Tag Archives: tomato

Slow Start

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I know I’ve been beating a dead horse around here, but it’s still not really spring yet.  We tried to get a start on our gardening and planted some tomato seeds inside.  I’m hoping we get some more sun, even if it doesn’t get warmer, so they get a chance to sprout.  Technically, we’re supposed to plant our root veggies like onions and potatoes this weekend but unless something changes drastically, I don’t see that happening.

tomato starters

In other news, I’ve got a couple of busy travel weeks happening, so I won’t be around here very much for the next two weeks.  I’ll try and pop in but regular posting probably won’t resume until the week of the 29th.  Talk to you soon!!

 

Pinterest Recipe of the Month- Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

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We’ve been starting to get more cherry tomatoes ripening up in the garden over the last couple of weeks, so I’ve been on the look out for a way to use up quite a few and to give us a break from eating them in pasta.  I came across this tart from Martha Stewart on Pinterest and thought I’d give it a shot since it seemed pretty straight forward.  Really, it wasn’t to hard to put together since it uses a store bought pastry dough.  Just a little more work than you’d want for a weeknight meal.

First thing was getting a pastry dough set up.  I defrosted it in the fridge overnight before laying it out and rolling it to a 12″ square.

My ‘square’ pastry dough was anything but.  I liked it though, makes it more rustic that way.

Next up was a sour cream and mustard mix that spread out pretty thin on the dough.  Then I folded over the edges to make a little bit of a raised crust.  I was able to square up my tart a little doing this.

I popped that into the fridge to set up a bit and got started on my leeks. 2 chopped up into fairly thin slices.

I sauteed them in butter for a bit until they were nice and soft.

Then I pulled the dough back out of the fridge and spread my leeks evenly over the tart.

Next I took my cherry tomatoes, halved them, and spread them over the tart.  Then popped the whole thing into the oven.

Look at that, nice and toasty!  The edges of the crust puffed up nicely and the tomatoes roasted up beautifully.

With the baking out of the way, I sprinkled the cheese and some fresh thyme over the whole thing.

We had the tart for lunch both days this weekend.  The tomatoes popped a little in your mouth and combination with the cheese was perfect.  It would be good for a savory brunch or side dish.  Instead of warming it up in the microwave on Sunday, I put the leftovers in the oven.  I think the crust would have gotten soggy in the microwave  I think next time I would try and make something like this when I knew I would be able to finish the whole thing.

Fresh Tomato Pasta

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First thing this morning when I logged on to Pinterest, I found this beauty and knew I wanted to make it ASAP.  However, I also knew we had our first hand full of cherry tomatoes and wanted to give them a place in our dinner, so I altered a few things to make it work for us.  Also, we’re out of bread right now (getting ready for vacay = no grocery shopping this weekend) so I subbed in some parmesan for the bread crumbs.  This photo was probably the hardest part of prepping dinner tonight.

 

While pasta was boiling and cooking, I started my cherry tomatoes on the stove in some olive oil.  I like cooking them in the oil over medium heat until they start to pop and the juices from the tomato mix into the olive oil.

While they were sizzling, I chopped up some parsley I’d just picked fresh from the backyard.  By then both the pasta and the tomatoes were done so I drained the pasta and added in the tomatoes

Then the parmesan

Last, the parsley.

I gave it a good mix and salt and peppered the dish.  I used garlic salt in place of the garlic powder called for.

Then I dished it up and added another sprinkle or two of cheese and called it a day.  So easy for a Monday night!  I think next time around I’ll add some fresh garlic to the pan with the tomatoes.  I didn’t think we were getting enough garlic flavor from the salt.  I think we could sub out the tomatoes for some chopped up zucchini or squash later on this summer too.  As easy as it is to put together, it’ll be served up pretty regularly around here.

So Long April

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Hi All,
I hope you’re having a good start to your week!  I have a bit of catching up to do with you.

I went back to the farmer’s market and picked up more asparagus, morel mushrooms, radishes, rosemary and wisconsin cheddar cheese.  It was a good haul and the number of vendors easily doubled from the last time I was there.  I’m going to freeze more of the asparagus and keep some fresh for dinner tomorrow too.  I’m undecided with the rest of the haul.  Do I make another pasta dish with the mushrooms?  Radishes in a salad?  Or dipped in vodka and salt like I had at my photography class?  Do I eat the block of cheese all in one sitting or shred it over tacos or burgers.  Decisions, decisions….

All day Sunday the Hubs and I worked in the yard.  I’m talking 6-7 hours of work.  We planted almost all of the herb garden.  The final piece will be some mint plants and one more  rosemary to finish it out.

The container veggies are also all planted and ready to grow.  2 potatoes, 2 onions, and 2 carrots.  Don’t they look exciting right now?

We also transplanted our teeny, tiny tomato seedlings into some larger pots to get them better established before we put them in the larger garden.  They’re looking pretty spindly, I’m hoping their new homes will encourage them to pick up the pace a bit.

The largest chunk of our day was spent doing a combo of mowing, picking up sticks, picking up dog presents, weeding and re-seeding the lawn.  We’ve got a lot of watering to do over the next few weeks between the different gardens and lawn.  We’ll keep our eyes on things and hopefully we’ll get some herb sprouts soon and some strong tomato plants.

I’ll be back tomorrow to fill you in on what I did with the eggs I bought last week.  Time to start the sprinkler!

Food Photography Class- 4th and Final

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Hope you had a good weekend!
Sunday afternoon was my last installment of photography class at Kitchen in the Market.  I apologize if this post is taking forever to load!  I’ve enjoyed going to class each month and was a little disappointed it was ending, however, Kitchen in the Market announced they’ll be doing another photography series this summer!   I highly recommend it.  Besides the full stomach, photographer  Amber Procaccini gives lots of information on composition, lighting and camera settings. There are rumors of food truck outings and farm visits:)  More details to come, but you see a list of all their classes here.

Any who… back to class.  We started the day with a glass of champagne and appetizers.  I know, tough day…   The appetizer was a plate of veggies and hardboiled quail eggs to dip in vodka and then one of three salts.




To follow that up, we had a black tea spice rubbed pork loin with mini polenta cakes topped with a cherry and apricot chutney.  So, so good!






Last of all we had some lemon, rosemary shortbread cookies.  I thought I was doing really well, I cut myself off at two cookies and the platter was pretty much empty… Then they put a full plate of cookies fresh from the oven right in front of me.  It was all over, if only sweatpants were office appropriate.




Besides just stuffing our faces with food between photos, we also had the chance to listen to Stephanie Meyer of Fresh Tart and Stephanie March of Mpls St. Paul Magazine.  They spoke to us about the do’s and don’ts of photographing food, citing your inspiration and increasing readership.  I left with new ideas of how to improve the blog and can’t wait to get started!

Have a great week!  I’m gonna go vacuum the cookie crumbs out of my purse.

Garden Update- Blueberries

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Hi!  I hope you all had a good Holiday weekend!
Ours started out pretty wet and our plans to get out and work on the garden on Saturday were delayed until Sunday afternoon. We got our blueberry bushes transplanted Sunday afternoon and most of the fence put up.  A couple of them are looking pretty sad and may need to be re-placed.  I’m hoping now that they aren’t sharing a small space with overbearing raspberries they’ll have more of a fighting chance.  We gave them a little extra water and love to give them a boost.

We’ll need to get a bit more to make it all the way around the new area.  On the plus side, I mis-measured the length so we’ve got an extra couple of feet to work with, WHOOP WHOOP!  I’ll be spending evenings this week figuring out what to add in.

 

In other news…….

WE HAVE SPROUTS!!!!!!

I’m Back!

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Hey Guys!
I’m finally back with a new look and some new features.
You can see a little info about yours truly in the about tab,  my ‘perfect world’ garden calendar (I’ll try and stick as close to that as possible), and tabs for both recipes and places to check out here in the twin cities.  The last two tabs will grow over time.  I’ll add more places as I go out and do some exploring and I’ll add recipes as I try to develop my own :)  I’m most excited about that.  I’ll still feature other recipes, but I’m going to start experimenting with some new ideas and we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll have more updates about what I’ve been up to this last month over the week, including bottling the beer we brewed in February, but for tonight, I’ll give you the latest on the garden.

About 2 weeks ago we received our seeds in the mail.  With the unseasonably warm weather, it’s been hard to not get ahead of ourselves and start planting right away, but this is Minnesota and I’ve seen snow in May.  The first thing we can do is start tomatoes inside.

We used an old plastic egg cartons that we poked holes in the bottom of for drainage.

Then we filled them with about a 50/50 mix of dirt from the garden and compost.

We planted the seeds about .25″ deep per the directions and kept it to one type of tomato per carton.

We used a spray bottle to water them the first time, I was worried we’d flush out the dirt if we poured anything on them directly.  The Hubs had the idea to use the extra plastic carton piece to put underneath to catch any draining water, smarty pants.

Then we labeled them and put them in a warm, dark corner of the closet to get started.  We’ll water and check on them daily to make sure they’re staying damp and check for sprouts.  I’ll post pics of the first one!