Lunch

I took a picture of my lunch today because it was so good. I LOVE fresh garden produce!!!

We had fried zucchini and onions, plus a big bowl of green beans for dinner on Sunday and these were leftovers because we couldn't finish them all. And that was after Ella ate almost a whole plate of beans herself! They are delectable with a little salt and butter...

I don't have any red tomatoes yet but my neighbor does, and they shared some with us. (More on that in a minute). There is nothing in the world as good as a garden tomato sandwich. My father-in-law taught me to make it with hummus, which ups the delicious factor even more!

I planned on eating chips & salsa too, but I was too full so I saved it for snack time. I recently got a salsa recipe from my brother-in-law that is to die for! My jalapenos and onions are ready for picking so I made it to go camping last weekend, and it got scarfed by young and old! Here is the recipe for anyone interested in trying it:

JT's Salsa

One 15 oz can of tomato sauce
3-4 tomatoes (or 3-4 handfulls of grape tomatoes)

4-5 jalapenos (seeds mostly removed)
0-3 serrano or fresno chilis if available
10 mini sweet peppers or mild banana peppers or 1 - 1.5 large sweet bell peppers
1/3 cup sweet onion
1-3 cloves crushed garlic, depending on size
cilantro
juice from one small lime or 1/2 large lime

The more variety of peppers, the better it tastes. Use the best tasting tomatoes you can find.

My usual spices:
cumin, coriander, paprika, oregano
I don't measure, but I only use these sparingly, maybe 1/4 tsp each.

Sometimes I add:
fresh ginger root
horseradish (1/2 tsp)
parsley
chives

Put everything in a food processor, starting with the spices, hot peppers, and tomato sauce. Then add the rest & run it until it chops it to the desired size of chunks.

Back to my tomato sharing neighbor... He has a special pruning method that helps set fruit sooner. He pinches off every little offshoot from the main canes of the plant and stakes them up really tall. I think cutting back on the vegetative growth sends the energy into fruit production sooner.

I thought about doing this myself because my tomatoes are huge sprawling masses of vegetation and they only have small green tomatoes on them so far. I learned, however, that my tomato variety 'Celebrity' is determinate, meaning it is bred to grow to a certain height or size, and then stop. Indeterminate varieties, on the other hand (such as Big Boy, Early Girl, Beefsteak, and most heirloom varieties) continue growing and producing vines until the frost kills them back. Only indeterminate varieties should be pruned. Maybe next year I will try a few of each so I can get early and late tomatoes.