It’s my big tomato week! I’m thinking of doing some samples, except I don’t really like to because it’s not child-friendly. All those X-rated noises coming from the tomato samples area 😉 So come out, bring your friends and family and help me sell all these super beautiful and delicious tomatoes! I hope to have a lot next week too, then it’s a downward spiral after that.
Plus, the market is just so awesome right now. Did you know we have homemade pasta, raw fruit and veggie juices, jewelry made from stones that the vendor mined herself, French pastries, organic coffees, and even organic olive oil and balsamic vinegars sold by a family who has an olive farm in Greece! Last week Wendy got me an organic balsamic vinegar infused with chili. Then I went over and splurged on their extra virgin olive oil. My tomatoes deserve it.
I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow ’til 1 with:
tomatoes: Brandywine, Giant Belgium, Azoychka Russian, Giant Green, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Kellogg’s Breakfast, Long Tom, Bloody Butcher, Limmony, Aunt Ruby’s.
mini cukes + slicers, lemon and zephyr squash, German Butterball & Huckleberry Gold potatoes, green peppers, sweet banana peppers and 3 kinds of eggplant: purple, Rosa Bianca Italian and mini fairytale.
I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts:
Ribeye, NY strip, sirloin steak, osso bucco, short ribs, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, brisket, sirloin tip roast, eye of round roast, boneless chuck roast, liver, quarter pound hot dogs, and sliced pastrami made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites.
Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.
Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing.
My grandma taught me a good trick for freezing tomatoes: wash and freeze! No scalding, peeling, processing or anything. Take a bag of frozen tomatoes out of the freezer and when they thaw, the skins just pop off. Or if you have a high speed blender just throw it all in there for soup, and no one will ever know you left the skins on.
I like to quarter my big heirlooms, and freeze them skin on in quart size freezer bags packed full. That’s the perfect amount for this recipe, which can be served hot in winter or it is also delicious cold, as gazpacho that you can make this weekend! It’s super healthy and so good. So just thaw the bag of frozen tomatoes enough to blend and throw this all in the blender, then into a pot to heat it up. For a creamy, warm tomato soup add some coconut milk!
6 cups of heirloom tomatoes, cored, (usually 3-4 of my big tomatoes); 1/2 to 1 c packed fresh basil (I almost never have this so I usually leave it out); 1/4 c apple cider vinegar; 2 T olive oil; 1 tsp soy sauce or coconut aminos; 1 clove garlic; sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Put it all in a blender and blend it up. I top it with chopped avocado.
It’s super handy to have frozen tomatoes on hand, to toss into the crock pot with roasts, or into vegetable soup. The small tomatoes, like Bloody Butchers can be frozen whole.
It’s so dry. That’s the creek. RAIN PLEASE.
Moo and Abigail got their hooves trimmed this week. Because Moo is a steer, he will never stop growing. It’s testosterone that tells a bull’s body to stop growing, and well he doesn’t have any of that. So his back is over my head now and he barely fit into the trimmer’s contraption. Still as gentle as a baby lamb though 🙂
To die for: Maple Roasted Bloody Butchers – equal amounts of coconut oil and maple syrup, drizzled over halved BBs. A little sea salt. Roast at 250 for 3-4 hours, until half dried and concentrated. Being super impatient, I usually increase the temp to shorten the time.
See you tomorrow <3
