'Mater Pickin' Time

Ruskin is a large farming community about an hour or so south of us. There is a tomato farm that after the fields have been picked, open it up to U-Pick for the general public. I went last year and picked 30 gallons and made spagetti sauce and it was so good, when they opened the fields again this year, John said he'd like to go with me this time (he was working last year) and do sauce again. So yesterday morning we made the drive south and picked another 30 gallons. Came home and went to work making sauce. It's an all day process to make one batch. I skin and core the tomatoes and the chickens get all the scraps! They love them some 'maters! Then I cut up the tomatoes and let them cook down for at least 4 hours all by themselves in the pot. Their water content is very high and if I did the sauce straightaway, it would be too watery. Once they have reduced the water content, then I add all the other schtuff to the pot for sauce and let it cook down again. I never turned the stove off last night til well past 7 PM. The sauce was too hot to put in plastic Ziploc bags, so I put pot and all in the fridge after it cooled down some and have already bagged it up this morning. I got 6 quart size Ziploc bags from one pot. That will vary a bit from pot to pot, but 6 bags per pot is a good average. I have enough tomatoes to do at least 4 more batches. John has also requested a batch of Sue's World Famous Salsa and even though I told him these are not the best for salsa, he assured me he'd eat it, watery or not, so I'll be making salsa as well! And now it's time for me to head to the kitchen to start today's batch of sauce.

 tomatoes on the vine

 Looooooong rows of tomatoes. They have three huge fields like this. You can just make out the farm stand in the distance where you get your buckets for picking and pay once you're done. (and no I didn't walk all that way! We drove!! I would not have wanted to carry those buckets all the way back.)

 John in the field, ready to pick.

 What 30 gallons of tomatoes look like!

 These two sinks of tomatoes became...

One pot of spagetti sauce with mushrooms and meatballs. I'll do about half with meatballs and half without. The the one without, I will have to do things other than spagetti with. (Lasagna and stuffed shells come to mind!)

Limited Edition Yum!

In my never-ending attempt to help with the Fattening Of America, I bring you the latest in Pepperidge Farms Limited Edition bread. Strawberry Banana! John brought a loaf home from his PF buddy. He gets fresh eggs from us and we get PF breads and rolls. We both win! Look for it now in your favorite grocery store. It won't be around long.

We be jammin'

It was a jammin mess here last week. I put in a special order at the grocery store for two flats each of strawberries and blueberries to make jam with. It had been a few years since I'd made it and I had forgotten what a huge undertaking it is! John pitched in and was my washer, picker, masher man one day and a fine job he did! I don't even know what my final tally was, but suffice it to say, we now have plenty of jam to enjoy for ourselves and to share with friends and family.

                                         Blueberries ready to be prepped by John

                                               Washing and picking. The chickens got the strawberry tops and any underripe blueberries. Oh the chicken chatter at the coop that afternoon!

                                          Mashed blueberries in the pot. They turn purple as they cook.

                                           Mashed strawberries in the pot.

                                            Finished blueberry jam. I did 1/2 pints and pints of both the strawberries and blueberries.

Tampa Food Truck Rally

                                  downtown Tampa Skyline. This is known as the "beer can building."

                                                             Jerk Hut Express truck

                            John's Curry Chicken. The things in the lower left side are the fried plantains.

                                                  My Jerk Pork. Yumalicious!

                                               Crepe truck.

                  Killer Sammich Truck. They were wiping things they'd run out of off their board!

                              Fire Monkey truck. Can you tell where the line begins and ends?!

 Taco Bus Truck. They were featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives this week. We are going to their permanent location soon!

Dessert! There's Bavarian Creme filled, Raspberry, Strawberry and Apple filled, Sour Cream cake and Pumpkin!

John and I spent a lovely fall afternoon in downtown Tampa today. We all know what a bad rep food trucks of old had. Most were known as "roach coaches" with food of questionable origin and how long it had been sitting around. But no more! Food trucks are THE next big thang! And Tampa is getting in on the action. This is the third Rally they've had and each one draws bigger and bigger crowds. Tampa's Mayor Bob Buckhorn has said that the first Wed of every month from now til May will be a food truck rally in downtown at Gaslight Park. And  there were quite a few people from Occupy Tampa who came over from their "Headquarters" at Curtis Hixon Park, they were well mannered and well behaved. Most of them spent most of their time trying to get on TV because every local station was there filming.

I really wanted to dry the duck confit at the Fire Monkey food truck ( I had read about it in the paper!), but it was so jammed packed with people in line that we could not even see his menu board, much less order anything. We stood in what we thought was the line for quite a while, only to learn it was the pick up  line and we had to go "over there" to place our order. And "over there", we could not tell where the line ended and anyone we asked didn't know either. So we ended up at the Jerk Hut Express truck. And it was wonderful! John wanted curry goat and so did the lady behind us. When John ordered his, they announced they were now out of curry goat. And he graciously told them to give it to the lady behind us and he'd take curry chicken instead. :::I'll wait while y'all awwww for John!::: I wanted jerk pork and it was fantabulous! Both meals came with Jamacain rice with red beans and salad and three plantains. John's meal was $5.00 and mine was $6.00, and you can see by the styrofoam containers that they were slap full. I brought over 1/2 of mine home! I'd love to try again next month and maybe get there a bit earlier so hopefully I could try the duck at Fire Monkey. On the way home, the "hot now" light was on at Krispy Kreme, so we got donuts to bring home for later. Temps were in the upper 70's. Not a cloud in the sky. All in all, a great afternoon.

Yum Squared

John came home the other day with a couple of new, Limited Edition products.

We'll start with the Frito one since that IS what pays the bills around here!

Get them now because he says they will only be around for a month, if that. Not quite the same as eating BBQ ribs, but close! The bag is almost gone if that is any indicator!

And then there's the Pepperidge Farm offering for the holidays.                          

Oh. My. Goodness. The goodness! Toasted up with some butter melting into it. Yum does not begin to describe it.

The things I do for science!

Slurp!

This message brought to you by friend Jeanne at http://orjustme.blogspot.com/.

I copied almost exactly her lunch from the other day. Toasted French bread schmeared with goat cheese and topped with roasted zucchini and olive oil. She used basil olive oil, but Publix had no fresh basil today, so I "made do!" It was a tough job, but I managed! One word. Yumalicious.

Farmer Sue...

I am not! And frankly Scarlet, I don't know why I keep trying. But I do! The cantaloupe volunteers that came up by the chicken coop that I moved have withered and died in the heat. Nevermind the fact they got watered every day. Dead. My tomatoes are dead. I never got enough at any one time to do anything with. No salsa. No spagetti sauce. No mater salad. Just sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper for dinner. Not that there's anything wrong with that! And the plant that gave me the best results was the one I got that was 3/4 dead on the $1.00 discount table at Lowes! Go figure! But my new Southern Living magazine that I just got the other day said it's time to plant tomatoes for fall now. So I HAVE to try again. The snow peas...what'd I get? Six total? Or was it 4? It's been so long, I've forgotten! And here is the result of my cukes. Three. That all together aren't even 6" long! The vines withered and died too. I have gorgeous strawberry plants. Gorgeous! They've tripled in size. And I think John and I have eaten 5 strawberries each. And the ONLY reason we got them is because they were hidden by the leaves and the birds couldn't see them to peck their one hole in and leave. We had more volunteer cantaloupe and one tomato plant come up at the chicken coop. I left them. They are doing fantastic! They are in the shade most of the day though. The cantaloupe plants are loaded with bloom. Just loaded. If they all set and ripen, I could put them in the back of John's truck and go out to the highway and sell them. Blacken a couple of teeth, get me a corn-cob pipe and sell them. But they won't! I'm not getting my hopes up. Hell, I'll go dance a jig if I get ONE measley lope off'n the plants! I'm cuttin' these babies up to go with dinner tonight. If you want a taste, I suggest you start driving now!

Peachaliciousness

Decided to pull out our LOUD ice cream freezer yesterday and make some fresh homemade peach ice cream. We used to make ice cream all the time when I was growing up and I swear that our ice cream freezer was no where near as loud as our machine is now. So loud that the catz decided it was safer under the bed than on top of it. So loud that John abandoned the La-Z-Boy for the couch which is closer to the TeeVee! And I had to do two batches because the starter makes enough for a half gallon but my cannister only holds a quart at a time. And in ice cream making, what's the point of going thru all the trouble for a measly quart?! And it takes about 30-40 minutes for freeze one batch, so it was a LOUD almost 2 hours here! But the end result is just heads and tails over what you get at the grocery store! John has already put in a request that next time, he wants ginger ice cream. I can do that!! 

Double double

Queen B Survivor's egg was a double yolker! I have no idea why I put the other egg in the bowl. Musta still been half asleep! I sauteed some mushrooms and made me a cheese and mushroom omelette for breakfast. It was yummylicious.

Eggs, Maters, Peas

Can you say OUCH! I think this egg that Queen Biotch Survivor laid must be the the same as a human having a 13 lb baby! It it huge! And I'm willing to bet that it's a double-yolker as well. You usually get double yolks out of girls when they first start laying. But occasionally, Ma Nature will throw in a zinger on an older hen. I want John to see it before I crack it, so stay tuned to see if it was a double yolker. And yes, the eggs are green. Queen B Survivor is an Americauna and they are the ones that lay the green shelled eggs. They taste the same as a "regular' white shelled egg. No, change that. Mine are BETTER than store-boughten eggs. Because we don't force the girls to lay and they get an all natural diet.

And these are some of the fruits of our labor from our Earth Boxes. One Heirloom tomato and three pear tomatoes. There are more of each coming, but once they start turning red, I have to pick them or the birds peck one hole in them and go to the next one. I might not care so much if they'd eat the whole dad-blamed thing, but no. Peck a hole and move on. I also got two. Yes, two sweet pea pods. That's one each for John and I!! There are loads of bloom on the plants, so maybe, just maybe I might get enough to cook a mess before it's all said and done. But I doubt it. We like 'em raw anyway! And my cuke plants are also loaded in bloom. Hoping to make some pickles if I get enough ripe at the same time.

The Old Man

He's got a big ol' scar from a fight when he was just a young-un. His nose is all wrinkly. His mouth is caved in from long-gone teeth. He's had a hard life!

'Maters

I was reading one of the local blogs last week and found out there was a U-Pick farm down Ruskin way, about an hour south of me, that had opened their tomato fields for picking. And I got a wild hair and decided to go pick some! I picked about 40 lbs in a bit over 30 minutes. Then after a quick stop at Publix to get the rest of the stuff I needed, I was back home. First thing I did was make me a tomato sammich on white bread with Duke's Mayo and salt and pepper. There is just nothing better in this world! And store boughten tomatoes just do not taste like ones you pick yourself! Then I made two ginormous containers of Sue's World Famous Salsa and then started boiling skins off maters to make homemade spagetti sauce. I ended up getting 6 quart Ziploc bags of sauce to put in the freezer out of the first batch. This batch I made with meatballs. Then the next day, I made another batch of sauce and got another 6 quart Ziploc bags of no-meatball sauce. I lay the bags flat on cookie sheets and once they are frozen, I stack 'em like cordwood in the freezer. So we'll have sauce for a good long while. I kept a few of the ripe tomatoes so we could have BLT's and sliced tomato with salt and pepper. I also picked a few green tomatoes for fried green tomatoes. Yum, yum, yum!

Oyster-licious

When I was growing up, we used to drive to Cedar Key at least once a season and get oysters and have a feast. Some ate them raw, some ate them roasted, some ate none at all (Kathy and Janice!) John and I continued the tradition for a few years after we got married, but here lately we hadn't been getting any. And I sorely missed them. If I get a dozen or two at a restaurant, all it does is make me want more. I tell people I can eat my weight in raw oysters, and that's a lot of oysters! I've been craving them for a while now. We had some really wonderful oysters from different parts of the country when we were in DC last summer. And I said then that when we got back home, we needed to get us a bunch to eat here at the house. And we never did. Til yesterday. We have a new seafood market that recently opened and I ordered a bag of oysters from them. They get them from Cedar Key, and while it's a nice couple of hour drive north of us, with gas prices seemingly doubling every day, I figured I'd let them ship them here and I'd drive 3 miles down the road and get them! The bag held somewhere between 3/4 of a bushel and a bushel. I pretty much started munching when I got them home. So salty and briny. So good with a cold beer! John got home a little after 4 and we sat on the porch and noshed on oysters for almost 2 hours. We'd eat a few. Take a break and talk. Eat some more. Talk some more. We had a great time. We ate about half of them. We'll munch some more today and then if there are any left, we'll shuck them and freeze them for a fried oyster dinner one night. Somehow, I don't think there will be many left!

Datz Chef's Kitchen lunch

I joined Groupon a couple of months ago and the first thing I bought was a Datz http://www.datz.com/ Chef's Kitchen lunch. Sounded interesting. Only 12 spots available 5 days a week and the chef prepares a special meal just for those lucky 12. Not reading the not so fine print, John and I trundled our happy butts down there one day and come to find out, ressies are required. Yep. Right there in black and white that I didn't read. Two people were late, so the mgr gave us their seats. We sit down and proceed to nosh on the appetizer that everybody else was already finished with and lo...the "fashionably late" (my read. Rude and inconsiderate asses) show up 30 minutes past the time that lunch was supposed to start. So we gave them their seats and we went and ate in the dining room. No great loss. I got my pastrami sammy and got a half doz of their oh so fab half sour pickles to bring home. And I'm not even telling about the three that I ate while we were there! So I came home that afternoon, went online and booked our 2 seats for today. Two months ago. That's how "in demand" the Chef's Kitchen seating is. And once you eat, you understand why. Chef Nikki was our most personable host. There were four no-shows. (My read again. Inconsiderate rude asses!) We started with a wonderful cheese plate. The cheese is called No Woman. Seriously! Damn good cheese! We bought some to bring home it's so good. Some bitty bite-size toasts that had a fancy-schmancy name, but I don't remember it! And some wonderful roasted in olive oil skinned almonds that were then sprinkled with sea salt. They were yummy too!

Our lunch was "street food"; grilled and roasted in the oven chicken served on pita bread with rice and caramelized onions, crumbled feta cheese and "crack sauce" based on traditional Greek tzaziki sauce. Greek yogurt with shredded cuke, chopped mint and a bit of mayo. I could have just let Chef Nikki put THAT on my finger and eaten it all day! Then dessert was Baklava with honey and chopped mint with a strawberry garnish. Didn't like that at all. No sir-ee! Not one little bit. I keed! I kid! Baklava and I have been friends since I was a wee child. Back when dirt was a baby! Being raised so close to Tarpon Springs and the Greek community and dad having gone to school with all of the Pappas boys, Pappas Restaurant was like a home away from home for us! I actually only ate one of my two pieces and since John is not a big sweets fan ('cept for me of course!), I got to bring his home so I have his full dessert plus one piece of mine! John did eat the strawb's! Chef Nikki also served a cucumber martini. Neither of us are gin fans. I think it's the juniper. I tried it. I wasn't impressed. Nothing personal Chef!

And of course, since we drove all that way! (it's about 35 miles one way for us and having to take a second mortgage any more to put gas in the tank) I couldn't go without bringing home a pastrami sammy for me! I wrap it in aluminum foil and heat it in the oven for about 20 min and it's wonderful. And a half dozen half sour pickles. And a couple of macaroons which were new since the last time we were there. And some pink salt caramels. And the cheese. So glad I had those half off coupons for the Chef's Kitchen from Groupon!! I vertainly made up for it, and then some!

We'll do the Chef's Kitchen again. I'd like to see what other creations Chef Nikki has up her sleeve.

As we were leaving, I go to start the truck and there's a loquat tree right smack in front of the truck! How I missed it on the way in I have NO idea! My maternal grandparents had one as you turned off the main road into their driveway when I was growing up. Every year it was us kids job to climb up in the tree and pick the loquats as they got ripe and Nana would either make jam with them or just put them up in some sugar water. Then we'd have loquats all year round. Course it was kinda like the mulberry tree that was across the road from their place. We'd eat a few. Put a few in the bucket. Eat a few. Put a few in the bucket. Same when we'd go to the strawberry fields over in Plant City after the workers were done. Three strawberries for me. One for the bucket! Anyway!! I thought I was full. I didn't think I could eat anything else. I was wrong! Last time I had loquats was when we were in Japan in 2003. We were at mom's favorite Uncle's Temple and we had been treated to afternoon tea by the family and some friends. As we were leaving, I spotted a loquat tree across the parking lot. I high-tailed it over and the Japanese family was amazed that not only did this American girl who was married to Yaeko-san's son know what a loquat was, but more-so, how to eat them! They are considered a "trash" tree in Japan. Most people don't eat the fruit. They have a skin that you have to peel off. There is very little fruit, rather there are 3 or 4 large seeds in the center. But I can tell you that they are worth the little bit of effort is you ever get the chance!

Thank you again, Chef Nikki for a most enjoyable lunch. We'll see you again soon.