Tomatoes

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Each year I look forward to fresh garden tomatoes! I harvest them when they are bright or deep red, and they have a juicy, flavorful taste. I love slicing into them because I love the sound of the knife sliding through the fruit and then seeing the beautiful dark red flesh and little seeds inside. Mmmm… I can taste it before I put it in my mouth. Then, I lay the slices flat on a plate, sprinkle a little garlic salt, and enjoy the yumminess of summer!

We start our tomatoes from seed and since we have chilly winters with frost and a little snow here and there, we grow them inside our house. The frost still comes in June, so in the past, we put our warm weather plants in a hooped bed that could be closed up at night. This year, we decided to try something larger – a hoop house. It was a small investment, and Kris built the whole thing, though it can be bought in a kit if that’s what you prefer. Ours is 12×20 feet, and 6 feet high in the center. It’s covered with greenhouse plastic. We’ve loved it so far! Once the tomato and pepper plants were hardened off, we transferred them into the hoop house and would roll up the sides and open the door during the day, then roll down the sides and close the door at night. Each chilly morning, we’d walk inside the hoop house and it would still be warm. During the middle of summer, it would be very humid and warm inside. Just the right temperature for the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs we were growing inside.

I get excited when I start seeing the yellow flowers pop up on the tomato plants and the bees start doing their job. Once I see the little green tomatoes appear, I can barely wait for fried green tomatoes, which are amazing, and I know the red tomatoes are just around the corner.

This year we had a very good tomato harvest. I canned the roma and larger tomatoes, dehydrated the cherry tomatoes, and of course ate to my enjoyment. Kris had some, too.

Besides fried green tomatoes, and sliced and salted ones, I also love making tomato and corn salad with cilantro, avocado, and a light olive oil and lemon (or lime) dressing. The other favorite is pizza! Not the typical American pizza, but good Neapolitan style pizza. Yum! Of course, I don’t have one of those fancy wood fired ovens with each and every brick imported from Italy, but I do have homemade pizza dough made with einkorn flour, fresh tomatoes, and homemade mozzarella cheese (thank you goats!). I’m typically satisfied to top it with basil and a few vegetables from the garden, but if I can add aged meat, both Kris and I are in heaven. No sooner do we take the first bite and we are swept back to Rome. So amazing! So when we can’t eat at Bouna Forchetta in San Diego, CA, Pizzicletta in Flagstaff, AZ, or at our favorite little neighborhood restaurant in Aviano, Italy, our homemade pizza is a well-earned delectable treat. I understand not everyone has fresh milk to make cheese, and excellent charcuterie isn’t easy to come by, but we’ve found a couple places in San Diego that we really like. Venissimo Cheese has a great selection of cheese and charcuterie. It’s good place to pick up both cheese and meat in one stop. We have also tried some charcuterie at Bottega Americano, which was really good, but we haven’t tried their cheese yet.

When I can my tomatoes, I lightly pulse them in my food processor (after blanching to remove the skin of course), because I want it to remain slightly chunky. I never make it into anything specific, because I figure I can do that when the time comes. I like to get everything canned and put away so I can move on to the next thing. And honestly, when I open a jar of tomatoes, I rarely alter it when cooking. It makes great pizza sauce without adding anything. Maybe I’ll add a little garlic salt or basil, but never too much as I don’t want it to overpower the tomato flavor.

While I enjoy picking cherry tomatoes and eating them fresh off the plant, or slicing and chopping roma and beefsteak and tossing them in a dish, my absolutely most favorite of all tomatoes is the Cherokee purple. It turns a deep mahogany-red, almost brown at times, or sometimes just a deep dark purple. The color ranges from one piece of fruit to another, but the flavor is always amazing.

This year, I ventured into saving tomato seeds, which seemed to work out just like the directions I read, but I will know if they’re any good next year when I plant them.

Now that it’s October and the weather is getting cooler, our tomato season has come to an end. Throughout the fall, winter, and spring I will be craving the delightfulness of my fresh garden tomatoes.