Tomato tamahto

Right before the cruel frost in the second week of September I quickly harvested all the remaining vegetables in my garden. I didn’t mind harvesting the carrots and beets as they had grown to a nice size and I was able to easily can or store them for the winter. What pained me the most was picking dozens and dozen of green tomatoes. For weeks now I have watched them slowly turn from green to red. Of course since I picked them all at the same time, almost all of them turned red at the same time. I decided to slow roast most of the Roma tomatoes in my oven. I cut them in half and sprinkled them with olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

Then I placed them in the oven for a couple of hours at a low temperature and the results were glorious.

The bottoms of the tomatoes were slightly caramelized from all the natural sugars.  I served these with a bit of goat cheese and mixed greens with a balsamic dressing. Heaven.

For dinner I made a vegetable galette with a roasted tomato puree. I roasted some beefsteak tomatoes and onions from my garden and some garlic from my dad’s garden.

After 30 minutes in the oven the tomato mixture was ready to go into the blender.

After the mixture was pureed I put it back on the stove and reduced it a bit.

As for the galette, I sautéed some vegetables and made a corn meal crust. You are supposed to use four-inch tart shells, but since I had none I just rolled the dough into six-inch circles. I placed a half cup of vegetables in the middle of the pastry and folded in the sides of the pastry. I topped it off with a dollop of goat cheese. I baked it for 20 minutes and served it with the tomato puree. I can’t take total (or any really) credit for the recipe as I stole most of it from John Bishop’s cookbook Fresh. He owns Bishop’s in Vancouver.

You might have noticed that I’ve mentioned goat cheese twice in this posting. I have to say that Smoky Valley Goat Cheese, (an Alberta product sold at the downtown farmers’ market), is some of the best goat cheese I have ever had. I bought a CSA share from them so I can enjoy their wonderful product all year round. I would also encourage you to read the entry by Kevin Kossowan. It’s interesting for two reasons: the product itself, and Kevin’s dedication to helping this producer. I hear a lot of people talking about supporting local producers, but this is the first time I have ever seen someone take it upon themselves to really help. He is redesigning their website, promoting their product, and. when I was at the market on Saturday, I saw him at their booth (I recognize him from his video on butchering pork, so I’m not a total creeper). It’s totally making a difference as I had to line up to get my goat cheese this week. Way to go Kevin and Smoky Valley – keep up the great work, and please keep supplying my goat cheese cravings.

JP, if you have never had their cheese I suggest you get your butt over to my house sometime this weekend before I eat it all.

My next post will be about Thanksgiving – Boyfriend Makes Coq au Vin or maybe Burnt Boyfriend, when he attempts to deglaze the pan.

Posted by King Crabby