Pasta Slop

It has hit peak season for zucchini and tomatoes at my house.  I have been trying to sneak them into every meal in some way or another just to use them up.

One of the quick dishes I love to make this time of year is pasta with whatever veggies are ready in my garden.  I am not s huge meat eater (much to my husbands annoyance), so when I cook I am fine to just load up on veggies.

My assistant this summer is Italian-Canadian, and on our trips on the road the conversation often turns to what is going on in our gardens & our kitchens.  The other day for lunch he had another version of what he calls "pasta slop".  Basically he throws together whatever is in the garden with whatever meat is on hand and tosses it with pasta.  So this is my version of pasta slop at the peak of zucchini & tomato season.  It is somewhat based off of this recipe from Canadian Living for seared cherry tomato pasta.

• spaghettini (or whatever other pasta you have on hand)
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 small zucchini, shredded 
• 3 big cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 pinch crushed hot pepper flakes (I usually add more since we like it spicy)
• grated Parmesan cheese
• chopped fresh basil
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup pasta water

Cook the pasta to your taste (reserving about 1/2 cup of the pasta water).  Heat 1 tbsp of the oil over medium-high heat.  Sauté tomatoes until lightly seared, about 1 minute.  Add zucchini.  Cook until hot, and remove from pan.

Add remaining oil to pan; cook garlic and hot pepper flakes over medium heat until fragrant and softened ~ 2 minutes. Add tomato & zucchini mixture, pasta and reserved pasta water, stirring to combine. Toss with Parmesan cheese and basil.  

This serves 4, but we like leftovers so it works perfect for us - but you could increase/decrease based on how much you want. 

In true pasta slop style you could throw whatever else you have into the pan too (fresh beans come to mind earlier in the summer).  If you are planning on having leftovers you might want to add a bit more pasta water so it keeps better in the fridge, as the pasta will absorb the leftover liquid. It is actually great cold for lunches too!

Rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of those things that I grew up with.  When visiting a friend or relative with rhubarb I remember being given stalks for my brother and I to chew on.  To this day, I still love munching on the end of some wonderfully tart rhubarb.

my rhubarb in need of a trim again!

It may not be the most beautiful plant, but boy does it make me smile.  Those delicious red stalks and giant leaves.  Aunt S is always telling me I should make some stepping stones for my garden with the imprint of the giant leaves.  It is a wonderful idea, I just haven't got around to it yet!

When I bought my house I was quite happy to see that there was a little patch of rhubarb growing already.  Great!  It meant that it was one less thing to buy/find.  In my first summer, I actually split that plant into 2, and replanted.  Low and behold, the smaller portion that was moved to a new location went absolutely crazy!  It is in a great spot - right next to my rain barrels along the back of my house.  that means it gets lots of sun and lots of water.  Perhaps that is why its so happy there.

From the reading that I did, I was instructed to not harvest for the first year or two after planting.  Well that went totally out the window, when by the end of the first year I had a huge plant that needed to be cut back!

Now I should note that I have since split the new plant for another Aunt, and it definitely has not done as well at her house.  Not that it doesn't get enough sun or water - it just seems to love the spot in my yard.  Or maybe its the annual addition of alpaca poo that gives it a boost.

So every year I cut it back at regular intervals throughout the spring & summer to make desserts, pass along to relatives (who also love rhubarb), and freeze for the long winter.  Favorites with rhubarb include:

Fruit crisp - I love the mix of tart rhubarb with fresh berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, whatever you have on hand!)
Oatmeal squares with rhubarb sauce - think granola bars with rhubarb filling!
Rhubarb pie
Rhubarb coffee cake

So here is to all you rhubarb lovers out there!

Weekend harvest

I have been busy the past few weeks.  We were up north weekend to celebrate our 1st anniversary,  worked out of town for a couple of days, and spent another couple of days away for a concert.  That meant my garden was a little neglected.  I still managed to get everything watered, but I just didn't have time (or energy) to go through and harvest things like I normally do.

That meant on Sunday I had to pick up the slack....and ended up with this

I gave up on picking cherry tomatoes after my first bowl was full, figuring I could lure my niece over to gobble up a good portion that are still on the plants.  And there were a couple more zuchs just about ready but I couldn't bring myself to cut them off since I already have 7 stashed in my fridge (along with 2 x 2L baskets of heirloom tomatoes).

Hubby says I am not to put Alpaca poo on my garden next year because we cannot possibly consume this much produce between the two of us.  Although that is true, I love seeing my fridge (and counter) full of homegrown produce!  Now if I could only figure out what else to do with all these tomatoes...

Easy Roasted Tomato Sauce

I love to put up my own sauce for he winter!  I have done so for the past 5 years, slowly learning the tips and tricks.

I now grow 8 Roma tomato plants exclusively for sauce -- that usually produces enough for me to make a few batches of home made sauce and put up enough to last my hubby and I through the winter.  The recipe I use is modified from an old family recipe that was passed on to me.  And although I love making that sauce, when the thermometer is reading anything more than 30 degrees C, it is just too hot to have a big old pot on the stove all day.

Last years heat wave gave me a record Roma crop -- but also meant that my Hubby put the kibosh on adding any more heat to my house than necessary.  With my regular sauce out of the question and tomatoes just waiting to be put up in one way or another I started looking for alternatives.  Eventually I stumbled on a suitable recipe somewhere in an old book.  I could easily roast these wonderful tomatoes making a delicious rich sauce without turning my house into a sauna!

I line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, cut the tomatoes in half (I use mostly romas, but I have thrown in other varieties if I want to get rid of them too -- see the cherry tomatoes mixed in below!).  Add a carrot cut into big chunks, and a few cloves of garlic (note - I am allergic to onions, so they are excluded from all my recipes, but you could easily add them in here!).  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and any herb of choice (I used some dried basil this time), and drizzle with olive oil.  Throw it in an oven on low heat (I use around 250-300 degrees), and let it go.  I check on it about every 30 minutes to make sure nothing is burning and adjust the temperature accordingly.

Depending on how much moisture is in the tomatoes I usually bake for 60-90 minutes until they look nice and roasted, flipping when necessary so they don't burn.  When I pull them out of the oven, I dump everything into my blender to wizz up until its a consistency I like.  I let it cool, and throw it into an air-tight container and into the freezer it goes for a wonderful winter meal!

Since I am usually trying to limit the heat in my house, this is something I tend to do after 8pm once the sun is going down and its cooling off.  This sauce ends up being pretty thick, and also works well with eggplant parmesan or for anything else you want to pair with it!

This is also a great for those times when you have a smaller amount of tomatoes ready and don't want to put the effort in to making sauce the regular way.

Enjoy!

Raspberries!

Ahhh I caught some flack when I told people I was planting raspberries in my garden.  I was warned time after time that they would spread all over and just become a nuisance.  I didn't think it was too big of a deal - in fact I was hoping that they would spread!  Especially into the easement behind my property where there is lots of space!  What is better than a big raspberry patch?

It has take about 4 years, but I finally have a good raspberry crop.  The few stalks I originally planted have multiplied, but they have stayed in the same area they were planted.  I have yet to see them spread to the other side of my fence, but I still have hope.

And now, we are getting our second crop of berries for the year.  Is there anything better than eating berries fresh off the bush?  Maybe a raspberry jam to remind us of those delicious summer evenings picking berries.  But for that to happen, I would have to have to curb dear Hubby's appetite for the berries.

Maybe next year we will have enough for jam...

Zucchini Overload

Well it is that time of year.  I now have zucchini coming out of my ears.  Although the G and I love to eat all of the fresh things coming out of my garden, there comes a point when I have so many stashed in my fridge and on my counter that I dread having to eat another one.  Usually we just throw it on the grill, but on occasion we have it with pasta, in a salad, or if its not unbearably hot I will bake a few loaves of zucchini bread.

Luckily, we have a giant chest freezer in our basement just waiting to be filled!  In past years I have simply grated and bagged zucchini to freeze for zucchini bread.  But this year my single plant is doing so well (or maybe we just haven't been eating as much?), that I have started to blanch and freeze chunks of zucchini from my garden.  It will definitely make a nice addition to stirfrys and pasta in the winter months!

It is easy to do - just cut the ends off the zucs and chop into evenly sized pieces.  Get a big pot of boiling water going, and a big bowl of ice water close by, with a strainer or slotted spoon.  Toss the pieces into the boiling water for about a minute (you want it to be cooked a bit, but still pretty firm), and immediately transfer to the cold water bath to stop it from cooking.  I like to put the pieces onto a tray with a silpat to throw into the freezer for a couple of hours.  I find it freezes better this way, and prevents the chunks from freezing together.  Note - you could skip freezing the chunks on a tray and go directly to a freezer bag, but it means that you will likely have to use the whole bag at once since they chunks will freeze together.  Then I throw the frozen chunks into a freezer bag, seal it up and toss it in the chest freezer until needed.

What are you doing with your zucchini this year?

Wecome!

Alright, so this is my first official blog post.  I suppose I should introduce myself to those of you that don't know my.  My name is Candice -- I love the outdoors, I work with insects and frogs, and I have a passion for baking.  I am a bit old-school in terms of my hobbies - you can often find me knitting, quilting, gardening, cooking or canning when my nose isn't stuck in a book.

I thought this might be an interesting outlet for me to share what is going on in my life.  Recipes, gardening tips and tricks, and whatever else I have going on.

I look forward to sharing with you!