In Praise of San Marzano...

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Today marked our first round of tomato canning for 2011. In a slight departure from our normal routine, we fire-roasted a few rounds of the San Marzano's in our pizza oven before adding them to the sauce. This process greatly speeds up the cooking time, while enhancing the taste of the final product. We also mixed in Plum Lemon tomatoes for additional sweetness and their psychedelic color!

Peppers Galore...

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We included a Chiles Relleños recipe along with the Poblanos today. Nancy had a tray of them waiting for me tonight when I returned home from dropping off the boxes. I am one lucky duck!!! (There are no leftovers). Also pictured above is our first round of pickled Italian White Wax Peppers. Our neighbor Maria was a huge help in preserving them yesterday. She is an incredible cook. Indeed, she makes a world class Chile Relleño!

Additional photos include tomatoes harvested today and the first "naked ladies," a sure sign that cooler temps are on their way.  We've had daily highs in the mid-90's for the past week, and the heat is forecast to continue through Friday. Our olive grafts continue to thrive. My biggest concern, that they would get sunburned, never came to pass. Early next spring, we will remove the nurse limbs and graft additional Manzanillo scions in their place.

Heirlooms... Heroes of the Harvest!

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I had tears in my eyes harvesting these beauties this morning.  Just north of 85 lbs in all.  The CSA got a very colorful box today between the tomatoes, Mercury red onions, French Fingerling potatoes, Tolli's Sweet Italian peppers, tomatillos with jalapeños, yellow squash, zucchini, Genovese basil, and mesclun mix.

Thanks to a Little High Pressure...

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Temps in the mid-90's this week ensured that some phatty tomatoes went in the boxes today. Yes... they taste as good as they look.

Tomatoes at last...

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We've had a wonderfully successful summer. We were Certified Organic by CCOF at the beginning of July. Our CSA met its target enrollment of 60 members soon thereafter and has not slowed a bit since. The climactic theme this summer is "cool nights," which was immensely helpful in slowing down the ripening of certain crops, allowing us to stagger our harvest while not compromising on freshness. It also allowed our fruit trees to put on an incredible amount of growth with minimal sun-scald to tender new leaves and stems. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the CSA, and we hope you've enjoyed your boxes as much as we've enjoyed harvesting for you! To those still on the waiting list at this point, we definitely plan to go bigger next year, and look forward to including you.