Posts Tagged ‘Tomatoes’

I’ve been making this tomato salad for a decade, at least. Gosh, that sounds like a long time doesn’t? The weather is getting colder and my inclination is to eat cheese, bread and meat but I’m really trying to keep the veggies in the forefront this fall.  I over-bought  tomatoes last week and thought this was the perfect dish to make with them. This salad doesn’t take much time to prepare. I like making it in advance so when I’m hungry and looking for something  to eat, it’s ready to go. […]

The Beach 91st Street Community Garden is in full season. I wanted to share some photos of the delicious foods growing inside. But first, note the beautiful new fence that has replaced the plywood, which was barely standing for quite some time. Before… After! The group organized a go fund me to help with the cost and members installed the fence last weekend. Thanks guys! So what’s growing? A few garden members are growning corn! And red leaf lettuce. Beautiful purple tomatoes… I believe these are indigo rose? Japanese greens – I had to […]

Y’all, its too damn hot to cook!! My mom gave me a bunch of tomatoes and basil on Sunday and I thought “how can I eat all of these without turning on the oven?” Here are some simple recipes I came up with. I hope you like it and I hope you are not forced to use your oven too much in this heat! You can add anything of your preference to these recipes, some cured meats in the pasta salad, cucumbers to the salad, whatever your heart desires! Let […]

If I haven’t mentioned, I have a plot in the Beach 91st street community garden.  It’s across the street from our house. There’s been two potluck garden dinners so far, where members bring dishes with food they’ve grown from the garden. It’s been fun to meet everyone and talk shop over supper. I’ve been meaning to take some photos of what’s growing and what’s going on behind the gates. We keep bees! About a month and a half ago we adopted a bee hive from NYC beekeepers. I love seeing how everyone […]

This photo sums up our new life – cats, construction and food. We’ve been making pit stops on our way home, “food shopping” for delicious tomatoes and other vegetables  from Maureen’s garden. (No judgement please; we’re on a budget now!)  This sheetrock container has come in handy. Reuse, recycle, right? Even thought I’ve been laboring at the house daily, It feels like I’m on vacation. I’ve been body boarding after I’m done working at the house, biking, and enjoying the beach. Shore living is relaxing by nature, I suppose. I’ve also […]

We have so much basil – I really need to start making pesto with this! It’s harvest season. We have a rat munching on our tomatoes (not cool). It makes perfect sense, since Ridgewood has been overrun by them this year. My theory is that our intruder scales the climbing vines on our building and makes his (or her) way up to the RD for a midnight snack. Considering I rarely see squirrels on our block, I’m 90% sure it’s a rat.  Urban gardening is not easy, gosh!  We have a […]

This post is primarily about baby fruits, of which there seem to be many on the deck! This is a dark cherry varietal we bought as a seedling. But we’re more excited about the Roma plants we grew from seed — they’re also fruiting! I’m so proud of them. We also have baby eggplants, and baby Italian peppers! And while this isn’t technically part of our garden, the pear tree two yards over is beginning to fruit. I have a feeling Paula will work up the gumption to ask them […]

We have a lot of photos this time because there are so many interesting things happening on the deck. First, we’ve noticed that many things we seeded last year are coming back. We have wildflowers, marigolds, thyme and now, cilantro! There are 5 or 6 seedlings that grew from last year’s plant. Here’s a particularly cute specimen: cilantro above In our first garden update, we were wondering what the wildflower that grew from seed in the cinder block was. We still don’t know the name, but it has bloomed! We have […]

Okay, okay. Technically, it’s not summer yet. But the roof deck is starting to shape up nicely. The first big surprise was one of our rose bushes, which is becoming more like a rose tree this year. This is pretty cool too– it looks like there is going to be 20 or 30 flowers from the wildflower growing in our  cinder blocks. (I forget exactly what I planted.) It blows my mind that this is growing from probably only 2 or 3 cups of soil! We have thyme growing everywhere, […]

It is always a little sad when Labor Day rolls around and the summer evenings turn cool and begin to hint at winter’s arrival. However, one of my favorite things about the beginning of fall is the beautiful plum tomato harvest. This year I jarred (canned) 150 pounds of tomatoes, which yielded forty quarts of fresh tomato sauce. It is a long process, but if you enjoy cooking and working with fresh ingredients, it is a very satisfying way to spend a day. In late August and early September most […]