Mowlgi’s Tomato Sauce

A small fraction of our tomatoes.

A bit more canning lately to use up the last of our garden tomatoes. We sadly pulled up our tomato plants on Sunday… they were just looking far too sad though they did produce a lot of really yummy (though small) tomatoes this year.

We ended up making a full batch of 6 x 500mL jars of salsa (with the awesome label), and a small batch of tomato sauce. Bernardin said the recipe below would make 6 x 500mL jars, but we only got three and a bit. Of course, it was likely partially our fault, as we let it boil a bit too much. It was a bit sad to see a full 10lbs of tomatoes only make three jars, but at least it’s tasty tasty sauce, which made an amazing pizza base.

Two Challahs for Rosh Hashanah, Part 2

Night two of Rosh Hashanah: Challah with Golden Raisins and a Streusel Topping!

I followed the same recipe as the Apple Challah, but (obviously) without the apple filling. I added a few handfuls (maybe 2/3 cup?) of golden raisins into the mix in cycle of the bread machine, and then followed the the woven round method to shape it. I added an egg wash at the end, and sprinkled it with a super simple streusel topping (1 tablespoon margarine, 2 tablespoons flour, and 3 tablespoons sugar plus a shake of cinnamon).

And if I do say so myself, it turned out beautifully!

Golden Raisin Challah with Streusel topping!

This loaf was nearly as good as the apple challah taste wise. Maybe not quite as exciting, but still damn tasty.

Two Challahs for Rosh Hashanah, Part 1

Adam and I have been baking the Shabbat challahs for most family dinners for awhile now, and so this year we decided to volunteer to bring for each night of Rosh Hashana as well. Rosh Hashanah challahs really aren’t that different – but they are typically sweeter than usual to symbolize a sweet new year. Extra sugar, honey, apple, or raisins are a pretty typical addition for a Rosh Hashanah challah.

Night one we went with something a little unique… an apple challah from Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. It sounded easy enough: a slightly sweeter than normal challah with a simple apple filling rolled into each strand, jelly-roll style, braided and baked as normal. I wanted to go with a more traditional round shape for Rosh Hashanah, so after seeing a few kind of complicated instructions for the ““pinwheel” shape, I was happy to be directed to something a bit simpler – a “woven” round. Definitely more up my alley! I went in pretty confident this was something I could do – no problem at all!

Right?

Garlic Scape Pesto. Hmm.

What is this thing?

Cari and I have been receiving bins full of organic fruit and vegetables for almost a year now from Green Earth Organics.  Not only has it ensured that we’ve had plenty of apples, bananas and potatoes to eat, it’s also forced us to experiment with less familiar (to us) fare like radishes, kale, acorn squash, swiss chard and fiddleheads.

Our most recent bin included something called garlic scapes.  According to Wikipedia, garlic scapes are basically the stems that start growing out of heads of garlic that have been sitting for a while.

That still gave me no idea as to what one would do with these garlic scapes.  Further googling led me to garlic scape pesto.

I wound up basing my recipe on this Washington Post article.  We had enough garlic scapes in our bin to yield three batches.

Señor Miller’s Homegrown Tomato Salsa

Señor Miller

First, let me preface this post by saying that no matter how awesome this salsa recipe turns out, the highlight of the post will always be the last photo at the end of the post. Adam and I are totally and unapologetically dorks, and the photo at the end of this post proves that beyond all else. So there.

Now, onto salsa and the homegrown tomatoes.