San Marzano Tomato Sauce: From Garden to Table

Because of our  battle with the grasshopper and drought, I can only claim a few small successes in my garden this year.  There are 4 tomato plants, 4 beet plants, a few rows of onions and garlic and a container of potatoes still alive and well.  The fact that anything survived at all is a wonderful thing to me, and the fact that I actually got a bumper crop from my 2 San Marzano Tomato plants is joy.  I have tried for the last 2 years to grow  San Marzano Tomatoes from the seeds my Mom sent me, and haven't had very good success, but this year,  in spite of all my other failures, here they are growing and healthy.  If I get around to figuring out what I did "right" in this instance I will be sure to let you know.     Was it the drought and grasshopper pruning at the beginning of summer, or the extra extremes I went to to protect and coddle them, or the huge abundance of rain we got at the end of summer that did the trick...I don't know, but something went well with them.  So I'm celebrating.  I want to share my Tomato Sauce with you.  In our family we have a "thing" for the perfect Spaghetti Sauce, and the way we talk about it and enjoy it makes me think we have  Italian  somewhere in our blood line.  I don't always get to start with garden fresh tomatoes,  but when I do, well, its an extra bonus.

To us  the best spaghetti sauce is a simple sauce with only a few ingredients; Tomatoes, Olive oil, onions, garlic, basil, salt and pepper, and I love it best when all the ingredients are fresh from the garden or farmers maker.

 1.  Pick your tomatoes.

2.  Look at them a little, admire them, enjoy their delightful shape, their color and

     their musty smell. This is an essential part of enjoying them don't you think?

3.  Bring a large pan or stock pot  of water to boil.

4.  Place a large bowl of ice within reach of the boiling water.

5.  Put your tomatoes into the boiling water  for 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

6.  Remove them with  a strainer and put right into the ice.

7.  With a sharp knife take a hold of the skin and just pull right off.

8. Once you have all of your skinless tomatoes, take each one in hand and squeeze it over

    another bowl, to squeeze out the seeds. It seems a little funny just squeezing it; but it works, so       squeeze away.  You will not get them all, but you will get the majority of them.

 9.   Pour the seeds into a a strainer and strain the juice from the seeds.

10.  Now add the strained juice back in with the tomatoes.

11.  Put olive oil, minced garlic and chopped onion into a large skillet. Saute until tender.

12.  Add tomatoes and juice.

13.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

14.  Mash tomatoes with a potato masher (for a crushed tomatoe sauce), or use your hand

       held blender to blend until smooth. 

15.   Add basil and simmer another 30 to 40 minutes or until the color goes from bright red to a more orange red.

  And now you have a wonderful Marinara Sauce for spaghetti or pizza or any other Italian

  dish you might like.

    This makes the best sauce as is, but is also great with  ground meat or meatballs.

 "Mangia, Mangia"


San Marzano Marinara Sauce

You, can of course use any tomatoes for this recipe.  I have used all kinds.  The San Marzano is a wonderful, meaty, Plum tomato with a delicious flavor and makes a great marinara sauce.  It is a gourmet favorite these days, and is often called for  in good Italian recipes.

Ingredients
3 - 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 a medium onion finely chopped
3 - 4 cloves garlic minced
1 small handful fresh basil chopped/ or 1 - 1 1/2  Tablespoons dried basil
5 -6 cups skinned San Marzano Tomatoes with juice
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet,  heat oil and lightly sauté onion and garlic until tender.  Add the tomatoes and juice and simmer for 10 minutes.  Mash tomatoes with a potato masher for a crushed tomato sauce, or use your hand held blender to blend until smooth.  Add basil and simmer for 30 -40 minutes or until tomato sauce has turned from a deep bright red to an orange color.   Add salt and pepper to taste.  At this point you can serve over pasta, or add meatballs or cooked ground meat and serve with spaghetti.

The Sounds of Fall

This morning as I sip my coffee, I am listening to the morning.  The sun is coming up.  The birds are singing;  The Meadow Lark's voice stands out from them all.  He is still making his beautiful music as if it was the first day of Spring.  Perhaps it is because it is the first time we have had a full portion of sunshine in a week. I can hear the cows "mooing" loudly from the ranch next door.  They are ready to be moved into the next pasture.    They know when its time for new grass, and "moo" impatiently as they group closely together to wait for the gate to be opened.  The crows are "cawing" this morning as well, and so we have a full symphony to wake us up.  Perhaps some of you wouldn't think of it as a symphony, but I do; I like all those sounds.  They are the sounds of country life, and the sounds of Fall.  The earth is saturated with moisture after a week of overcast and rain.  I am thinking perhaps this drought is broken.  It has come with all manner of expression, bringing upheaval and disaster up North, while here it has brought the much needed moisture.  How strange it all works.  We are feeling for our neighbors for all that has happened to them.  It is all so close to home.  We have been praying for reprieve as we did for the fires earlier in the summer. Such extremes, who can fathom it all.

I have been doing some "Fall" cleaning and rearranging.   Our "Little Cottage" is empty again.  Our friends and neighbors moved to town last week after two years out here with us.  It was a treat to have them as our renters.  I feel the usual pang of the heart when people go away...I believe I am a little like Jane Austen's  "Mr. Woodhouse" in that way.... "Why do people have to go away?"  But never the less, the opening up of the house has got me to rearranging again.  It will be somewhat like it was when Steve and I stayed up there after his accident 2 years ago.  At that time,  my art  studio was there.  It was great having the space to work in; but then it was put in storage when we rented  to our friends two months later.    This week I have been putting it back and have had great joy  settling my "old friends" back into shelves and cabinets and am getting excited about having a real workspace again.  I am also getting it ready  for any company that comes;  we have some  hopes of having the kids and grandkids back home at one time or another this  fall and winter.

In addition to all these things, we have rearranged our bedroom.   We have never rearranged our bedroom in this house, before, because there never seemed another alternative that worked.  Our window placement was the problem.  The only other wall that our bed would fit on has a window that would get in the way of the bed.  Steve gave a try, in spite of my saying "it will look hokey", and I am surprised to say that I am really liking it.  The window problem is still a little "hokey" to me, but we decided "so what" it looks good other wise, and now we have a good deal more space, giving us a little sitting area.

Everyone needs a new arrangement every few years don't you think?   It stirs up a "fresh start" feeling and reenergizes  life.  This is the "Fall inspiration" that has hit me so far... next week I think I will get the decorations out. Isn't Fall a cozy time of year.   What does your fall look like and sound like?

This is where our bed used to be... now we have room for a little sitting area.

End of Summer Fruit and Nut Galette

 What do you do with those 2 peaches, 4 plums and 3 pears that are all ripening quicker than you can eat them.  A fruit galette is just the thing.  This rustic and wholesome pie hits the spot and is  a wonderful way to use up your abundance of fruit.

Ingredients:

For the Pie

1  14  inch Pie Pastry (recipe below)

2- 3 cups fresh fruit in any combination that you have or would like. I used Pears, Peaches and Plums.

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or sliced almonds

2-3 Tablespoons Sucanat or Evaporated Cane Juice

1 Tablespoons Tapioca Flour (or Organic Cornstarch)

1/4 cup butter (cut in small chunks)

1 beaten egg

1 recipe Vanilla Icing ( recipe below)

For the Pie Crust

1 1/4 cups Whole Wheat flour

1 1/4cups White Flour

3/4 cup butter

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup sucanat

1/4 cup milk

1Tb vinegar

1/4 cup sour cream

Icing

1 cup organic, unbleached, powdered sugar

2 Tb half and half

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

For Pastry:
Measure milk and vinegar into a little cup and place in freezer to chill. Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir well. Slice the butter in to thin slices, and cut into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter, or use your hands to rub the flour into the butter until it is all the consistency of moist sand.  Add the milk mixture, along with the sour cream. Stir until dough clings together. If your flour mixture is still a little dry and crumbly, you may add a little more cold water until it clings together nicely. I always stir until mixture clings together, but not to over mix or over knead. Pat together in a nice ball.

For the Galette:
Place dough on a floured surface and roll out into a 14 inch circle about 1/8 of an inch thick.   Transfer onto a baking sheet.  Slice fruit according preference.  Lay fruit  in a nice design in the center of the dough, leaving a 2-3 inch border of dough.   Mix tapioca flour and sucanat and sprinkle it evenly over fruit.  Top with nuts, and then dab with butter, making sure that butter dabs are on top of the flour and sucanat mixture.  Roll outer edge of crust over fruit, towards the center,  leaving an open circle in the center.   Brush lightly with beaten egg, (I used a little extra egg wash in the creases to help crimp the folds together).  Refrigerate for approximately 1 hour. (This will help pie hold together when it is baked) Wrap foil around entire mixture and bake approximately 40 minutes.  Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes or until crust is golden and center slightly bubbly.

For the Icing:
Mix together sugar, milk and vanilla, adding more milk if you desire a thinner icing and less if you desire thicker. Drizzle over galette once it is cool.

 Enjoy

Fun with Bottle Caps

When I was making my Tiny Tin Treasure Boxes  for the grandkids, I also had some fun with bottle caps.  I wanted to add a vintage "doodad" to the tins, and chose these as something to add.  I decided it would be a great project for Marie and the boys and I to do when they were visiting; So we had a bottle cap day; the boys loved it and wanted to make one after another.

There are plenty of ideas for what to do with these.   Make a necklace, key chain or  magnet; decorate scrapbooks or picture frames; trade them,  create games with them, or just let them jingle  in little pockets.  The kids enjoyed making gifts with them, and they turned into very nice gifts.

Supplies

You can purchase precut pictures and stickers for this project, or cut your own with a 1 inch round paper punch.  

Decide on your picture and use the window on the punch to place the picture in the right position.

Push down and retrieve your circle.

Put glue evenly over the bottom of the picture and put in the bottle cap.

Smooth the glue evenly by rubbing the picture all over.

 Brush with Mod Podge;  This will seal the picture, and keep it from looking faded, darkened or spotty once the resin is poured over it.

Let the Mod Podge dry 10 to 15 minutes until it is  clear and no longer milky colored.  Then paint another coat of Mod Podge and allow to dry until clear.

Next comes the "Dimensional Magic"/ or what I am calling resin.  Before you squeeze the resin into the cap, turn the resin bottle upside down and tap it to bring all the resin down to the nozzle.  Squeeze a little out onto a scrap of paper to get rid of the air bubbles. Now drip into your bottle cap. If you already have a hole punched in the cap for jewelry making, watch that you don't pour the resin in above the hole.

If you get bubbles like this one (this happened several times to me before I learned how to squeeze a little resin out of the bottle first...after that it happened less), use a pin or tooth pick to pop them; and let me tell you they were stubborn bubbles, they didn't want to pop easily.  If you don't pop the bubbles, they will leave a definite  air bubble in the finished product... one of my mistakes....

Let the resin dry about 48 hours.  They will be dry to touch in 24, but if your little guys poke them too hard, they may still be soft in the center and leave a messy hole (take one guess why I know this).

Gather what is wanted for key chains.

If you haven't already done it, punch a hole in the side of your cap with a metal hole punch (you can also buy bottle caps with the hole already punched in them), then add a jump ring, to attach it to a necklace,  earring or key chain.

                      

    Use pliers to open jump ring, and then close it again once it is on the bottle cap.

Find a vintagey  keychain that you like and attach  bottle cap with the jump ring.

Gather what is wanted for magnets.

Use a good strong magnet and glue it to the back of a bottle cap.

I used the E6000 glue for this part (it is strong and adhere's quickly).

Reuse and decorate an altoid tin to make a magnet gift box.

Put one on an old chain to make a vintage necklace.  This cap is an example of one whose color darkened and faded because I didn't seal it first with Mod Podge.  I did happen to like its old vintagey cowboy look, so in this case I didn't mind.

Supplies

 1.     Bottle caps; If you want to buy them, you can get them with or without holes already in them. 

 2.    Pictures to put in them; you can buy them already cut out, get a 1 inch punch and cut them out yourself,  trace a circle on the back side of a picture or photo using a quarter as a stencil.

 3.     White Craft Glue or Mod Podge to glue picture in place

 4.     Mod Podge

 5.     Modpoge  Dimensional Magic (Resin)

 6.     Metal Hole Punch (Optional)

 7.     Metal Jump Ring (found in jewelry supply)

 8.     Metal Chain 

 9.     Key Chain

10.    Heavy duty Magnets (The cheap roll that you cut doesn't work very well; it is worth   
         spending the money to get the stronger ones)

11.    E6000 Craft Glue

Instructions

  1.    Prepare your picture  by peeling it from the sticker page, or use a 1inch circle punch and punch
         out a circle from paper/picture of choice, or trace around the outside of a quarter  onto the
         backside of your picture (be sure to do this in pencil, so that the ink doesn't bleed once the resin
         is poured).

  2.    Glue the picture to the bottom of  the bottle cap with the white craft glue or Mod Podge;
         Completely cover the bottom of the picture and smooth it out carefully into the bottle cap. Allow
         to dry about 10 minutes.  This secures your picture so that it won't float up into the resin (one of
         my mistakes).

  3.    Lightly Paint Mod Podge on the top of it to seal it. This will keep the color of your picture  
         from  darkening and fading and  allow to dry about 10 minutes.

  4.    Paint another coat of Mod Podge, so that it is fully sealed.  Allow to dry 15 minutes.
  5.    Drip your Mod Podge resin over the picture inside the bottle cap, leaving a little space at the top      
         which will allow you to punch a hole in the side of the cap once dry.
  6.    Allow caps to dry at least  48 hours to ensure it is fully dry.
  7.    Once the resin is dry, these can quickly be glued to magnets with the E6000 glue

  8.    You may also punch a hole in them to make a necklace, earrings or a keychain.  If you don't
         have metal hole puncher, you can purchase bottle caps with the holes already made.
  9.    Place a jump ring through the hole  using pliers to open and close the ring. 

10.    Hang on chain, earring or keychain

Have fun

Pam