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September 26, 2012

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Tomato and Sage Bread Soup

These last days of the tomato harvest are fast approaching and I am finding myself increasingly careful about how I use up the remaining fresh fruit. This is it and then I am back to another 8-9 month wait before I get to taste the good stuff fresh again.

It was with this late season panic infecting my brain that I decided I’d better get on enjoying a few last-minute tomato soups. My go-to, there-is-no-other-way-to-enjoy-it-thanyouverymuch method is roasted in the oven. Always with basil. I’ve probably thrown in some oregano now and again. Thyme is also a possible addition. But for the most part I am wholly dedicated to basil in my tomato soup.

I would never dream of marring the perfection of my tomato soup with another herb, certainly not a strong one like fresh sage. Never say never. The other day I was flipping through, “My favorite ingredients,” a cookbook by Skye Gyngell and stopped on a tomato bread soup recipe that used sage as its primary herbal flavour. I’ve made tomato bread soup in the past and while I don’t mind bread soups in general when the ingredients are good and the bread is appropriately dense, I’m always a little taken aback by the mushiness, a textural aversion that I have held onto from my childhood when our cheap canned soup lunches were bulked up by soggy crackers. That said, it wasn’t this aspect of the soup that caused me to pay attention, but the sage.

Sage in tomato soup you say?

I dared myself to try something different and potentially waste one of my last gluts of good homegrown tomatoes. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. I used more tomatoes than were called for; I didn’t bother measuring out any of the ingredients, come to think of it. Her recipe includes a hot, dried chile pepper, but I decided to use the fresh, mildly hot peppers that are still coming from my garden. I topped mine with grated pecorino cheese. I did not use the chewy, peasant style bread that is often called for in bread soups because I didn’t have any. Instead, I opted for a few slices of stale spelt bread that I had in the fridge. Again though, it was the use of strong, earthy sage versus basil in a tomato soup that I was most interested in. The only reason why I stayed with the bread soup version was because I wanted to stretch this out into a meal.

I was not disappointed. We ate up the whole pot! This would make a particularly warming late fall/winter meal by substituting fresh tomatoes for a jar that has been home-canned (or purchased).

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August 29, 2012

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Packing the Season into Jars: Recipe & Giveaway

It’s canning season! To get in the spirit, Margaret of A Way to Garden and I are hosting a canning extravaganza and giveaway thanks to our newest sponsor, Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. Giveaway details can be found at the bottom of this post.

Canning is joyful, fun, and creative activity, but make no mistake, it is work. I’m not sure if it is the creative impulse or the fact of the hard work, but all canners inevitably seem to follow a trajectory that begins in hesitation and fear (OMG will I accidentally kill my friends and family!?), and ends in crazed jar hoarding and pimping. Many of you have followed along on this website or social media where I have mentioned the lengths I have gone to to acquire and schlep home pretty jars that I can’t buy here in Canada. For practical and budgetary reasons I still put up the bulk of my wares in the cheapest jars I can find wither thrifted or new, but the fact remains that I want the aesthetics of my handiwork to reflect the quality of the work I put into filling them. I gotta have nice jars!

I’ve tried all manner of jars over the years, and so far the jars that I love and covet most are simply crafted, glass and rubber works of art made by a German company called Weck. I bought my first set of fancy pants Weck canning jars 4 years ago and I’ve been hooked ever since. Several boxes later and I have managed to assemble a collection that includes at least one of very nearly every size and shape in their catalogue. The first jars I bought back in 2008 were the larger deco and tulip designs. They are absolutely gorgeous jars to be sure, but I immediately discovered that their awkward sizing and shape makes them difficult to can. I fumbled around over the course of two years, sustaining several minor burns, before giving up and deciding that they would be better used elsewhere.

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August 14, 2012

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Recently in My Garden + Assorted and Sundry

July was painfully hot and dry. The garden suffered and there were days when I was sure that I would lose a few plants as a result.

August, on the other hand, has been wet and somewhat cool. I really can’t complain. I don’t remember the last time I watered anything other than the pots and many plants have bounced back from the extreme conditions. The only drawback is that the earwigs and slugs have regained traction and some of my tomatoes split on the vine due to the rapid shift overnight from extremely dry to wet. I don’t like knowing that summer’s days are limited, but I do like that I can get out into the garden without burning to a crisp!

Clockwise from Top Left: 1. My garden on August 9, 2012. 2. We made Stuffed Squash Blossoms last night. First batch of the summer and SO SO good. 3. Yesterday also marked the first big batch of homegrown Roasted Tomato Soup of the season. It was a day of delicious seasonal firsts. 4. I am in love with ‘Rattlesnake’ pole bean, a beautiful and delicious heirloom that I inherited from my friend Margaret at AwaytoGarden.com. The beans come on fast and grow large quickly, yet I’ve been able to snack on them raw despite their size. Oh dear. ‘Trionfo Violetto’ has got some work ahead if it is going to hold onto its title as my go-to pole bean favourite.

Assorted and Sundry

Over at HGTV Gardens where I have a weekly Q&A column, I recently wrote about how to help zucchini plants that won’t produce fruit, gave advice on how to plant during a heatwave, and offered solutions for overcoming blossom end rot.
The Homegrown Tomato Juice recipe from our new pocketbook, “Drinking the Summer Garden” is available over on Treehugger.
If you’re in Toronto this week for the Urban Agriculture Summit (or just cause), I’ll be signing copies of my books along with other urban ag authors at an event called “Growing the City” at Toronto City Hall. When: Thursday, August 16, 2012. 6:30pm-8. Where: Toronto City Hall Rotunda, 100 Queen Street West, Toronto. I hear there will be free refreshments as well as a tour of the green roof before the event between 6pm and 6:30.
On Friday, August 17 at 10:30am I will be chairing a session on diversity (or the lack of) in urban agriculture called, “Urban Food Production and Social Inclusion” with speakers Shewat Zeru from AfriCan Food Basket and Malik Yakini, the Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.
I believe that tickets are still available to attend this conference. There are tiered rates for students and small businesses and non-profits available as well as skills-based workshops that can be attended individually and without a full conference pass.

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August 8, 2012

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Drinking the Summer Garden Giveaway & Free Bonus Recipe

Our first pocketbook, “Drinking the Summer Garden” has been out for a week. Now that the flurry to publish has started to settle, we’ve decided to roll out a few fun surprises.

Homegrown Crème de Menthe

As with all of my books, I have put together a few free bonus downloads. The first is a recipe for homegrown Crème de Menthe that I think you will love, especially if you have a ton of mint in your garden that needs to be used up pronto. As I mentioned in the recipe intro, crème de menthe was one of the very first liqueurs that I enjoyed. My favourite way to have it then was as a grasshopper, a drink that is so sickly sweet I never imagined that I would ever drink it again. Fortunately, the homemade version is about a thousand times better than anything I’ve bought commercially. I love it! I made the recipe as a small batch, but you can easily double or triple it if you’d prefer a larger batch for gifting. I used 80-proof vodka as it is most widely available. However, 100-proof vodka is great if you can get it — just be sure to add more simple syrup to taste. Finally, the real deal is traditionally made using corsican mint. Again, I adjusted my recipe to be concocted using any mint that you have available since corsican mint is a bit of an acquired taste and harder to come by. I suggest a really strong spearmint to capture that cool minty bite.

Download the free, printable Crème de Menthe recipe here

Please come back if you make it and tell us how it turned out!

$9.99 eBook Bundle $19.99 Paperback

Giveaway

For the second surprise, we’ve decided to giveaway three eBook bundles. To enter, tell us in the comments below about your favourite summer drink. We shared our favourites in our bios at the back of the book. Davin loves sour citrus drinks so his favourite is the Mint Limonada recipe in the book. Mine is a bloody mary sipped through a lovage straw. My homegrown recipe for that drink was published in my previous book, “Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces.”

~~I will draw three winners tomorrow night (Thursday, August 9, 2012) at 9pm EST.~~

Update: Thanks for entering, the winners have been contacted.

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July 18, 2012

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Book Roundup: Wherein I am Inspired to Transform a Kombucha Mother Into Candy

How is it that my last book roundup was published all the way back in April? Just today I was remarking to Davin that this gardening season feels like it is going by in a blink of an eye, and this proves it. One minute I am waiting impatiently for the winter to recede, and the next it is mid-July and I am eating the year’s first ripe tomatoes off of the plants.

They say (whoever they is) that time moves faster as you get older and/or also when you are having fun. My birthday is in two weeks. One more year before I am officially confirmed as OLD. Fortunately, I am having fun.

Agaves: Living Sculptures for Landscapes and Containers by Greg Starr

This first book showed up at my door as a review copy from the publisher. I may be repeating myself here, but I rarely include review copies in my book roundups (they are typically personal purchases) because the publishers tend to get it wrong and send me the strangest titles from their catalogues. Not this time. I gasped aloud when I opened up the envelope and this book popped out. I was headed out to an appointment at the time and brought it along in my bag because I simply could not wait until later to dive into it. If you’re an agave lover (as I am) or just have an interest in learning more about them, I think you’ll love this book. It would be especially useful to those of you in warmer climates who can actually grow some of these beauties outside year-round. I should note here that the topic of sort-of hardy agaves is covered in the first chapter called “Growing Agaves.” This section also includes a list of the hardiest species, of which there are two that can withstand my zone given the right conditions: Agave toumeyana and Agave utahensis. Note to self that I must try to get one to test in my Dry Bed! An agave outside year-round, in the ground would make my life. I noted on my trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens last year that they had several Agave parryi growing year-round in their alpine garden and it has had me thinking since about the possibilities here at home.

The book is full of useful information as well as photos of gorgeous plants that had me drooling and itching to expand my potted collection even though I can barely handle the nearly 20 plants I have as-is. Many shots in the book depict agaves in their element set against gorgeous mountain-scapes and dry scrubland. It has brought the wanderlust back full force. Another field trip to the desert where I can see fully mature agaves in their majesty is imperative! And because the book is first and foremost about using agaves in the garden, there is plenty about that, too.

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World by Sandor Ellix Katz

In case you are wondering, the fermentation addiction is still going strong. I continue to juggle several cultures at once — a feat that is at times tedious and tiresome and other times exciting and challenging in the best possible way. And yet I struggle everyday with the eagerness to start another. Alas, there is so much to ferment and not enough time!

To make matters worse, Sandor Ellix Katz, author of “Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods” has come out with an impressive, nearly 500 page tome that dives down much more deeply into the world of fermented foods and beverages. This book is a real achievement. There must be hundreds of accounts of fermented products from around the world within the books pages. I haven’t had a lot of time for reading lately and have found myself stealing glances whenever I’ve had a few spare moments. It has served to increase what was already a fervent enthusiasm for the subject. I really can’t say enough good things about this book.

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