Tomatoes and more tomatoes....

What do you do with huge bags of tomatoes? You turn your kitchen into a processing plant and make some wonderfully rich preserved tomatoes!
I wont mention here the place looked like a hurricane had gone through it, with cutting boards, pots bubbling, jars everywhere and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!

I decided to try making some of my own tomato paste, dried form. The question was whether it should be reduced first or just pureed and dried in the dehydrator.......so I decided to try it both ways:)

The lot you see to your right was reduced on the stove first, it came out much darker naturally.

This is the lot I simply pureed without reducing, much lighter in colour as you can see.

The interesting part came when I set about reducing it to a powder in the mixer.....whilst this lot was fine and easy to turn to a powder, the reduced form just would not chop up well!

I ended up cutting the reduced lot into strips and will use in casseroles and soups, the remainder that did turn to powder form will be utilised in other ways.

Of course I couldn't resist just drying some to pop into oil with some basil, the dehydrator is still going with 9 full trays. I make a variety of flavours, some with basil, some with garlic and thyme, some with italian herbs, others with chilli....there really is no limit other than your own taste preferences:)

And remember, don't throw away the oil when the tomatoes have gone, use it for salads or on the grill, it has a real tomato tang that is delighful!

Hope your weekend has been a good one and the sun is shining on your garden:)

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS....

The garden is slowly warming to the change of season.......thank heaven! I was beginning to think I had lost quite a few of my trees to the hard and continuous frosts (19 consecutive -1C at least)

The sunflowers are doing wonderfully, this one is a multi-head, or a mutant! I have never seen one like this before be interesting to see how it progresses.

The lemon guavas have fruited like crazy, they certainly didn't mind the frosts. They taste gorgeous, to me nothing like a lemon.

Guavas are often included among superfruits, being rich in dietary fiber, vitamins A and C, folic acid, and the dietary minerals, potassium, copper and manganese.

Having a generally broad, low-calorie profile of essential nutrients, a single common guava fruit contains about four times the amount of vitamin C as an orange.

I couldn't resist including a pic of the wee flowers just poking their heads up. 

These are planted around the fruit trees. The bees go crazy over them so pollination is at an all time high, beauty and purpose.......what more could anyone want!

And whilst these can be found all over the place I can't resist them.

They love our hot summers, love being around the rocks of the pond where soil is rather shallow and rarely need any work other than a prune once a year.

The silverbeet has taken off too. We have 4 varieties in, the red, gold and standard, along with a Foodhook Giant that I use only for the chooks, it does not taste anywhere near as nice as the others. Chooks love it though:)

The celpar has gone beserk! It has been cut back 4 times since it came up and still continues to send fresh new shoots up.

I have dried a mountain of this for soups and casseroles, always nice to have that celery taste when the celery is actually not in season.

OK, last one.................and can anyone tell me what this is? A herb of some sort, but I have no idea what, it has just appeared and is now about 4 feet tall!

Now you know why I label everything LOL!

Today was not only hectic in the garden, but in the kitchen too............posts on that in the morning:)

Hope your weekend is a good one:)

Never a truer word said......

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.

Hope your week is a good one! Back to posting this weekend:)