Summer Is Winding Down

It is almost Labor Day. The kids are back to school. The days are getting shorter. I hate to say it, but summer is coming to an end. I hope every one is gorging themselves on the bounty of their gardens . . . tomatoes, corn, summer squash, cucumbers . . . these will soon give way to winter squash, pumpkins, and cabbage.

Why am I pointing this out? Well, if you like to can tomatoes or freeze corn - now is the time to do it. The tomato crop has been hit hard by the blight, but they are coming in strong now, and the time is ripe (like the pun?) to do you canning. By the way, if you don't have your own garden, you can buy tomatoes for $14/20lb box at the Market - while they last.

Don't know how to can tomatoes? Well I found a great web site that includes pictures and step by step instructions for canning tomatoes here. If, like me, you don't want to can the 'whole' tomato, by can cook your tomatoes down and run them through a food mill. Now, when I'm feeling lazy, I can the resulting juice (follow the instructions on the page for the canning part, I just toss a scant teaspoon of salt on the surface of the juice after filling the jar).

If I'm hankering for some fresh spaghetti sauce, I will go the extra mile and cook it down. Now this takes patience, and your yeild is going to go way down (tomatoes have a lot of water in them), but the result is like nothing you can buy in a grocery store. Juice the tomatoes (BTW: I never use just tomatoes; my 'tomato juice' is more like a V8, with any and all veggies that are ready at the time, including summer squash, onion, peppers, fresh basil, etc.) and put the resulting juice in an oven proof pan (I have a big roaster I've used for this, and also some big pots that work nicely). You can cook it down over LOW heat either on the stove top, or in the oven (~250F), but you have to make sure you stir it periodically. Allow it to simmer away until the sauce reaches the desired consistency (I like mine thick) - up to a couple days (yes I said days). One tip, DO NOT season the sauce until it is cooked down. Then can the sauce just as you do the juice or the whole tomatoes.

The time and labor are well worth the product. I never purchase tomato juice in the store - to me it always tastes like the can. I grew up on home canned tomato juice and sauce, and I'm hoping to pass the tradition on to my own children!

That brings me to corn, which I know I've discussed freezing before. If you want to freeze corn, there's probably only a week or so of full season left, so don't dally. If you want a full bag or two for canning (5 dozen ears in a bag), just give the Market a call and let them know so they can add it to the next order (440-599-2020). Remember, there is nothing like Ohio sweet corn that you'll be able to buy in the grocery store over the winter. This is another labor of love that is well worth the effort. Besides, corn is easy - shuck it, blanch it for 10 minutes, shock it in cold water, cut it off the cob, and put it in a freezer bag and freeze. What could be easier!

Trust me, come January you will be so glad you took the time and trouble to put up tomatoes and corn now!

Chicken Parmagiana

We had this for supper tonight, and it was so tasty I had to share. It's a pretty easy recipe. Here's what you'll need:

4 Chicken breast halves
3C Italian bread crumbs
1T Thyme
3 Eggs
2T Milk
1C Flour
Olive oil
jar of Spaghetti sauce (I used the Borelli mushroom sauce)
Parmagiana, grated
Mozarella, sliced

I use the chicken breast from the Market (of course) and pound it out flat in the package before I open it - you want the breasts to be ~1/2 inch thick.

First, put you fry pan on the stove to get it hot while youNow this is messy, get out three big bowls. Eggs and milk wisked together in one, in another put the flour, in the third stir together the bread crumbs and thyme and add salt and pepper to taste. First, dredge each chicken breast in flour, then dip it in the egg wash, then coat it in the bread crumbs. Now is a good time to pre-heat your oven to 400F.

Now it's time to cook the chicken. Don't overload your fry pan - in my favorite pan, I could only fit one breast at a time. Add one or two tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, and fry the chicken until it is golden brown (about 5 minutes on each side, maximum). Drain the chicken on a paper towel.

Select a baking dish large enough to put all of the chicken in a single layer (or maybe two), coat the dish lightly with olive oil. Add half the tomato sauce to the bottom of the dish and spread it out. Arrange the chicken in a single layer. Sprinkle parmagiana generously over the chicken, then cover it with a layer of mozzarella.

Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 400F - until the moz is bubbly and lightly browned. I heated the other half of the sauce on the stove top, so those of us who like sauce could add it to our side of pasta (the Kluski noodles make a nice liquine-type side, or if you prefer thinner pasta, the angel hair is a good choice). If you are a sauce lover, you can add the other half of the sauce over the chicken before putting on the cheese, but my family prefers less sauce on the chicken.

Now the recipes I looked at said that this would make 4 servings, but I did the four chicken breasts, and a pound of pasta, and it fed out family, so I'd say this was probably enough for 6 people to have pretty decent sized portions.

Chicken parm that beats a lot of restaurants, I would wager, and it really is quite easy. The kids love to help beat the chicken up, and mix the chicken coating, and sprinkle cheese. It's a very family-friendly recipe, and delicious to boot. Give it a try!!

Practical Ideas for Pest Control - Without Chemicals

The other day a customer requested that I stop by and help them identify the perennials they had planted in a raised bed. These raised beds were gorgeous, with Russian sage, meadow sage, lilies, grass pinks, sedum, etc. and though they had lost a few things (the gentleman admitted that he may have pulled some things by mistake), the gardens, by the time we got done pulling the worst of the weeds, were very nice. The one thing I noticed was the smell - not a lovely, damp dirt and flower perfume smell that is heavenly when you're gardening; but this awful cat urine odor that turned my stomach.

I suggested the cat-scat stuff that you can buy at a Lowes or Home Depot, but if you're like me, you prefer not to use chemicals. In my gardens, I always have to consider the animals and children that tend to play in them. Hence, todays topic. A friend sent me an email with the top ten uses for used coffee grounds, and one caught my eye:

"Kitty repellent. To keep kitty from using the garden as her personal powder room, sprinkle grounds mixed with orange peels around your plants."

Well, who would have thunk it - coffee grounds and orange peels - two of my favorite smells - will repel kitties. Chalk one up for beneficial reuse of waste! And it won't screw up my olefactory experience when I garden, either - double-bonus!

Also, I thought I'd post the sucking bug repellent we recommend to our customers for use on veggies, etc. It works quite well, though it does require re-application after a rain. I've actually updated the recipe based on experience with the spray over time:

Soak 3 ounces of finely minced garlic cloves and a teaspoon of red pepper flakes in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil for at least 24 hours. Slowly add 1 pint of water that has 1/4 ounce liquid soap or commercial insecticide soap mixed into it (I do this in a quart jar that I can screw shut with a lid). Thoroughly mix by shaking (this is the best way I've found to emulsify the oil) and then strain the concentrate into a glass jar for storage. To make up spray for application, add the concentrate at a rate of 1 to 2 Tablespoons of mixture to a pint of water. If this is effective, try a more dilute solution in order to use as little as possible.

For other natural bug spray recipes, check out the internet. There are tons of resources for the natural gardening - and a lot of them are cheaper than running to the store to buy the latest pesticide. Here's a couple links to get you started.

Canadian Country Woman: Natural Bug Sprays

About.com Natural Mosquito Repellents

Suite 101.com Organic Pest Control

Do you have some tips for organic gardening or a link you'd like to share? Please do!

Buffalo and Blue Burgers

I posted a photo of these little darlings on my Face Book page and was astounded by the response, so I thought I'd share the recipes I used in making them. They really are very easy, and once you bite into one, you'll think you're at one of those gourmet burger places - only better!!

First, you have to start with your burger. Now, if you're watching calories and fat, you can use buffalo, but be aware that when you are cooking buffalo burgers you must cook over a lower heat than you usually do with hamburger, and they don't take long to cook, so watch them.

I like to mix some spices into my meat before forming the burgers. I love the crushed garlic from the Market, because it mixes in so thoroughly. I also added salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper to the meat. That's all I used, but you can mix the spices of your choice into the meat, just don't overmix - it can make the meat kind of tough.

At best you can expect to get about 3 burgers per pound, but it depends on how large you like your burgers. I have experimented with a couple ways of forming them. One method is to take your burger for one portion, split it in half, and form two very thin patties. Place about a tablespoon of Cashel Irish Blue Cheese in the center of one patty and cover it with the other patty. Carefully pick the patties with cheese up and seal the edges, and form the final burger. Note that when you are using buffalo, the patties are very tender and tend to fall apart, so be careful, and patient. The extra fat in hamburger tend to make the meat easier to handle from that standpoint, so it is a tradeoff. But trust me, the buffalo is worth the extra effort!!

Another way to form them is to take your burger portion and form it into a ball. Poke a hole into the center of the ball and shove in the cheese, closing over the hole. Then flatten and form your burger as you normally would. This method makes it more difficult to really load the burger with cheese (maybe that's a good thing - lol), but you're also less like to lose it, as it is sealed in the center of the burger a little better.

Sautee the burgers over medium heat until cooked through. Some of the cheese may ooze out into the pan, but that ok. If you are feeling really indulgent, toast up your bun in the pan that you fried the burgers in - some of the cheese will crisp to the bun, making it extra yummy. If you have a working grill (we don't at the moment, darn) do the cooking on the grill!

As for the condiments, I think I've given you my guacamole recipe before, but here it is again for good measure:

2 avacadoes - ripe (they should give some, but offer resistence, when you press on the sides, we try to keep a few out of the cooler so they ripen. If it will be a few days before you make your guac, buy them out of the cooler, hard, and let them sit at room temperature and a day or so until ready. Guac really should be eaten as soon as it's made, thought I'm not above eating it the next day, though it isn't usually a real pretty green anymore, as the flesh of the avacado oxidized to a brownish green - still tastes great)
juice of one lemon (if you really enjoy the lemon flavor, add the zest, too)
Salt and pepper to taste

That's it, mash it all together and enjoy. Now avacados do have fat in them, but it's the good kind of fat, and they are also a great source of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, so don't turn your nose up because of the fat content. This is a much better for you spread than something like mayo. Give it a try!! By the way, if you want, you can add things to your guac - last night, I added about a tablespoon of finely chopped jalepeno, just because we like the heat, and since there was cilantro in the tomatillo salsa, I also added some to the guac (we love fresh cilantro;). My mom likes to add some of the Market prepared salsa to her guac. Experiment, and find what you like!

The Tomatillo salsa (actually, I'd call it more of a relish) recipe I used was from the Food Network is really good. I went a little heavy on the onion, and used the local candy onions from the Market. I also did NOT use a food processor, but just diced the ingredients and tossed them in a pot, but I tend to like my salsa chunky, so suit yourself.

Tomatillos, or husk tomatoes as they're also known, if you've never had them, are a little different to work with than their cousins, tomatoes. You'll want to husk them, and wash them (they have a waxy substance inside the husk, and it's sticky). The insides are much firmer, with little to no loose watery stuff like in a regular tomato.

You can add whatever other embellishments you like - a nice big slice of fresh, homegrown tomato and a slab of candy onion are two of my favorites - but forego the usual ketchup and mustard or mayo, and give these burgers a try. You won't be disappointed!!

Do you have any unusual condiments that you like on your burgers? Please, share!!