Tag: tomatoes

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Kitchen Garden

The Moon is Still Out

Trail walking on Sept. 9, 2025. The moon is still out.

Walking on the state park trail before dawn is the latest iteration of my use of the trail. When I go out early I am hoping to catch some glorious photographs of a colorful sky. Recent days have been rather quotidian. At least the moon is still out at that hour. Yesterday I settled for wildflowers.

Wildflowers on the state park trail on Sept. 10, 2025.

Our 55th high school class reunion is later this month and among other things, I agreed to bring a dessert. The planning group had a lengthy conversation about sheet cakes last year. The consensus was that a sheet cake would not be eaten. I have to bring 24 of something that can be held in hand. Thinking of a small cookie as someone else is bringing bars. Also considering something without sugar to be more diabetic friendly for my cohort of septuagenarians. The research sources will be my red, hand-written cookbook and four church cookbooks from the parish where I attended grade school. Nothing against the fancy pastry cookbooks sitting on my shelves. It is a reunion and a tribal recipe might go over. The first recipe to which I turned was for sugar cookies. I have nine bushels of apples picked and ready for the kitchen, so maybe something with those. There is time.

While I type, the last batch of tomato sauce is being water-bath canned. With what is leftover from previous years in whole tomatoes, the 24 pints I made should serve until next year. It is hard to believe how quickly tomato season is ending. I’ll make one last pass through the rows and that is likely it.

I decided to make eight quarts of applesauce (to make a case of the four leftover from 2023) and to finish one case of pints plus one more case. Total of 36 pints plus 12 quarts to last two years until the next Red Delicious harvest. It should be plenty. After that, I get out the juicer and make juice for cider vinegar. The quantity is never exact, and I just returned from counting six mostly empty half-gallon jars. I leave a little vinegar with the mother in each of the jars for a starter. I have five bushels of cider apples, plus more on the tree, so there will be plenty.

The food part of summer is winding to a close. I need to trim the garlic and put it into storage. I want to get the garlic for next year’s crop in the ground in early October. Once that is done, gardening season will be over for the year.

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Kitchen Garden

It’s Tomato Time

Tomato harvest Aug. 19, 2025.

Garden tomatoes are a highlight of the Iowa growing season. Growing them is a skill I learned and modified so there are enough for household needs, plenty to give to friends and family, and a generous donation to local food pantries.

There really is nothing like eating a garden fresh tomato a short distance from where it grew from seed and ripened.

For six weeks or so, we live in bliss.

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Kitchen Garden

Garlic Harvest and Garden Stuff

Garlic harvest in 2021.

I spent part of Monday prepping the garage to receive two racks of freshly picked garlic plants for curing. In 2024, the harvest was July 12, so with spring planting this year, I’m running a month behind. The garlic plants look a bit weird — multiple flowers per head, small scapes — so I don’t know what I will get. Hopefully there will be enough good cloves to replant in the fall, with the rest to be used in the kitchen regardless of size. I have a dozen head of garlic left from 2024. Later this week I will grind them in the blender with some olive oil to store in the refrigerator until I use them up. My cooking life was forever changed when Susan Jutz taught me to grow garlic.

I made a batch of applesauce with Earliblaze apples and it was not as good as the batch made with Zestar! apples. If I get ambitious, I might cut down one or both of the Earliblaze trees and replace it with another Zestar! tree. I don’t see that happening this fall.

There does not look to be an abundance of tomatoes for canning. With 70 cages, there are plenty to eat fresh and cook with. Just last week I made a batch of chili using San Marzano tomatoes and it was distinctively better. This shows cooking with fresh tomatoes makes a big difference in taste. The tomato harvest is beginning to accelerate so we’ll see where it takes us.

Squash and cucumbers are pretty well done. A few green beans remain to be picked. Leafy green vegetables are aplenty, although the refrigerator and freezer are stocked with enough to last until next season. Hot peppers have just begun to come in. There will be some more eggplant and bell peppers. That is about it.

This is a snapshot of where things are in the garden. It has been a great year.

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Kitchen Garden

Tomato Grid 2025

2025 rendering of the tomato plot. Total 71 cages this year.

Tomato seedlings were in the ground on Wednesday. Every one of them survived until Thursday. So far I don’t need to use the extras I held in reserve. They need mulching, although I didn’t have the energy for it. Once mulched, I’ll install a tall fence to keep deer from easy access.

I harvested a passel of leafy greens and spent a couple hours in the kitchen cleaning them. Arugula, three kinds of lettuce, Pak Choi, two kinds of kale, and collards. In my early gardening days I didn’t give much thought to greens. Now, after working eight years on a farm, I couldn’t live without them.

In other news, Thursday night I rejoined the county Democratic central committee. No one else will do the work, so I will until I find someone else.

Editor’s Note: I managed to post every day during garden planting season. Some, like this one, are brief. I’m still distracted from writing by the garden.

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Kitchen Garden

Prepping for Tomatoes

Brush fire on the future tomato plot.

On Friday I dug into the garden plot that was fallow last year. Tall weeds took it over and died, leaving a soft place for wildlife and two feral cats to bed down and sleep protected from trouble. As I moved the weeds aside and pulled up the plastic, my feet sank into the soft, fertile loam. I worked a lot of years to get soil to be like that.

Because the pile of dead grasses was so tall, I burned it instead of running the mower over it for mulch. The fire was intense, radiating its heat 20 yards away. Luckily, it didn’t harm the nearby kale and chard plot. It burned, bright, intensely, and soon exhausted its fuel. Saturday morning I will start turning the soil over for tomato planting.

Because ambient temperatures were forecast in the low 80s, I started early at 7:30 a.m. By 1 p.m. I was tired and achy. It was a good day’s work. A six hour shift is what I can stand these days. Enough of them back-to-back and we’ll have a garden.

I found volunteer collard plants in the plot. I picked them all and we’ll use them in the kitchen this weekend. I can already sense it will be an abundant year.

Editor’s Note: Still short posting while I work on the garden. About another week to go before the main planting is finished.

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Kitchen Garden

Tomatoes in Big Grove

Planting cherry tomatoes.

On a cool Saturday morning I planted 20 varieties of tomatoes on my bench in the garage. There has been a home-garden tomato crop at almost every place we lived since we married in 1982. I am a couple days late getting seeds into channel trays compared to last year. If all goes well, there will be plenty of tomatoes, beginning in August. I know how to produce a crop.

After noon I watched the BlueSky hashtag #handsoff. Users posted images of Hands Off! demonstrations from all over the country. It was a decent showing of people opposed to the administration, more protesters than usually turn out for nation-wide protests. There is a lot about which to be upset. I did not attend one of several events within half an hour drive of home. I decided an hour’s driving could be better spent.

Instead, I had a 50-minute phone call about unions during the Reagan years. I forwarded a chapter of my memoir in progress to a friend who was a member of the United Auto Workers union during that time. It was a good conversation about things we don’t usually discuss.

After getting his masters, my friend got a job as a teacher in the Saint Louis area. He rose to become president of the National Education Association local. He told me his Sheryl Crow story. Crow had worked as a music teacher for the district and wanted to cash in her pension to head out west. There was a recommendation she leave it in place in case she needed to start over. Of course, she didn’t need that. His Sheryl Crow story is better than mine, which is I heard her play at the Senator Tom Harkin annual steak fry on Sept. 19, 2004.

I had a restless night Friday. The U.S. Senate protected the billionaire class and left the rest of us behind, voting in favor of the reconciliation bill early Saturday morning. Next the bill goes to the House. Its future there is uncertain. The Republican majority is so thin that Texas Governor Abbott is postponing a special election in Houston to replace U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner who died in March. His action takes one Democratic vote off the table. We are in the hard ball league with our politics, where nothing matters except for the income of the owners. We are not the owners.

Cool ambient temperatures kept me out of the garden again. Soon, though, I’ll get out there and dig this year’s plots. Probably, there will be tomatoes. One never knows, yet we plant the seeds.

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Kitchen Garden

Home Made Tomato Soup

Grilled cheese sandwich with home made tomato soup and a home made pickle.

This tomato soup is much better than what Mother made from condensed soup out of a can. I’m confident if she were here, she would enjoy mine better than hers. This is a simple recipe, worth writing down.

Tomato Soup

When tomatoes are in from the garden, cut out any bad spots, halve them, and cook in a large stock pot for about 20 minutes until the skins loosen. No extra water is needed. Turn off the heat and let them sit for a while, maybe half an hour or the time it takes for a long walk on the trail. Extract as much of the tomato water as you an using a meshed funnel. Once it stops dripping, reserve the liquid. Use the wooden mallet to press the pulp through the screen, leaving behind the skins and seeds. The skins and seed go into the compost.

In a 3-quart saucier place roughly a half inch of tomato water. Once it is boiling, add two medium diced carrots and one medium yellow onion, also diced. Salt to bring out the moisture. Black pepper to taste. Add a generous tablespoon of Italian seasoning and incorporate. Cook until the vegetables are softened.

Add the tomato pulp. You will need about eight cups, but match everything to the amount of tomatoes you have. Bring it to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Cook until the carrots are tender, about 30-40 minutes.

Put the mixture in a blender and blend until the carrots and onions are incorporated. Return it to the saucier and it’s finished.

Optional: garnish with fresh basil, croutons, or a dollop of sour cream. A milk lover could add a cup of heavy cream to the saucier and incorporate before serving. Makes roughly four servings.

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Kitchen Garden

Diary of Late Summer Kitchen Work

Apple beverage.

This is one tart, tasty apple drink. I’m not sure what to call it.

When I make applesauce, I steam cored apples in enough water to cover the bottom of a pan. Additional moisture is released from the apples. Everything goes into a cone sieve strainer resting on a large Rubbermaid pitcher. Once the liquid filters out I move the strainer to a second identical pitcher and separate the applesauce from the peels. The liquid goes into jars which are stored in the refrigerator until used. I made about a gallon of it already.

Every kitchen has the potential for unique culinary items like this. With the thousands of cookbooks out there, someone is likely to have described this apple beverage previously. It is one more way to use produce in a kitchen garden.

Tomato peeling for canning whole.

I grow enough tomatoes to sort them by size and type. Medium-sized ones are to be canned whole and the process is much like what exists in other kitchens. I core them and put a small X in the bottom. Dip them in boiling water for a minute or two and then cool them in an ice water bath before peeling. Next, I cram them into a quart jar leaving about an inch of head space. Once filled, they go into a water bath canner for 40 minutes. This is a simple, reliable technique.

Some people add salt or a teaspoon of vinegar to the tomatoes before canning. I rarely have an issue with spoilage, so I leave it out. I can’t recall how many quart jars of whole tomatoes I put up in 2022 yet I have a half dozen left.

I make tomato sauce. Most of the crop of Amish Paste and San Marzano goes into sauce. Similar to making applesauce, I steam cook the tomatoes until the flesh gives with a spoon without adding any liquid to the pan. Into the cone sieve strainer the whole thing goes where they sit while the juice drains off. The juice is canned until I have enough quart jars to last at least a year. It is mostly for soup making. In the second pitcher, I separate the skins and seeds leaving a rich, thick tomato sauce. This goes into pint-sized jars. It’s enough to make a batch of pasta sauce for two people. The organic tomato sauce I buy at the wholesale club costs about $0.75 per 15-ounce can. It is good, yet I like using my own first. I’m at the point of summer when I’m running out of new canning lids. When I went to the home, farm and auto supply store to get more last week, they were out as well.

The dehydrator is running with Red Rocket variety hot chili peppers. When these dry, I’ll crush them and use for red pepper flakes, replacing the ones from last year. Since my spouse doesn’t like hot stuff, a little goes a long way.

I picked a half dozen Red Delicious apples and while crunchy and sweet, they are not at peak sweetness. I’ll wait a while before harvesting for the kitchen. Apples and pears have been so abundant this year, most of the crop will feed wild animals though the winter. I need about three more quarts of applesauce. Then I’ll pick the best to eat raw for refrigerator storage and juice the rest until all the half gallon jars are fermenting vinegar. It has been a great apple year.

A couple of bananas were getting overly ripe. I made banana bread for the first time since I can’t remember. I used the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion cookbook for the recipe. It came out quite good. The challenge for banana bread in our household is to reduce oil and take out the eggs and milk products. The egg replacements I used previously haven’t really worked. I use applesauce instead of eggs to make cornbread. Maybe I’ll try that next time. Once I try a recipe that works, and this one did, I then start to tweak it to make it low oil and vegan. Eggs are so much a part of American cooking it is difficult to give them up. We do like banana bread.

For supper I made a pizza with home made dough, my tomato sauce, and toppings of sliced onions, jalapeno peppers and tomatoes from the garden. Cheese was mozzarella and a sprinkle of Parmesan. There will be leftovers.

So that’s what went on in our kitchen today. Despite outdoors temperatures around 90 degrees all afternoon, I made the best of it inside. It felt like a productive day.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

First Year for San Marzano Tomatoes

Bowl of San Marzano tomatoes.

Now that I’ve grown San Marzano tomatoes, the challenge is what to do with them. I peeled and water bath canned the first couple of batches. That’s something: a lot of work for the yield. There have been fresh pasta sauces, salsa, and plain San Marzano tomato sauce. There is a lot to like about this variety of tomato and the exceptional flavor is just the beginning.

I didn’t know if my Iowa garden would grow Sam Marzanos as good as what is available from Italy in tin cans at local grocery stores. Canned tomatoes from the store are convenient. Mine are fresh and good enough to grow again next year. In our household, flavor wins over convenience almost every time.

I planted a row of twenty plants in ten cages on the west side of the tomato patch. It ensured there would be a substantial quantity and they would get adequate sunlight. That plan worked and there is lots of good-looking fruit through the season.

Where I landed for those not used fresh is straight forward: tomato sauce for canning or freezing.

My process to produce the sauce is one I developed over years. After washing and sorting the tomatoes, I core them, cut off bad spots and place them in a big stainless steel pan with a half cup of tomato juice or water. I bring them to a boil and then let them cook for two or three minutes until the skins are loosened. I turn off the burner and let them cool on the stove top for an hour or two.

Next, I scoop the parboiled tomatoes into my funnel and let them drain the tomato water. This takes an hour or so for most of it to seep out. Finally, I spoon the mixture into a blender and blend until as smooth as possible. Now we’re ready for use, canning or freezing.

A couple of notes:

No seasoning at this stage.

I no longer remove the skins in order to keep their nutritional value in the sauce. Blending chops the skins so they are hardly noticeable.

Well-ripened tomatoes produce the best flavor. If they come in from the garden and need ripening, it serves the goal of peak flavor to let them finish ripening on the counter.

The sauce is not really cooked. It is an ingredient for future dishes like pasta sauce and chili. San Marzanos benefit from a long, slow cooking process. That will come when I use the tomatoes in a dish.

Finally, I water bath can some jars of tomato sauce. In late summer an active kitchen garden is lacking refrigerator and freezer space. Having the tomato sauce in shelf-stable jars helps alleviate the space problem.

I will continue to process San Marzanos as a separate variety until they are gone. With the mix of canned wholes and sauce of this and other varieties we will be well on the way to year-round tomatoes in the kitchen.

It’s where we like to be.

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Kitchen Garden

Acorn Season in Iowa

Bur Oak acorns forming.

The remaining two Bur Oak trees in the garden made an abundance of acorns this year. They are weighing down the branches so they almost touch the ground. Acorns are welcome nutrition for squirrels who took up residence in trees I planted after moving to Big Grove in 1993. These particular oak trees were planted from acorns harvested the year our daughter graduated high school and left home. There were three trees, one for each family member, but the August 2020 derecho took one of them out.

The plan is to remove one of the remaining two after the garden finishes this year. It will allow the final one to grow to maturity. By the time it does, I’ll likely be too old for much gardening yet I hope to be able to appreciate its native glory.

It took an hour to harvest tomatoes yesterday. There were two and a half gallons of San Marzanos, a milk jug full of mixed cherry tomatoes, and a bushel of slicers. Today’s plan is to clean them all, remove the imperfect ones to make tomato sauce, and organize what’s left for optimum storage and use in the next couple of days. Tomatoes planted under the oak trees are looking better, so there will be a harvest of plums and Amish paste for canning. This season is running late across the garden.

While I reached into tomato cages to take fruit from the vines I thought about next year. I plan to continue the trellis system for cherry tomatoes and plant two additional long rows, one of mixed slicers and one of San Marzanos, Granaderos, and Amish Paste. The trellis will be longer, as we are using more cherries in the kitchen. It needs to be more sturdy so I may invest in t-posts for the upright supports and place them closer together. They will be flanked by the other two rows, which in turn will be flanked by bell peppers on one side and a mix of eggplant and hot peppers on the other. That would allow focus on that particular garden patch at the same time of year. One can tell fall is not far away by this contemplation of next year.

Where the garlic will go this fall is not decided. This year’s crop continues to cure in the garage and the heads used have been healthy and tasty. I planted 100 head last fall and it produced plenty for the kitchen. Almost every seed planted yielded a head. When the curing process is finished, I’ll save the best heads for seed. This garlic originated on Susan Jutz’ farm and has been planted year after year for a very long time. It has good characteristics and stores well.

Soon I will mow the harvested garlic patch and use the plot to store grass clippings. With the recent rain, the yard grass is long and will make plenty for storage. I also need to tear down the failed onion patch and prepare it to store fencing. I need a sunny afternoon for this work.

We move through the gardening season so quickly any more. In late August, the work continues to be about tomatoes, peppers, greens, celery, and eggplant. Cucumbers and zucchini are about done. I hope to plant lettuce before the week is done. Acorns forming on oak trees are the sign I had better get going.