Some pics. First, the garden, which is about to explode:
I picked a bunch of maters today, but am reaching a critical mass point. As you can see, one of the plants is so heavy with fruit it is dragging the stake over and I had to prop it up. Going to have to figure out how to store all these for later use. The roma tomatoes are easy- scald and skin, squeeze out the seeds, and freeze. Any suggestions on the rest? Lily guarding the couch:
Rosie and Lily hugging it out:
And I couldn’t find Tunch to take a picture, and as I was writing this post he came in bitching at me. Rosie came in for a sniff to check what the ruckus was all about:
I feel like I have fulfilled all my pet/garden blogging obligations and can now relax and wait for Psych.
kommrade reproductive vigor
As always the mouseovers are laughtastic.
1. Decide to pick them.
2. Get distracted by some other task.
3. Finally go out to pick them.
4. Discover many have been pecked by birds.
5. Swear loudly.
6. Pick the unpecked ones.
schrodinger's cat
Tunch pic! I has a happeh!
Larkspur
The tomatoes, they need to be dried. I understand there are devices to do that, but that there are also time-honored, primitive methods of drying them so that they neither rot nor get et by critters. I do not know what those methods are. Many learned people visit your blog. Perhaps they will know. I would be happy to eat tomatoes, though, for I am good at consumption.
General Stuck
Not a bad day here as well. Just installed a new cable modem to quit paying comcast 5 bucks a month, and it went fairly smooth. Finished negotiating with my landlord on upcoming rent increase, and talked them down quite a bit, because I’ve lived here so long. Still paying more than I was, but not as much as they first wanted.
The dog is walked and I await sunset to start snapping bird pics. Life in the country. My maters are getting close to ripe, but there aren’t a passel of them.
Annie
I want the next picture where Tunch gives Rosie the paw…
Allison W.
random thoughts:
Jon Stewart’s facial hair disturbs me.
I wish Obama would go all silver gray and grow a goatee to match.
the news this week has been very boring.
I’m looking forward to Obama on The View. I assume it went well or was very boring since we haven’t seen any clips of him saying something stupid.
TaMara (BHF)
Puppies! Tunch! Tomatoes! This blog has it all.
Sorry JC, I’m no help, I always freeze all of mine. Cook, puree and freeze in 4 cup batches – seeds and skins stay behind.
Kristine
I make marinara and freeze it in meal-size containers. I also leave the seeds and skins, which may be a mistake but oh well. Anyway, marinara.
Cliff
Here is Molly attacking the foam in a stream – *video!*:
http://mollymaesden.blogspot.com/2010/07/playing-in-stream.html
matoko_chan
have your mom teach you to can tomatoes….or you can make tomato sauce and freeze it, if you have freezer space.
TaMara (BHF)
Oh, and since this is an open thread, can I just tell you what happened to me this weekend? I missed a very large family reunion a few weeks back, so I went home this weekend to make up for it.
When I got there, I found out that my parents and brothers’ families took a family portrait during the reunion. And where I should be standing, there was my cousin and his son. I’d been replaced. Luckily he is my favorite cousin, so it was okay. Pretty damn funny all the same.
But that’s my family…he’d been sleeping in my old room, so I suppose it was the logical choice.
Patty K
For all those extra tomatoes: homemade canned ketchup, with cayenne and brown sugar. It cooks way down so you will need a lot of tomatoes. In January when you want ketchup for a hot dog, you’ll see: You can’t find any other ketchup on the market as good.
stuckinred
@TaMara (BHF): That’s what photoshop is for.
schrodinger's cat
You can dry the extra tomatoes in the oven and preserve them in olive oil, so you will have a supply oven dried tomatoes throughout the year.
Allison W.
@TaMara (BHF):
one word:
photoshop
TaMara (BHF)
@stuckinred: I told him that today…and said his son was welcome to stay in the photo (he’s ‘dorable).
Allison W.
@TaMara (BHF):
you can just stick your head some where between two other heads.
stuckinred
@TaMara (BHF): I wasn’t proposing to delete anyone, just add you!
MAJeff
Any suggestions on the rest?
Can ’em in quart jars.
WereBear
Rosie looks more svelte!
I am once again carless, but this time the vehicle is down for the count. So while I am saving up for a down payment (wish me luck!) I have purchased a shopping cart, that popular urban accoutrement.
We are not urban, but I’m within walking distance of most of the stores I need to visit. And I can take the bus to work, as long as I fit my own work into its narrow schedule.
I hope to have a car by the time winter arrives. Did I mention it can get to – 40?
WereBear
Aw, boogers. I used the dreaded dash.
Rosie looks like she lost weight! I got a shopping cart because my car died.
You’re caught up now.
jeffreyw
@Patty K: I may have to try that. Been cooking the juice down every day from the tomatoes that ripen. So far just some sauce, and some that will be good as pizza sauce.
PurpleGirl
Nice pet pics. Thanks for some smiles.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
It won’t help much once it gets to 40 below, but there’s a reason the bicycle is a hugely popular vehicle all around the world. And I’m not just saying that because my pretty pretty purple bike is parked right outside. ;-)
With a rack and the right bags, you can haul pretty astounding amounts of stuff. I think my record so far is 35 pounds of groceries distributed between the panniers on the back rack and my front basket.
Stooleo
Basil Marceaux, one of the guys running for Governor of TN.
Drunk or “special”?
debit
My tomatoes are also growing like mad. I had to put some stakes in the cages to keep them upright. Now to just have some of them ripen. I had one Carnival ready so far, and can’t wait for the rest. Carnival is an early, small beefsteak that I’d never tried before; I’ll get two plants next year. They have rich, almost sweet initial taste, followed by a tangy kick. Really yummy. On the other hand, my Early Girls and Beefsteaks are taunting me by stubbornly remaining green.
/shakes tiny fist
I want tomatoes, damn it!
BombIranForChrist
Go Psych! Yeah!
Larkspur
Crap. There’s a big oil spill in Kalamazoo. Kalafuckingmazoo! I kind of like Kalamazoo. Also, I think that once you are a town called Kalamazoo, no further bad things should happen to you. Same with Walla Walla, Washington.
Michigan oil spill clean-up.
jharp
Just did a Sams Club run for cheese for the tomatoes.
The buffalo moz ain’t worth it. Though the olive oil and and basil are really good.
Feta is damn good. With italian dressing.
Cottage cheese is the best.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: I used to be quite the cyclist; in Florida, where it’s flat.
This is the mountains, and I don’t have thighs like beer kegs. (Thank heaven for small favors.)
But I have no problem walking; three seasons out of the year, I walk downtown, but did not have a way to get heavy stuff back. Now, with the shopping cart, I do!
As always with recent purchases, I hope it does not fall apart in the first month.
debit
@Mnemosyne: Quite right. I use my bike to for grocery shopping all the time. The grocery panniers can be expensive, but they’ll last forever.
I also love commuting to work by bike. The best part of my day, aside from walking Chloe, is taking the long way home and turning my brain off and just riding. After 20 miles, any stress is gone and I’m just…happy. I think it’s saved several lives, actually.
muddy
When I get tired of canning I just put them in the freezer whole. When solid put a bunch in a bag together and get the air out. Just like gigantic blueberries! No blanching or messing about. When thawed you would not care to put them on a salad, but the big benefit is that the skins come right off at that point. Obviously you need more freezer than what goes with a fridge if you have a large amount.
demo woman
@TaMara (BHF): Photoshop a new picture with you in it and give it to the folks for Xmas or another special day. (if they have a sense of humor)
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I live in the foothills of the Verdugos, but in a pretty urban area, so there’s enough flatness that I can do errands. Our hills are usually fairly shallow in angle but really long. I do not like them.
stuckinred
@Mnemosyne: Darn, I wanted to give a link to my home movie of a Korean taking his drunk pig to market on his bike but I didn’t post it yet!
demo woman
John, Whole tomatoes are easy to can.
Tonal Crow
Someone used the word “laughtastic”, so I thought I’d pass along the following word salad apparently from someone attempting to boost McCain during the ’08 campaign. Listen up:
There’s lots more. Too! Also!
Bella Q
@Stooleo: “Special,” and that was kinda painful to watch.
Bret
Here’s a fun little infographic for everyone: How Glenn Beck and Goldline fuck every one of their clients.
fitzwili
@schrodinger’s cat
Yes – I love that idea too! Cut them up,put in shallow baking dish, drizzle w/ olive oil and put them in 200 degree oven
You can use some for now and freeze the rest in ziplock baggies.
WereBear
Oh, yes, I moved up here with a 12 speed I went all over Connecticut with. (I bike-commuted there, but not in winter. I will find every patch of ice on the road, and then fall over.)
But these hills can be an 8% grade. It might not seem like much, except to the engineering minded; and those trying to ride a laden bike up them.
Keith G
@Cole:
Have Lily and Rosie begun to become companions or do they just share some of the same living space?
JGabriel
Bush Memoir Concerns Republicans:
Are we sure that’s concern? I thought “selfish and stupid” were qualities that the GOP admired and praised – c.f., Sarah Palin.
.
fordpowers
gotta say.. Rosie is lookin a little trimmer these days.
Nice work poppa.
MikeJ
@Larkspur: I got a gal there. Don’t want to boast, but I know she’s the toast of Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo.
Also, Walla Walla has awesome onions. Better than Vidalias.
jeffreyw
Mmm…tomatoes
In a salad with cukes and feta
On toast with blue cheese
jeffreyw
In a fritatta
jeffreyw
With fresh mozz and basil on toast
Scott
Lilly is lookin’ great John. Luv the wasp waist she’s featuring. Very Coco Chanel!
jeffreyw
BLTs
BBTs
Anne Laurie
Line one or more baking sheets with parchment paper, and set the oven for 200 degrees. Cut each tomato in half (or cut off the bird-pecked/cracked/unsightly side & use the good part), and line them up on the sheet. Scatter the whole tray with a bunch of chopped garlic, a little salt, maybe some herbs, and then sprinkle olive oil over each half until it just glistens. Stick the trays in the oven for 6 to 8 hours, while you catch up on your websurfing or Starcraft or whatever.
The finished tomatoes can be slipped out of their skins, more-or-less deseeded, and frozen in baggies for sauce, or they can be stored in more olive oil to sub as ‘sun ripened’ in recipes.
You can also do this with cherry tomatoes, but they’ll only take 2 or 3 hours to cook down. They’ll look like the devil’s raisins, but they’ll be so delicious that half the tray is liable to end up eaten before they can be packed up.
I’ve tried this method with a wide variety of tomatoes, and sometimes even remembered to keep the different kinds separate for freezing. Fat juicy tomatoes take longer to roast down properly than Romas, but they are just as delicious (if not more) in a nice sauce during the winter. One thing I was hoping for this summer was enough “excess” yellow tomatoes to produce more than one or two baggies of golden sauce — I even bought a pot of lemon basil to pair with them.
debit
@jeffreyw: Damn you and your tomato bounty. Those all look really damn good. I’m not a huge feta fan, but would happily make that salad and substitute queso fresco.
The other day I made a sandwich with a sliced croissant, half a sliced tomato and half a sliced avocado and some fresh basil leaves from my garden. I may have made orgasm noises while eating it.
MikeJ
@jeffreyw: Did you make the mayo? Got a recipe for the jalapeño-garlic mayo?
sukabi
can them, make salsa and can it… anything tomato… sauce, ketchup, ect can be canned…
the only thing you need to do to can tomatoes is skin them… then process… easy plus doesn’t take up freezer space, won’t spoil if the power goes out for any length of time… and you have years to use them up, no freezer burn….
Larkspur
@Anne Laurie: See, I knew someone would know about the drying thing. I think I would love it at your house.
TheOtherWa
You’re so lucky to have lots of tomatoes. In the NW it was cold and rainy until well into June. Two plants have fruit the size of marbles, 2 others have finally flowered, and the last 2 have no flowers at all.
There are always the farmer’s markets, I guess.
jeffreyw
@MikeJ: I have made mayo before, but this started with Hellman’s. About a cup of prepared mayo, a fresh jalapeno or two finely minced, fresh garlic very thinly sliced on a mandoline (think prison scene from Goodfellas), a teaspoon of dry mustard, and a dash of tumeric. Hard to get too much garlic in this, let the heat be your guide on the jalapeno.
Anne Laurie
Also, “extra” tomatoes are always a good way to ingratiate yourself with the neighbors… unlike zucchinis, there are very few people who don’t like a few more homegrown tomatoes!
stuckinred
@Anne Laurie: Did I tell you about the big tomato sammy fundraiser my bride did for our nurses clinic last week? Big hit.
garage mahal
I grew the most amazingly tasty pink brandywine tomatoes last year. And for some reason didn’t even think to grow them again this year. I opted for several San Marzano plants. We’ll see.
Larkspur
Ooh, where I live, there’s this thing called the Open Gardens Veggie Exchange, where home gardeners bring their surplus every week and trade with each other.
arguingwithsignposts
i’m moving this weekend and it’s too damned hot, and i haven’t packed a lot (there’s not too much to pack). i hate moving, but at least i’ll have a little larger apartment and some ceiling fans (and no neighbors banging doors at 3 a.m.!).
Oh, then next week I’m (probably) driving to Colorado.
beanmhor
Envy you your tomatoes – here in N. CA it has been such a cold summer, NO one has tomatoes. I second the idea of roasting them at a low heat, but you can also get great results at a high heat.
Halve them, set in large baking pans, drizzle with really good fruity olive oil, garlic, balsamic vinegar and whatever herbs you have around – basil for sure. Cook in a 400 degree over for 45 minutes or so.
You will get incredibly delicious and juicy tomatoes to use in sauces, on pizzas, or – if you don’t eat’em all first – put in freezer bags and freeze until you get the winter blues. This treatment, by the way works well with not quite ripe tomatoes – the roasting brings out the sweetness.
arguingwithsignposts
@Anne Laurie: In the Chili Parlor Bar drinking mad dog margaritas.
Violet
Late to the party, but wow, your garden looks amazing. Love the pet pics. Tunch looks fierce. Rosie better watch out. Lily is as sweet as ever.
I’m going to create my garden next week and hopefully I can still pick up fall tomato seedlings at the garden center. It’s been over a year since I’ve had a garden. Can’t wait to get into the dirt!
lamh32
PBS is showing the White House music series, the Gershwin prize i think. the last one with Paul McCartney. Mac just sang “Michelle”. Was just as sweet as when I saw the youtube.
Anybody else checking it out?
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
An 8% grade is steep enough that anyone will notice it. I’d say that anything more than about 2% grade gets obvious when I’m fitness walking, and more than 4% is a real leg killer if it goes on for more than a block or two. Somewhere between 6% and 8% is where highway departments start to put up signs announcing a steep grade and telling trucks to use low gear, though those are generally reserved for long stretches. There’s actually a street in town here with a long enough run at 8+% grade that it has those steep grade signs. The view from the top is fabulous, but it’s a bitch and a half walking up there.
sputnikgayle
Well, I’ve been canning and freezing for over two weeks now and the work does get repetitive and a bit boring. But we use it all. I use my crockpots to make batches of tomato soup and vegetable soup while I am doing all the canning and freezing. It becomes an assembly line of sorts. If you don’t can, the soups are just as good frozen as long as you avoid freezer burn. Canning is not difficult but it is time-consuming. And you probably have more shelf space than freezer space.
Here’s how I avoid freezer burn: initially freeze the soup (or any vegetable) in square plastic freezer containers; when the soups are solidly frozen, take them out of the containers (run hot water on the containers); take the “block” of soup and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap; put that block in a freezer bag and seal the bag, making sure all air is out of the bag. Label it and put it back in freezer.
Alice Blue
The mercury hit 99 degrees this afternoon, there are plumbing problems at my house, but . . . a sandwich made from home grown tomatoes from my cousin over in Alabamy makes the world a sweet place.
SIA
I’m late too and I’ve been watching for a cozy pet open thread to lighten things up. Our garden sucks this year and we don’t know why. Therefore I have serious garden envy. The animal pics are great.
Is it September yet?
MAJeff
If you’ve got lots of basil, this is delicious:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/drink/views/Basil-Vodka-Gimlets-238926
SIA
@arguingwithsignposts: Ouch. August is not a good time to move or be nine months pregnant. Or anything else. Ah, the halcyon days of global warming.
How’s Miss Smudge? My Juliette is very much like her, only black.
hamletta
@sputnikgayle: I have a really good microwave cookbook, and they had a recipe for making tomato sauce in the mic.
The author said they did it every year as a family assembly line thing, with their own tomatoes, plus a bushel or two from the farmers’ market.
hamletta
Oh, and Anne Laurie, thanks so much for the YouTube. That’s one of my favorite songs of all time. Guy Clark is a national treasure.
Sue
Make a trellis! Weave heavy twine in figure-8’s through all your existing tomato stakes. You can lift the heaviest fruit over the twine and the plants will hold each other up. Next year, start your tomato patch that way and just train the plants as they grow.
I’ve done this for years. You don’t have to buy cages or worry about the plants falling over.
Brachiator
@lamh32:
Yep. It is wild watching Sir Paul rocking it out in a room with a painting of George Washington on the wall.
Loved the camera shot early on of a white haired woman leaning over to sneak a peak at Sir Paul as he sat next to the president while another performer sang. Despite all her mature grace, I bet her inner teen was just screaming, OMG. Paul! The Cute Beatle!
WaterGirl
@WereBear: You should post a link to your wonderful cat books – I’m sure there are a zillion people on this site who could benefit from them and it might help you get to your downpayment a bit faster. :-)
Cain
I have yet to have a single tomato. :(
cain
SIA
@WaterGirl: I bought her book on line and downloaded it. It’s fantastic!
arguingwithsignposts
@SIA:
She’s fine. keeping cool as best able so far. Of course, late at night, she’s still in the climb-on-my-chest-and-purr mode, which makes sleeping more difficult. And she doesn’t give a damn what I think about it either. She’s getting her lovin’.
Yutsano
@debit:
I bet if it had bacon you would have. My favorite sammie evah right there.
mvr
I apologize for not checking if someone has already suggested it (I’m late to the party), but you can save yourself the seeding and peeling if you get a food mill. Just cook the tomatoes with garlic, salt, garden spices as your tastes suggest. Then when enough water has cooked out (quite a few hours at a low simmer with a lid to keep the tomato juice from splattering), run it through the mill.
A mill is a hand powered device which has a screw shaped blade that pushes the liquid through a bunch of tiny holes in the bottom into whatever you put under it. Old ones seem to be steel with nickel plating and you can turn up quite a few at garage sales for under five bucks. Fancier ones of stainless steel can be found at places like William Sonoma for a good deal more. But these have different bottoms with different hole sizes.
I do this with romas and with regular old mostly heirloom tomatoes and then pour it into tupperware and freeze it. Makes for a quick and tasty meal for several years thereafter if you make enough. And you may have enough plants to make enough.
gilintx
Tomatoes are my very favorite veg to put up. I’ve found that this recipe works beautifully:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/11044-tomatoes-packed-in-their-own-juices. If you prepare them very simply like this, you can always decide what to do with them later. I did this a couple of months ago with 25# of San Marzanos I got for a good price from a local farm. Now we’re set for canned tomatoes for the year!
Elie
You could adopt the time honored approach that if you have more quantities than you can deal with, bag them and do dead of night front porch gift drop offs… your friends wake up to “another fucking bunch of tomatoes” from (they know who it is). Also works for squash and zuchini later in the season. You can also put them in their unlocked cars and other locations when they refuse to answer their doors…
We also oven dry them and make scads of tomato sauce, but if you have a true bumper crop, that gets old and plan A above comes back into focus..
Enjoy though, its the best of what we all love about summer and one misses the sense of that bounty in January..
Mnemosyne
Just got back from a pilates session. I think tomorrow is going to be one of those, “Ow, it hurts to breathe” days.
Lesley
I notice Rosie is wisely avoiding direct eye contact with Tunch. You never know when he’ll turn the lasers on ya.
Cathie from Canada
How to ripen tomatoes slowly:
pick when they are still green or a little yellow, wrap individually in newsprint and layer in cardboard boxes. Store in a dark, cool, dry place. Unwrap and use a few tomatoes every week. Storing tomatoes this way, we have ripened them slowly over several weeks to a month or more. If they start ripening too fast, thenthey can be frozen unwashed in plastic bags, 12 to 15 per bag, then used for spaghetti sauce (freezing ruins the texture of a raw tomato, but they cook up just fine.)
Emma
re tomatoes: put them in little plastic beach pails and have adorable kids go door to door down the street trying to give them away. Or maybe that was just my mother getting rid of me for an afternoon . . . .
Re photos: Tunch looks awesome! Pups are cute too, and all look very relaxed and chill around each other, but there is just something special about a Turkish Van, they are just so large and self-confident and, well, willing to kill you for a piece of popcorn, all the while being totally adorable and snuggly.
WaterGirl
@SIA: I can’t quite tell from your comment – did you buy it on-line just now or are you chiming in to say you think it’s fantastic, too?
Yutsano
I know it’s in Time magazine, but I absolutely loved this article for both the snarkitude and the practical advice.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2006684,00.html
Origuy
@Roger Moore: One of the steepest stretches on the Tour of California is Sierra Road, a few miles from my house. It tops out at 10%. I tried to climb it once when I was in better shape. I got about an eighth of a mile.
asiangrrlMN
TUNNNNNNNCHIE! Love love love that boy. And, the girls are looking great–fast friends, it seems. Everything is fine at the House of Cole.
@SIA: Juliette is bee-yew-tee-ful! Love her eyes.
@Yutsano: Hi, hon. T-1. How you be?
SIA
@WaterGirl: I bought it on line and then downloaded it. It’s an e-book.
@asiangrrlMN, thank you. She’s very small and graceful.
Mnemosyne
A lot of people don’t realize that Los Angeles is actually quite hilly since the city and county are mixed in with multiple mountain ranges (the Verdugos, the Santa Monicas, and the Angeles). Near downtown, Fargo Street has a grade of 33% (no, I did not mistype that) and every year the Los Angeles Wheelmen have an event where crazy people ride up it.
debg
My dehydrator and mandoline slicer just came in today and I’m drying my first batch of tomatoes. They already taste fantastic, and they’ll store forever this way. The unit cost me less than $60 at Amazon and doesn’t tie up my oven for hours on end.
WaterGirl
@SIA: i must have be too tired to be communicating clearly… I bought the e-book, too, a few months ago and it’s been really helpful. I was just trying to ask if you’d gotten it just now or if it was something you had purchased in the past. Too tired, time for bed.
The Pale Scot
Yeah, drying is the way to go,
http://www.seasonalchef.com/tomdehyd.htm
The chef I worked for had something called he called oxhide? a synthetic that lined the pan so the tomatoes didn’t stick , if you do this you’ll be patting yourself on the back come February
booger
Dry dem bitches, bro.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: and SIA: Thanks, ya’ll!
Must get the new one done soon, too.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Hills in the Tour with a > 6% grade are generally ‘rated climbs’, and that’s for the world’s best bikers. 8% grade is a very steep hill, IMO.
Badtux
Have you not heard of okra and tomatos? Granted, usually done with the smaller tomatos, not the big ones. My grandmother would cut up okra and dice tomatos and put them up in freezer bags in the freezer, and eat on them until next year. Goes *very* well as a relish for purple hull peas.
Fry a bunch of your green tomatos. That’s what we always do in the South, we don’t wait for them to get ripe, we have fried green tomatos long before then. They’re yummy! Especially when fried in bacon grease. Sooooo bad for you, but…. heh.
– Badtux the Country Penguin