August 12, 2010

Queen of the Castle: Week 32

For those of you playing along...(if you've just joined us you can get caught up a bit here) we are on week 32 of the book Queen of the Castle: 52 weeks of encouragement for the uninspired, domestically challenged or just plain tired homemaker.

This chapter is titled "The Bountiful Garden".  Lynne makes her case for zucchini being the most bountiful and hardiest plant on God's green earth.  I'd have to agree.  We didn't grow zucchini this year.  I still have bags of it in the freezer!  She shares this quote "There're only two things money can't buy, and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes!".  Well that's something that's going well in our garden. Other than the weeds, that is.  


Lynne shares a few tips for using all those tomatoes:
*Make tomato juice and can it.
*Whip up tomato soup, some to eat and some to share.
*Dry tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise almost all the way through, in your oven at low heat (200 degrees for nine to twelve hours) and store covered with olive oil in jars.
*Bless others who don't or can't have gardens with extra tomatoes! 
*If you want to keep tomatoes but don't have the time right then to do anything with them then freeze them whole in a zipbloc bad.  Later on throw them in a stew and the skins will float to the top.
*If you  have a bit of time you can core and chop up the tomatoes and bag them in 2 cup increments to use later in the tomato sauce recipe below.


Out of This World Fresh Tomato Sauce
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 bunch arugula, stemmed and roughly chopped (about 1 cup) -- or 1 cup romaine lettuce
1 tsp. coarse kosher salt
(Process all that in a food processor until lettuce is very finely chopped)
Add:
1/4 cup olive oil
Several large tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped (about 2 cups)

Process to a "chunky puree".  Refrigerate and use over pasta within a few days.


- - -
"Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You.  The earth has yielded its produce; God, our God, blesses up.  God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him."  (Psalm 67: 5-7)

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