It’s Tomato Time! Like many others, I put up tomatoes in late September. I’m republishing an article originally from 2014 on how to host your own tomato crush. Why not share the work and turn a chore into a social occasion? This year, I’m working with a friend, and we’ll
CSA week 23 2020: it’s the end of our CSA season. Alas, summer doesn’t last forever, and neither does summer’s produce. We definitely have a fall distribution this week. Our farmers at Dancing Meadows Homestead are already planning ahead: they’re taking subscriptions for next season’s CSA – and I’ll certainly
CSA week 22 2020: it’s definitely autumn now. We’re getting the very last of the tomatoes, some cool-weather radishes and greens, and some lovely apples. Not to mention last week’s box, about which I mysteriously failed to post! Taken together, these boxes are a picture of autumn on the farm. This
CSA week 20 2020 brings more big green tomatoes to be ripened on the counter, plus at least a quart of cherry tomatoes. This year has not been good for tomatoes. We started with a long cold spring and are ending with early frosts. There are a lot of ways
CSA week 19 2020: big green tomatoes this week, due to be ripened on the counter. Our farmer tells us that this year, they’re just not ripening quickly: they’re starting to show cracks, so they’re being harvested now. The weather isn’t on our side, either; we’ve been flirting with freezes
CSA week 18 2020: larger tomatoes this week, though we’ll need to ripen them on the windowsill. The weather’s turned cooler, so I guess that tomatoes suffer a bit. It has not been a good year for tomatoes around here. We also have a big bunch of chard and lots
CSA week 17 2020: a big basket this week, and full of great stuff. We have our first chard, little baby leaves. There are more tomatoes (yay) but the rest of the basket is green, green, glorious green. Some of these vegetables are destined to become snack material for the long
Why make homemade tomato paste when it’s always available at the grocery store? I use tomato paste all the time. Sometimes I need up to half a cup, and sometimes just a little bit. When I make my own, I can store it in the sizes I tend to need most, so I have
I use tomato paste all the time. Sometimes I need up to half a cup, sometimes just a little bit. When I make my own, I can store it in the sizes I tend to need most, so I have no more partly used cans in the fridge. Sometimes I have a huge batch
CSA week 15 2020: We have corn! 4 beautiful ears, which we’re going to devour tonight. In fact, we have all of the traditional “3 sisters”: corn, beans, and squash. This week we have 2 pattypan squashes. They look a bit like flying saucers but taste delicious. I’m going to
CSA week 14 2020: The abundance continues, oh yes it does. We’re getting a larger distribution each week, which isn’t surprising, as the farm is producing at peak now. Our box contained more zucchini (and larger ones at that!), and even more beans. We can’t eat the whole box in
CSA week 13 2020: You can tell it’s summer because of the sudden abundance. My basket was overflowing this week, and among the goodies are the very first tomatoes from the farm. It was a long cool wet spring, which delayed tomato season by about a month. I hope we’re about
I’m Maurita Plouff, and I write about cooking and preserving the local harvest in Southeast Michigan. Any recipe you find here is something I have cooked myself, and enjoyed, and think you might like too. I invite you to try the recipes, and leave comments.
