What's Cooking? Tomato Pie - Tex-Mex edition!

Thanks to our fabulous CSA, Gorman Farm, we are nearly drowning in fresh, delicious tomatoes.  We have pounds - pounds! - of them sitting in our fridge.   I'm not really in the mood to can any more tomatoes, so I've been looking for things to do with them.  Luckily, the CSA also puts out a weekly e-newsletter with recipes for some of the produce we are receiving.  A few weeks ago, they sent out a recipe for Tomato Pie, which was an instant hit with my husband (not so much for the kids).  It's super simple to make and easy to adapt.  The original calls for a mayonnaise sauce, which is very rich, very creamy, and thankfully does not taste very mayo-y.

The original recipe  [Tex-Mex changes in brackets]:
1) Obtain pie crust - I get mine from the freezer section of the grocery.  If you're a real purist about making your own, more power to you.

2) Bake unfilled pie crust at 350 degrees for ~ 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Remove crust from oven.

3) Layer sliced tomatoes [and banana peppers] into crust.  I usually cut them ~1/4" thick, but again, it's not a precise science.  I layer until the crust is halfway full.

4) Spread sauce (which you have previously mixed).  The original sauce is 3/4 c. mayo, 1-1/2 c. shredded cheese, and salt & pepper to taste. [Tex-Mex version: 1/2 c. ranch dressing, 1-1/2c. Mexican four cheese blend, salt, pepper, and about a tablespoon (eyeball it) of Tapatio hot sauce.]

5)  Add another layer of tomatoes, and more cheese if desired (and really, who doesn't desire more cheese??).

6) Bake for ~ 15 minutes.

7) Remove from oven and ENJOY!

The final product

The side view

Fancy That! Gorman Farm

With this being the first week of school I've had a lot of responsibilities as both a mom and Vice President of my son's school's PTA, which has not left very much time for crafty projects.  Those that are in the "WIP" stage are nearly done, but not ready to post yet, and my dinners have been pretty ordinary.  As such, I'm starting a new segment called "Fancy That!"  This will basically be a shout-out to things/products/services/entertainment/whatever that I am currently crushing on. 

Let's kick off Fancy That! by giving love to Gorman Produce Farm in Laurel, MD.  Simply put, the food is delicious, the staff are knowledgeable and (more importantly in my book) don't give me dirty looks when my kids act like nutters when we pick up our weekly CSA order. 

My happy strawberry pickers!

Gorman Farm does Pick-Your-Own strawberries in late spring, a farm stand of local produce and other local foods (jams, pasta, honey, pies) during the summer and fall, and a CSA program that runs from the beginning of June through the beginning of November.  If you're local, I highly recommend you go check them out!

The CSA haul the first week

You can give them love on Facebook here.

What's Cooking? Watermelon Chutney!

Wow, two food-related posts in a row - I'm on a roll!

At last week's CSA haul, I came away with a very heavy bag laden with one red watermelon, one yellow watermelon, and one cantaloupe.  That's a lot of melon!  Considering that neither of my children will eat cantaloupe, and my son won't eat any type of melon, I knew I needed to find a recipe that used a lot of watermelon and had a decent shelf life.  I've heard a lot of people talk about watermelon pickles, but I wasn't really in the mood for pickling.

It's Melon Mania around here!

As I pondered what to do with these melons, I remembered hearing an NPR segment, Cook Your Cupboard, with Nigella Lawson.  She says of chutneys:

"It's a very good way of using up whatever produce you get that's inexpensive and in season. Cook it up with some chopped onions, brown sugar (or white is fine, too), cider vinegar and some apples (the pectin qualities of apples means that whatever you use tends to set). You can put it in jars, and it can last up to a year."

Maybe that's common knowledge, but to me it was a revelation.  I wasn't exposed to foods like chutney until I was an adult, so the thought that it was easy to make at home was incredible.

Having decided that my two watermelons fit the bill for "inexpensive and in season" produce, I looked for a watermelon chutney recipe online.  I found this one from the National Watermelon Promotion Board (who knew such an organization existed?!?)

The recipe, created by Chef Joe Poon, is as follows:

Ingredients

4 cups watermelon, juiced

2 cups watermelon (white part), diced small

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 onion medium, white and sliced

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1/2 teaspoon mace

1/4 teaspoon cloves, ground

1 tablespoon minced jalapeno peppers

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 lemon juiced

2 tablespoons currants

2 tablespoons roasted walnuts

Instructions

Reduce watermelon juice over medium heat to 2 cups. Combine all ingredients, and simmer until almost dry. Chill and serve.

Servings

Makes 1 pint.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I am not a stickler to the rules.  Do you remember that line in Pirates of the Caribbean where Capt. Jack Sparrow (my second-favorite Capt. Jack) says the Pirates' Code is really more like a set of guidelines?  Yeah, that's how I feel about recipes.

Here are my edits, additions, and omissions:

Watermelon juice - 2 c. yellow watermelon juice, 2 c. red watermelon juice

Oddly enough, the above do not mix to make orange.  Color wheel fail!

I doubled up on the garlic, because garlic makes almost anything better.
I omitted the mace, because WTF is that anyway?  Apparently, it's not this:

The ginger and cloves were eyeballed, and I added some allspice (maybe 1/2 tsp?) because hey, why not?

I was out of both currants and walnuts - I don't like walnuts anyway -  so I substituted raisins and pecans.

Here it is without the watermelon chunks.  The brown sugar made it really dark.

I added the watermelon chunks in at the very end so they wouldn't get too mushy. 

The red watermelon seems sweeter, but the yellow watermelon is firmer.

All in all, it took me about 3 hours start-to-finish and yielded 1-1/2 pints.  Once the jars were cool enough, I moved them to the fridge.  I plan on using the 1/2 pint tomorrow - I'll be sure to let you know how it turned out!

Watermelon Chutney Recipe created by Chef Joe Poon for the National Watermelon Promotion Board Ingredients 4 cups watermelon, juiced 2 cups watermelon (white part), diced small 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar 1/2 onion medium, white and sliced 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1 tablespoon minced ginger 1/2 teaspoon mace 1/4 teaspoon cloves, ground 1 tablespoon minced jalapeno peppers 1 teaspoon lemon zest 1 lemon juiced 2 tablespoons currants 2 tablespoons roasted walnuts Instructions Reduce watermelon juice over medium heat to 2 cups. Combine all ingredients, and simmer until almost dry. Chill and serve. Servings Makes 1 pint.

- See more at: http://www.watermelon.org/recipes/Watermelon-Chutney-156.aspx#sthash.qlA6KPWJ.dpuf

What's cooking? Tomatoes!

TMS and I belong to this awesome CSA - that's Community Supported Agriculture, not Confederate States of America.  The farm is just a few miles from us and not only do we get great produce as our weekly share, but they also have a farm stand where you can buy produce and goods from local merchants.  Last week, in addition to picking up our weekly share (hello, watermelon!) I purchased a 25 lb. box of "seconds" tomatoes from the farm stand and over the weekend I canned some tomato sauce.

To start, I boiled the tomatoes for about a minute, then plunged them into ice water.  This makes it easier to remove the skins.  After skinning them, I cut them in half width-wise and squeezed the seeds and extra water out, then threw them in a strainer to get even more water out.  I had to do all of this in batches - 25 pounds of tomatoes is a LOT of fruit and made quite a mess of my tiny kitchen.

This part of the process left my sink looking like a crime scene.

 After skinning and draining (sounds gruesome!), I cut out the tough spots by the stems, quartered the remaining pieces and threw them into a large pot.  I turned the stove on to about medium heat and let the tomatoes do their thing.  I found that with so many tomatoes, I had to wait for some of them to cook down before I could add more.  I did not, however, have to mash them at all - the cooking made them just fall apart. 

I let my tomatoes cook for about 4 hours, which reduced it by about 1/3.  Then, I followed the instructions on canning as found on Pick Your Own.  If you've never done any canning, or if you're like me and it's been a while, I highly recommend you check out Pick Your Own.  It is a great resource for not only canning/pickling/jam-making recipes, but also tells you when different types of produce are in season.  Here are my delicious pint-sized (literally) results:

Delicious!

I ended up with a total of 4 pints canned and 3 pints of rough chopped tomatoes I bagged and threw in the freezer.  I had one extra jar that I couldn't fit into the pot, and I was not about to do a 45-minute water bath for one jar, so I just threw that one in the fridge and used it the following day for pasta sauce.  So yummy!

This summer, I've made strawberry jam, pickled turnips, two varieties of pickles, and now these tomatoes.  I'm looking forward to apple picking in the fall for applesauce.  What are your favorite things to can/preserve/pickle?