Tips on beets

From what I have noticed not to many people like beets, and others have no idea what to do with them. So here is a little help. First off you can eat the whole thing greens and all. I chopped the beet greens up and tossed them with mushrooms, and green leaf lettuce, you can use any lettuce, and balsamic dressing.

The stalks i'm going to saute with celery and broccoli as a veggie side dish. The beet part takes a little prep but then it can be used in all kinds of recipes. Preheat oven to 375. Take beets and cut off greens and stalks and save, cut off root and discard. Wrap each beet in foil, place on a cookie sheet and bake for an hour or until a fork goes in with ease.

Allow to cool then remove skins. Removing the skins is tricky because they stain. If you have kitchen gloves wear them, I don't so I used plastic sandwich bags to cover my hands, and removed skins over the trash can.

At this point you can use them in a salad or in any beet recipe you have, or you can store them in the fridge until you are ready to use them. Enjoy!

Homemade Diced Tomatoes

This makes 2 1/2 cups of tomatoes. Take 10 roma tomatoes cut the stem end off then cut in half. With a spoon scoop out seeds and place skin side up on a cookie sheet. Turn broiler on high. Drizzle some olive oil over the top of tomatoes and toss around so they are coated. Place under broiler for ten minutes.

Take them out when the skins are wrinkly. And look like this.
Allow to cool then remove skins and chop up tomatoes to desired consistency. Enjoy!

20 Pounds of Tomatoes

So in my new quest in making homemade food, I decided to buy 20 pounds of organic locally grown roma tomatoes. With them I made salsa, tomato sauce and mushroom tomato sauce. I had so much fun experimenting and learning how to make things. Next tomato season i'm going to get more so I can make diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes, no more cans. Its so much fun to make everything homemade!

Abundant Harvest Box

In the box this week we got to many plums to count! We also got 6 pears and 1 cantaloupe. 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 1 bunch of green chard and italian parsley, 4 beefsteak tomatoes, 1 carton cherry tomatoes, 6 carrots, 3 zucchini, 10-12 potatoes, lots of jalapenos, 4 bell peppers, and radishes. Since we have gotten carrots 2 weeks in a row I will take what I had leftover from last week and make baby food. Also i'm going to freeze the bell peppers.

Seasonal Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

Pear, grapes, apple, plum, and pomegranate

Make It:

Cut all fruit into small pieces. Peel pomegranate and get all seeds out. Mix all together in a bowl.

Enjoy!

A little info about pomegranates, it is a little difficult to get the seeds out. Once you do though they are very good, sweet and a little sour. Also they are very high in antioxidants, contain vitamin c, vitamin b5, and potassium.

Abundant Harvest Box

I decided to add a new feature to the blog! I want to show you guys what yummy veggies and fruits I get in my box. I really think its a great deal. I switched my subscription from a small box to a large box. The plan was to take everything out and take a picture. I got so excited about how much good stuff was in it that I forgot to take the picture! So here is a list:

25-30 october sun plums(I didn't count but it was alot)

4 pomegranates, 1 bag dark grapes

4 zucchini, 3 lg tomatoes, a container of cherry tomatoes

1 lg head cauliflower, 1 eggplant, 6 carrots

12-14 sml potatoes, 1 head of romaine, 1 head of green leaf, sage

1 cantaloupe, 6 sml bell peppers, 1 basket green figs

All organic! When you make the decision to eat seasonal, local and mostly organic you have to think ahead! I used the tomatoes, 2 carrots, and 1 zucchini to make a pasta sauce that I froze. I also shredded 2 of the zucchini and froze them to use in cakes, breads, and other stuff in the winter. I will be freezing some bell peppers and onions the next time I get them. At some point I will have to learn to can things but i'm not quite there yet.