierre out.  Remember she’s a very impressive fully grown hen, and he’s just a baby really.  When he got upset, she got even more upset, fluffed up all her feathers, which made her look even bigger, and charged him.  Mercy!  That was his first hour outside the coop cage.  John and I had to get him down out of the tall bushes to put him to bed in the coop that night.

Something happened the next day, as she had a torn comb and was all bloody.  John and I took her inside, washed it off, and put some calendula cream on it.  Here she is with her poor bloody head:

By the second night, she was sleeping next to Pierre in the coop.

So, we go into the fall and winter with 8 chickens–7 hens and a rooster.  The new girls will start laying this month.  We will be rolling in soy-free eggs from healthy chickens.  And, Valentine follows me everywhere when I’m in the yard, earnestly talking to me the whole time.

Chicken love!

Turkey Tracks: Brown Paper Bag Book Project

Turkey Tracks:  August 29, 2011

Brown Paper Bag Book Project

One of our local artists, Robinsunne, came to speak to the Coastal Quilters a few years back–http://robinsunne.com.  She brought a book she had made using brown paper lunch bags.  I loved it on sight and knew that one day I would make one.

I’ve tried to show the grandchildren how to make one for two years running now, but they don ‘t quite get it yet.  There was nothing left to do but make one myself, which I did as a birthday card for my son Michael.  I found the project to be as much fun as I had imagined.  And, I will make more.  They do take a bit of time.

Here’s the outside of the brown paper lunch bag book–the buttons come from a quilt shop in Charleston, SC–People, Places, and Quilts.

First, you take 3 or 4 of the brown paper lunch bags and ALTERNATE having the top and the bottom on the left-hand side.  Put them in a pile, fold them in half, and sew down the middle of the crease.  It’s a good idea to have the OUTSIDE  bag–when you fold inside– with the opening to the left as that becomes your front cover.

Here’s how to use the open top of the bag:  stuff it with interesting objects, coupons, sayings written down, recipes etc.

Here’s what the bottom part of the bag looks like within the book–a flap is created on the page that can be folded back to reveal a surprise of some sort:

See..

Found objects can be “artfully” presented and tucked into one of the book’s pockets:

Sewing onto the paper–as with the buttons on the front–proved to be more difficult than I’d thought–because of the inner folds of the unfolded bag top.

Stamping is a nice way to decorate the bag.

So, try one yourself!

Interesting Information: The Food Renegade’s Take on Orange Juice

Interesting Information:  August 28, 2011

The Food Renegade’s Take on Orange Juice

I’ve just added THE FOOD RENEGADE’s web site to the links on my blog.

The food renegade , Kristen Michaelis, is a woman after my own heart.   She loves nutrient-dense real foods, is a fan of the Weston A. Price Foundation’s work, and is inspired by Michael Pollan and  the poet/author Wendall Barry.

Kristen cooks SOLE food–Sustainable, Organic, Local, and Ethical food.

We’ve also read many of the same books.

She’s also a nutrition coach and has lots of tutorial videos on her site, like how to make kombucha, butter, buttermilk, and so forth.

Here’s a recent piece she did on what’s in orange juice–you know, the fresh kind that’s supposed to be “just squeezed.”

http://www.foodrenegade.com/?s=orange+juice

Even I was surprised about the chemical flavor packs the industry adds back into what is–and I did already know this info–highly processed juice.  Apparently these flavor packs are geared to specific tastes different groups of people have.  People in Peru, for instance, have a different flavor pack put into their orange juice.

I knew commercial orange juice was bad food–and wrote about it in a recent Tipping Points 30, an essay called “The Very Bad Breakfast”–in the essay section of this blog.  If I thought before that orange was a dangerous product, I now think it’s dangerous and a fake food.

Read about this orange juice and weep for what has been done to our food.

But don’t despair, just stop shopping in your local grocery store!  And if you’re going to drink orange juice, which is, by the way, full of fructose and, after being squeezed, has no fiber, squeeze your own.

Interesting Information: Back to School, PVC-free products

Hey Mothers of Back-to-School Kids,

Here’s a good web site to help you NOT to buy back-to-school products that contain PVC chemicals–from the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice.  These chemicals can contaminate your child’s body and cause life-long health problems.

http://www.chej.org/publications/PVCGuide/PVCfree.pdf?key=48408701

The PVC family of chemicals includes toxic additives that are not safe for your child.  Backpacks, binders, lunchboxes, modeling clay, and clothing can all contain PVC chemicals.  This web site tells you how to identify dangerous products.  It also tells you where these products are made and how the manufacturing of them is hurting local people.

Turkey Tracks and Interesting Information: Late Blight Hits Potatoes

Turkey Tracks and Interesting Information:  August 25, 2011

Late Blight Hits Potatoes

We pulled our potatoes last week.

Late blight was on their leaves, and we didn’t want to risk losing all of them.  Even if the potatoes look ok, they don’t taste right if the late blight gets a real hold on the plants.  Late blight is the same culprit that attacked the Irish potatoes and produced the famous famine.

Late blight also attacks tomato plants.  It shrivels up and yellows the leaves as if their edges have been burned.  The stems are next.  There are some black spots.  And the tomatoes get spots on them.  They rot and taste terrible.

So, to save what we could and to protect the tomatoes, we pulled the potatoes–which meant they would not continue to grow up into September, or about another 4-6 weeks.

We started with 6 varieties:  La Ratte fingerlings, Red Pontiac, Elba, Katahdin, German Butterballs, and a Russet.  Here’s what the harvest looked like.   (Remember we’ve been eating the fingerlings.)

Aren’t they pretty?  Even if still smallish.

Maine has been struggling with late blight for three years now.  It first came to us on tomato plants grown in the south and shipped in here for the big box stores.  So, it’s another legacy of monocrop culture and capitalism that doesn’t control for disease.  The spores of late blight can travel for miles and miles on the air currents–more than 40.  That first year, late blight wiped out the new England tomato harvest.

I’ve read about “organic” spraying strategies, but the sprays seem not to be what I want on my soil or near my body.  Better to forego potatoes and tomatoes if necessary.

C’est la vie!

Turkey Tracks: Vitamin B12 and My Favorite Dinner

Turkey Tracks:  August 25, 2011

Vitamin B12 and My Favorite Dinner

Without a doubt, this dinner is my favorite:  Grilled STEAK, fresh corn on the cob, a big salad, and a piece of dark chocolate with caramel crunch and sea salt.

I am my father’s daughter.

Only, my father took many drugs for allergies and asthma.  Also, he had a sweet tooth, which did not help with his gut flora and fauna.  He probably had an overgrowth of yeasts in this gut.  And, as he aged, he, like many, started having trouble with stomach acid–so he couldn’t digest his food well.  I remember him going around with Tums all the time.  BUT, the problem more often is LOW stomach acid, not the reverse.  (Keep hydrochloric acid–HCL–with pepsin on hand for when you have stomach rumbles and acid reflux.)  And when that happens, the body struggles to process food.  The gut becomes damaged, so one starts experiencing malabsorption, which leads to malnutrition.  My mother used to say “I feed him really well, and he eats, but he’s just getting thinner and thinner.”

Here’s a quote from “Could It Be Vitamin B12?,” by Sally M. Pacholok and Jeffrey J. Stuart, in the Sept/Oct issue of WELL BEING JOURNAL, pages 16-20:

“A far more common cause of B12 deficiency, especially in people over fifty, is a condition called atrophic gastritis, an inflammation and deterioration of the stomach lining.  Atrophic gastritis reduces the secretion of the stomach acid that is needed to separate vitamin B12 from protein–a problem often made worse by proton-pump inhibitors and antacids or other medications.  In addition, older people have smaller numbers of the cells that produce intrinsic factor” (18).  (Intrinsic factor is a protein produced in the stomach that is necessary to process B12.)

My dad started getting vitamin B shots, but the body can’t utilize B12 if other ingredients, like intrinsic factor,  are not also in place.  It’s a really complicated and delicate balance.  A lack of vitamin B12, in particular, causes dementia, which slipped up on my dad gradually.  He died not knowing who we were or who he was.

A really strong source of B12 is red meat.  Liver has especially high levels.  But you can also get some from poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products.  Bi-valves apparently have high levels of B12 (clams, mussels, oysters).  B12 is  produced in the guts of animals, so you cannot get it from plants.  If you want to read more, here’s an article from the Weston A. Price Foundation web site on B12:    http://www.westonaprice.org/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-b12.

So, the corn on my plate came from Hope’s Edge CSA.  It’s such a treat when it comes in every year.  And, doesn’t it look pretty this year?  The lettuce, cukes, broccoli, onions, and beans came from our garden.  (I often put leftover veggies on the next day’s salad.)  Our lettuce, as the summer has been cool, has just lasted and lasted.  The carrots, beets, and tomatoes came from Hope’s Edge.  The salad dressing is homemade–good olive oil, some mustard, some fresh garlic, some fresh herbs, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar.  The iced drink is Kombucha, a fermented fruity tea drink which is great to sip before eating as it starts activating digestive juices.  The chocolate is Fair Trade.  And the milk is, of course, REAL.

It was a perfect summer meal!

MUSTARD VINAGRETTE

In a small bowl, crush a clove of garlic with a fork.  If you add some salt, you can get a kind of paste while you mash.  Add herbs and pepper.  Add a tablespoon of Dijon-type mustard, add 2-3Tablespoons of red-wine vinegar.  Mix well.  Drizzle in olive oil while stirring with the fork–it will take about 3/4 cup for taste, and it will blend with the other ingredients so that it thickens.  You could add a raw egg for a richer version.  You can also just dump everything into a small jar (1 cup or more) and shake really well.