Belated Top Ten and Tomatoes

Yes, this is just how I see myself!

I enjoyed reading everyone's Top Ten Tuesday posts last week so much that I decided to do my own...a week and two days late. But it was a fun exercise to not only see what I was reading but also picking which book I wanted to feature from the books finished in the month of August over the past ten years.

2025 - Heartwood, by Amity Gaige - absolutely loved everything about this "lost in the woods" book.

2024 - Table for Two, by Amor Towles - a set of short stories, linked by location, by one of the greatest living writers. I love everything Towles writes.

2023 - True Grit, by Charles Portis - a five-star classic western; I said I was going to read other books by Portis, but of course, haven't...yet! 

2022 - The Diamond Eye, by Kate Quinn - another five-star novel by Quinn, having a Soviet sharpshooter as the protagonist takes a lot of skill, but she pulled it off. A terrific WWII novel from a non-traditional (for me) perspective.

2021 - A Woman of No Importance, by Sonia Purnell - here's what I wrote back in 2021: "...this is one of the best books of 2021. Could not put it down. Virginia Hall was incredible--brave, passionate, capable. She persisted. Despite a prosthetic leg. Despite the old boys' network. Despite the Gestapo, betrayals, and red tape, she really, truly helped liberate France and end WWII. This is non-fiction at its finest."

2020 - Devil's Brood, by Sharon Kay Penman - an absolutely wonderful historical novel by one of my favorite historical novelists--this one is about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and their three sons. If there ever was a prototypical dysfunctional family, this is it. So good!

2019 - Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide, by Tony Horwitz - Tony's last book--he died while on book tour for it--I didn't do a post on it, not sure why. I learned so much about Frerick Law Olmsted, whose journey Horwitz traced. As a student of the Civil War (that sounds pretentious, but not sure how else to say it), I loved the premise of the book, and Horwitz didn't disappoint.

2018 - The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry - I gave this four stars on GoodReads, but I had to read my post to remember what it was about. I chose it because it was actually the only book I finished in this month--we were traveling in France in August 2018, so I probably read this book on the flights to/from.

2017 - The Women in the Castle, by Jessica Shattuck - another WWII novel, but this time the main characters are women in Germany. I think this is due for a reread. I liked it, but the details are fuzzy.

2016 - Eventide, by Kent Haruf - by one of Colorado's native sons, this is a beautiful book about small-town life on the prairie. To quote myself, "I loved the experience of reading Eventide--I loved the language, the stories, the tenor, the mood. Haruf was a master of his craft--his sparse prose creates a depth of understanding and compassion that is a joy to experience."

Garden Notes

It's August and so you cannot escape some garden notes. I have been harvesting tomatoes, and I made my favorite roasted tomato soup yesterday for dinner, with homemade croutons.

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I used 2.5 pounds of roma tomatoes, washed, sliced, and deseeded with two onions (also from the garden), quartered, and six cloves of garlic. I drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper and roasted at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. A great variation is to add sliced bell peppers to the medley.

I then transferred the lot to a stock pan, added a quart of chicken stock and two bay leaves, brought to a boil and simmered for 20 minutes.

I then removed the bay leaves and pureed the soup. I added 3/4 cup of milk (or cream if you want it richer and don't mind the calories), reheated, added a few dashes of Chihuly hot sauce for fun, and topped each serving with freshly julienned basil (from the herb garden).

The croutons are painfully easy as well. Just cube some bread (I usually have some heels of rustic loaves on hand), toss with olive oil and season with S&P, garlic powder, and Italian seasonings, and roast in 400-degree oven for 10 minutes or until crispy.

Tonight we are harvesting our first ears of corn!!!

Summer Garden Stew - or How to Use Up All That Squash

I've made the following concoction twice now and it is so delicious I simply had to share. This is definitely my own recipe, based on what I have on hand. 

• Peel and dice medium yellow squash. I didn't grow zucchini this year, but I think it would work just as well. 
• Peel and dice 1-2 Japanese eggplants. They're small, so just have roughly equal amounts of squash and eggplant. 
• Dice any other veg you have on hand--last time I threw in some bell pepper, but I didn't have any this time; carrots are also good.
• Core, halve, and thinly slice one medium to small jalapeno pepper (or omit if you don't want the heat).
• Peel, smash, and chop 3-4 cloves of garlic.
• Saute the vegetables in olive oil and season with salt and pepper, onion powder (or add diced onions), oregano, and thyme. 
• Add 1 14.5 oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes with their juice. I don't have any homegrown tomatoes yet, but I'm eager to sub them in when I do. 
• Add juice of 1 lemon. 
• Add diced cooked bacon and/or sausage. I had some leftover from Sunday breakfast and it adds a nice depth of flavor as well as protein, but going meatless is certainly an option. 
• Let simmer 5 minutes or so. 

Try to limit yourself to one bowl of this incredible goodness at a time!

Colorado Gumbo-laya

One of my favorite cookbooks is San Francisco Ala Carte, from the SF Junior League back in 1979, and one of my favorite recipes is their Gumbo, but I change it up a bit, adding some of the elements of Jambalaya and some ingredients that my family just likes.  If you search on the difference between Gumbo and Jambalaya, you'll basically get the idea that Gumbo is more of a soup, Jambalaya is more of a paella, and they share many of the same ingredients.

I love making soup and stew and since I'm starting to feel ready for fall, I made this last night for dinner and fell in love with it all over again!

Colorado Gumbo-laya

Ingredients
2 quarts chicken stock
Handful of dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tbs of tomato paste
1/4 tsp of ground cloves
1/8 tsp cayenne
3 tbs olive oil
3 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped bell pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cup diced ham
1 cup tomato sauce (I use homemade tomato glut, that I freeze in 1 cup portions) or 1 pound can of stewed tomatoes if you like tomato chuncks
1 tbs brown sugar
Handful of dried basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste (I prefer Cholula to Tabasco)
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 cup diced cooked chicken
1 cup basmati rice
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 pound shrimp, deveined, shell-off, and tail-off
Flour for thickening

In a large soup pan or Dutch Oven, combine the stock, thyme, bay leaves, cloves, tomato paste, tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes, and cayenne.  Bring to a boil then simmer/

Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat oil and saute onions, celery, bell pepper, and garlic until soft and onion is translucent.  I usually lightly salt and pepper at this stage.  I will often had the diced ham at the last to flavor it before adding the mixture to the liquid.  If I don't already have cooked chicken, I wipe out the skillet and then saute diced chicken in a bit more oil and add a bit of salt and pepper for flavor, and then add that to the soup pot.

Add hot sauce, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce, and simmer for at least 30 minutes, partially covered.

Add rice and simmer for another 20 minutes.  Add shrimp (cut to size of chicken and ham, or whole if you prefer it that way) and cook for 10 minutes.

Thicken with flour/water as needed.  My family likes thick soup, so I always make a slurry and thicken it at the end.

Serve with a baguette.

Corn Mango Salsa



 Mostly I blog about books, but occasionally I find a recipe that I love so much that I can't help sharing it.

This is just such a one.  I discovered it in early June and I've made it regularly all summer.  Fresh, delicious, beautiful, and now mostly from my garden.


Toss together the following ingredients--the * items are from my garden. 

• 1 jalapeno pepper* - diced super small
• 1/4 cup diced red onion*
• 1 handful of cilantro*, chopped
• 1 small tomato*, chopped
• 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• juice from 1/2 a lime
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 mango - peeled, seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup chopped orange bell pepper*
• 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels (I soak 1 ear of corn in water, then grill it, then cut the kernals off)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon white sugar
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Taste and try not to eat entire salad before serving with dinner!

Full disclosure--I adapted this recipe from the one I found here.

Looking in my blog archives, here's one of my own creation, what I call Summer Stew.  I haven't made it yet this year because the eggplant is just starting to come on, but next week it should be "what's for dinner" one night.

That's One Tasty Pickle

My mother always made the best pickles I ever tasted--hot and garlicky and dilly. We appropriated her recipe a few years ago and dedicated a precious raised bed to the core ingredients--pickling cucumbers, dill, and garlic. Over the past few years, we've been experimenting with different additives (all natural) and techniques to increase crispiness. Last year we added grape leaves.

This year our strategy is to pickle once a week, only a few jars, and just harvest right-sized cukes. We reduced the number of plants so that we don't have much waste. We also found a new tip--trim both ends as the blossom end has an enzyme that yields mushy pickles. By trimming both ends, you have a nice uniform look in the jar...always a plus :)

We put up two jars last night. Here's Mom's recipe.

Dill Pickles
For 6 quarts of pickles…

In large pot, combine and boil for 15 minutes:
2 ½ qt apple cider vinegar
2 ½ qt water
1 cup kosher salt

Fill sterilized jars with:
2 large heads (or equivalent amount of small heads) of fresh dill
Pickling cucumbers, with their ends trimmed (we like them about 3 inches long and about and just over an inch in diameter
3 cloves of garlic
3 bay leaves
2 dried red peppers
1 tsp peppercorn
1 tsp mustard seed
1-2 grape leaves--this is supposed to help crispness, and I think it does. I've read that oak leaves and horseradish also help, but these pickles are plenty hot without adding horseradish to the mix!

We put one head of dill at the bottom of the jar, fill it half full with cukes, then add the spices so that they are scattered throughout for maximum prettiness, then add the remaining cukes, the other head of dill, and then whatever tiny cukes we can cram in.

Then pour the vinegar/water/salt brine to about ¼ inch from the top. Put on a fresh lid, screw on band (but not tightly), and boil in hot water bath for 15-20 minutes. We've been doing 20 minutes, but may reduce the time to help with the crispness.

DISCLAIMER: pickling is tricky business to ensure that you don’t introduce bacteria into the product. So I am sharing my recipe, but read up on the correct process before attempting to make these yourself.

Summer Stew

We put in our vegetable garden late this year--we've been keeping a garden journal for the past eight years, and this was the latest mobilization in that timeframe. Something about teenagers tends to fill our time in the spring, but we finally found some time towards the end of May to get everything in.

I don't think we'll have any peas this year, but the beans are looking good and on Thursday I harvested our first fingerling eggplants. I picked some very small zucchinis to go with them. They grow about an inch an hour, so I wanted to get them before they turned into Fred Flintstone clubs. Then I turned to the Internet for fresh ideas on what to do with the fresh veggies and what I had in my pantry.

I found a promising recipe and modified it enough to suit my own taste and renamed it...

Summer Stew

Ingredients:
Eggplant, cut into ½ inch cubes (mine where so small I simply sliced them, and occasionally halved the slices)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (I used half a red onion left over from salad the night before)
4 cloves garlic, chopped (actually squeezed in the garlic press)
1/2 cup Basmati rice
Zucchini, cut into ½ inch cubes (same sliced rounds as the eggplant)
½ bell pepper, diced (I like yellow best, or orange, rarely red and never green)
3 fresh or canned tomatoes pureed or 1 cup of sauce (I finally ran out of frozen sauce from last summer's tomato harvest, so I used my final can of diced tomatoes from the pantry)
2 cups chicken stock (we roast a turkey so that we can make stock and freeze it in 1 cup portions)
salt, or to taste
red pepper flakes
chopped fresh basil
chopped fresh parsley
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions:
1. Place eggplant in a colander and sprinkle with salt.
2. Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven or large pot. Rinse eggplant and pat dry. Saute with onion, zucchini, bell pepper, and garlic.
3. Stir in rice and spices/herbs; then add tomatoes and stock. Cook over medium-high heat until mixture reaches a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes, or until vegetables are tender and rice is cooked—should be consistency of risotto.
4. Remove from heat and remove rosemary.

Delicious hot or cold.



Next week's dinner.