Preserving Tomatoes: Freezing

Every summer I can an obscene amount of crushed tomatoes.  I make deals with farmers for the tomatoes that are too ugly to sell, harvest flats of them from my plants and keep some out from my CSA share.  As tomato season progresses I begin to panic, fearing that I will never preserve enough to last until the following summer.  Until one day I look at the jars lined up in the basement and I decide I can stop.  Then, as long as I have made enough salsa, and tomato orange marmalade, I freeze the rest.  In addition I freeze any smaller tomatoes throughout the season, because I learned the hard way, canning small tomatoes is time consuming, overly fiddly, and frustrating.

I know many folks who prefer the ease of freezing tomatoes and preserve all of their harvest without canning.  For the bulk of my tomatoes I prefer to spend more time on them in the summer months so I can use them more easily in the winter.  With a quart of crushed tomatoes I can make pasta sauce, soup, or chili easily enough that I think of them as convenience food.  In addition, if the power goes out, or my freezer dies, I won't lose my entire tomato stash.

However frozen tomatoes do have a purpose that goes beyond preserving the tomatoes I can't or don't want to can.  I will admit their primary use is running out of tomatoes too early insurance.  However they are also perfect for recipes that call for just a few tomatoes.  Many times I use part of a quart of tomatoes assuring myself that I will find a use for them in the next few days.  However many times the jar gets lost in the back of my fridge until it resurfaces in scary new colors.  Instead of using a partial quart I take a few tomatoes out of the freezer, rub the skins under running water to remove the skins, cut out the core and proceed with my recipe.  For a small number of tomatoes you can even do this without getting frostbite.

Frozen Tomatoes
I hope it doesn't insult any ones intelligence to write this in recipe format.  I just know some folks skip the blog chatter and scroll down to the recipe.

Tomatoes, local vine ripened flavorful ones
Zip top bags or Pyrex dishes with lids or plastic storage containers

Place the tomatoes in the bags or containers and close.  Place in the freezer.  To use just remove the tomatoes from the storage container or bag, reseal, and return the remaining tomatoes to the fridge.  Rub the tomato under running water while rubbing the skin.  The skin will rub right off.  Cut the core out with a knife.

Baked Tomatoes with Cheese

Yesterday Lewis returned to work, officially ending our vacation.  A vacation that began with 2 days of  tantrums and whining, causing the adults to grumble, often loud enough for the children to hear, about why we go away on vacation anyway.  However then we settled in and had an amazing time.  Sometimes I feel we go away on vacation so we can really notice how the boys have grown and changed in the previous year.  It takes something that only happens once a year to really step back and witness who they are.  This year they are far more independent and confident; as a major vacation milestone they know agree to use all public restrooms, even the ones with auto flush toilets.

Every year they return with memories of the previous years and expectations of what they want to do.  At low tide Julian can often be found building a massive castle with a moat that can be taken by the ocean as the tide comes in.  As the water begins to lap at the sides he starts to scrape at them with a shovel and kicking the tops of the towers.  Unable to let the ocean complete the destruction without his help.  Sebastian often helps Julian to build the castle, but more often he spends his time collecting minnows and hermit crabs.  This year he did not collect them all himself and instead trained other children on the beach.  Once the tide starts to come in he unceremoniously dumps them all back in the water.

This year the WiFi on vacation was not strong enough to reach our cottage.  I could only check my email when we went out for homemade ice cream.  Which of course means it became even easier to convince me we all needed a treat, (that and discovering the amazing expresso ice cream that Lewis and I could not stop ourselves from ordering, even if it did cause me to lie in bed staring at the ceiling).  However no WiFi helped to make us less distracted.

Not having access to the internet also meant I had to wait to share this tomato dish with you.  Every year I bring the vegetables from my CSA share and my garden with us on vacation.  This year that meant I had an entire flat of tomatoes for the week.  I love being able to walk past the produce in the grocery store, smugly thinking of the produce I already have.  At the local farm stands heirloom tomatoes are $7.99 a pound.  As their value went up so did the responsibility.  Just eating all of them on sandwiches or on a salad was not enough, neither was allowing them to go bad.

The baked tomato dish I prepared was simple, peeling them being the most complicated step.  However the end result could be the center of your table, the main dish with a loaf of crusty bread and another vegetable.  The flavor of the mayonnaise becomes more subtle and balanced after baking.  It was subtle enough that Sebastian was happily eating the dish until Lewis said, "Mayonnaise as an ingredient.  Who would have guessed." At which point Sebastian put down his fork and decided he was done with tomatoes and I of course glared at Lewis.

I added fresh thyme to the chopped scallions but you can play with the herbs you add.  At home I would have baked it in a casserole dish, but there wasn't one in the cottage, so I used a cast iron pan.  Now that I am at home I think I will use a casserole dish.

Baked Tomatoes with Cheese
Adapted from Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things: A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes


4 peeled tomatoes, or more or less depending on how many you want to serve (how to peel tomatoes)
1/2 to 1 Tbsp high quality mayonnaise per tomato half
1/2 to 1 tsp chopped scallions per tomato half (or more to taste)
fresh chopped thyme to taste
1 to 2 Tbsp grated sharp cheddar per tomato half

The amounts of toping are given as a range because tomatoes vary so much in size.  Also, this is an easy rustic recipe, to your taste.

Preheat the oven to 325° and butter a casserole dish or cast iron skillet that will fit all the tomato halves.

Halve the tomatoes from top to bottom. Cut off a thin slice from rounded side of the tomato halves so the tomatoes will stand up better in the dish.  remove the cores.  Place the tomato halves in the buttered dish.  Spread a thin layer of mayonnaise on each tomato half, sprinkle with scallions, thyme and freshly grated black pepper before topping each tomato with 1 to 2 Tbsp grated cheddar cheese.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.  When serving do not tell children about any ingredient they claim to dislike unless they ask a direct question.  If your spouse spontaneously offers this information glare hard at him or her to bore a hole through their head.

Sour Cherry Petit Petit Jam (Apple and Lemon Pectin)

It doesn't matter if I don't have a decent photo of this jam yet (I can always edit the post later) or if I have other things I should be doing other then try to come up with adjectives that describe why you should make this jam.  I need to post the jam recipe before I lose my notes on it again.  This recipe has already moved up to the must have jams category, so I need to preserve it here.  It really is a miracle I found my notes at all, after all they were tucked into my favorite jam cookbook, a place so sensible I I surprised I thought to look there.

When I was first planning on what to do with all my sour cherries I had no plans on incorporating wine.  I knew I would make one with raspberries and after that I had several other combinations I was imagining.  However after spending the morning picking 10 pounds of sour cherries, I took a moment before melting in the kitchen to post about my haul and dreams of flavor combinations on Hippo Flambé's Facebook page.   One reader was reminded of an ice cream topping she loved and wrote, "There is an ice cream shop on Cape Cod I used to frequent when I lived there and they cooked down sour cherries with balsamic vinegar, bordeaux, and sugar, and drizzled it over vanilla ice cream. It was my kind of heaven."  I could immediately taste the sauce in my head and it sounded like my kind of heaven as well.  So I quickly updated my plans to include a jam with similar ingredients.

I didn't have any bordeaux in the house but I did have Michael David's Petit Petit which has the rich flavor of ripe cherries when you drink it.  So I rushed to the kitchen and started a batch of sour cherry jam with a cup of petit petit wine.  I had every intention of adding balsamic vinegar at the end but I tasted the jam first and could not bring myself to change anything.  Just to be sure, I served the foam over a bowl of vanilla ice cream and further sampled its flavor before happily sealing the jam in jars.

The jam has a richness, intensity and depth that reminds me of chocolate.  It is the perfect topping for vanilla ice cream but is equally at home on a slice of toast.  I imagine this winter I will drizzle it on cheesecake and layer it with poached pears and whipped cream.  I also know next summer I will be back in the kitchen making more.  Like my other sour cherry jams this one does not use any commercial pectin.  It relies on apple and lemon pectin instead and so has less sugar to mask the flavor then would be needed with commercial pectin.  I used apples from the orchard where I picked the sour cherries.  In early July they are completely unripe and full of natural pectin.  If you don't have access to unripe apples you can use granny smith apples or crab apples.  The apple pectin combined with the pectin in the lemon peels makes this jam set up beautifully.

Sour Cherry Petit Petit Jam

If you need detailed canning instructions they can be found on last summers sour cherry jam recipe.  I also have a recipe for sour cherry raspberry lime jam.

1 kilogram (2 1/4 lb) pitted sour cherries (1.25 kg or 2 3/4 lb unpitted)

800 grams sugar (3 3/4 cups)

1 cup Michael David Petit Petit Wine (or substitute another rich, fruit forward red wine)

150 grams unripe apples (3-4 small apples) or 300 grams granny smith apple (1-2 granny smith apple)

Peels and pits from the apple placed in a large tea ball or muslim bag

Juice of 1 lemon (1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp)

rinds from the lemon

Place a small saucer in the freezer for testing the jams set.  Combine all ingredients except the lemon rinds and the apple peels and pits.  Puree the ingredients in a large pot with an immersion blender or in a blender.  Add the spent lemon rinds and the peels and pits of the apples (apple pieces placed in a large tea ball) in a large pot and bring to a simmer.  Simmer gently, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves.  Increase the heat to high and boil the jam, stirring frequently at first and as it cooks down stirring more and more to prevent scorching.  The jam is done when it is 220° on a thermometer and it passes the cold plate test.

To test the jams set with a plate, turn off the heat under the jam.  Remove the saucer from the freezer and place a small dollop of jam on the plate.  Return the plate to the freezer and allow it to cool for 5 minutes.  If the jam is set it will wrinkle on the surface when you push the dollop with your finger.  The jam will still be a liquid in the pot when it is set.  Jam becomes runny again when it is heated so do not expect it to look like jam in the pot.

Ladle hot jam into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace and seal in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Pea Shell Cooler and Eastside Fizz

I have another sour cherry jam recipe to share with all of you.  It is sour cherry and petit petit wine and the combination is rich and deep.  Spooned over ice cream it reminds me of the deep, intense flavor of hot fudge.  The wine brings out the flavor of the cherries, making them more complex.  However as much as I love eating this new jam drizzled over a bowl of ice cream, even talking about making jam seems like too much for this hot humid dead air day.  So instead let me share some cocktails with you.  These cocktails are easy to make and do not rely on store bought mixes, but rather on fresh produce (and a modest amount of sugar).

Several years ago we were stopped at a rest stop in New Hampshire shopping for alcohol for our week on the Cape.  There is no tax on alcohol in New Hampshire so several of their rest stops have liquor stores with giant shopping carts, mega sized bottles of spirits, and "Don't Drink and Drive" signs on the way out of the parking lot.  Lewis looked dubiously at the large bottle of gin in our cart and told me I was on my own when it came time to drinking the gin.  More gin and tonics for me did not seem like a problem.

I have loved gin and tonics since I was six and my family went on vacation to Barbados.  There was a lime tree in the back yard of the house we were staying at and my parents felt it was important to use as much of the fruit as they could.  They would let my brother and I to take a sip of their drink, and I quickly began turning my back to them when I was taking my sip.  I hoped that they might not notice how much I was drinking if my back was turned.  So even if Lewis did not want any I would happily drink as many sips as I wanted on my own.

When I made myself a Gin and Tonic on vacation Lewis took a taste, and then turned his back so I would not see how much he was drinking.  After that he was a devoted lover of Gin and Tonics, the first one to speak up when we needed to restock any of the ingredients.  The only problem with them is the tonic, with an ingredient list that makes me shudder with its high fructose corn syrup.  I have found a homemade tonic recipe online but have not tracked down all the ingredients.  Enter the East Side Fizz and the Pea Shoot cooler, both made with fresh ingredients and a wonderful way to use some of the mint threatening to take over your yard.

The Eastside Fizz was in July's issue of Bon Appetit's.  The original recipe calls for seltzer water but I did not have any in the house, plus my frugal nature balked at paying money for bubbles.  I love it made with just plain water but you should spring for the seltzer if you would prefer.  One of my favorite parts of this cocktail is eating the gin and lime infused cucumbers at the end.  The pea shell cooler came about as we were all enjoying a bowl full of shelling peas.  I looked at the pile of empty shells and wondered what I could do to utilize their sweet flavor without having it masked by their tough stringiness.  So I tried them in place of the cucumbers in the Eastside Fizz, adding the prosescco to lighten it and play up the citrus.

Eastside Fizz

Adapted from Bon Appetit

10 large fresh mint leaves

5 thin slices of peeled cucumber

1 1/2 Tbsp simple syrup (recipe is at the bottom of the post)

2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1/4 cup gin

ice

seltzer or water

Muddle mint, cucumber slices and simple syrup in a tall glass.  (Muddling means you squish the ingredients up with a muddling stick in the bottom of the glass.  This bruises the ingredients and releases the oils so the flavors infuse the simple syrup).  Add the lime juice, gin, ice and water or seltzer to fill the glass.  Stir well, allowing the ice a chance to cool down the drink.  When you are done drinking don't forget to eat the cucumber slices.

Pea Shoot Cooler
My own invention dreamed up as a use for the pea shells I hated feeding to my chickens

15 pea shells from fresh peas torn up
10 large fresh mint leaves
1 1/2 Tbsp Simple Syrup (recipe follows)
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
1/4 cup gin
1/4 - 1/2 cup prosecco
ice
seltzer or water

Muddle the pea shells, mint leaves and simple syrup in a glass.  (Muddling means you squish the ingredients up with a muddling stick in the bottom of the glass.  This bruises the ingredients and releases the oils so the flavors infuse the simple syrup).  Strain the liquid into another tall glass and add lime juice, gin, prosecco, ice and water or seltzer water to fill the glass.  Stir well and allow to chill for a moment before serving or drinking.

Simple Syrup

1 part water
1 part sugar

If you have a cup off water you would use a cup of sugar.  Add the sugar to the water in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves.  Turn off the heat.  Now you have simple syrup!

Sour Cherry Raspberry Lime Jam (No Pectin)

Last years sour cherry jam was a success because it set without using commercial pectin, it made a really beautiful translucent jam with preserved cherries suspended within, and many who scored a jar raved about it.  The only problem is my family did not like it.  Turns out we prefer a jam with a more consistent texture and flavor, one where the whole fruit adds body to the whole jam instead of occasional solids floating in jelly.  We are not big jelly eaters and missed the body of the jam having more substance and texture.  Which is fine with me as French preserves are more time and labor intensive requiring multiple steps, fruit straining, simmering etc.  So this year I got to start over after picking 12 pounds of sour cherries at a local orchard.

Last years jam was really just the cherries, so this year I decided to play a little more.  Plus I have a friend with a flat of raspberries at home who I saw in the fields.  So my first inspiration was sour cherry raspberry.  I decided to use lime in place of the usual lemons after seeing raspberry jam recipes made with lime.  Plus my newest summer drink obsession means I have been stock piling limes.  This recipe depends on the pectin in the limes, especially the peels to to gel.  Probably a little easier for the average person to get then unripe green apples.

The results were an unmitigated success.  The boys have enjoyed it drizzled over ice cream and have happily greeted it on toast for 2 mornings in a row without complaining.  Truth be told, after the first breakfast they looked critically at the 4 jars lined up on the counter and told me I needed to make more.  My boys have learned how to judge how many jars of jam they will need to get through a winter.

When I tasted it I was surprised at all the flavors, wondering at first at a subtle background taste I could not place.  Then I remembered the lime, which adds more to the overall taste then the bright acid flavor from lemon juice.  It is tart and sweet with a richness that is addictive.  Plus it set up beautifully with a minimum of hanging over a hot pot in July.  Last summer my kitchen scale broke and has refused to measure in anything other then ounces, or allow me to tare out the weight of anything on top.  I replaced it with a new scale that remembers the previous weight when it turns itself off.  Now as long as I pay attention to when the display goes blank I can slowly weigh cherries as I pit them.  A vast improvement over my old scale where I had to occasionally write down the weight I was at and start over.

Sour Cherry Lime Jam

Note: There is sugar listed twice as it gets added with the raspberries and with the cherries.  I have given conversions from Metric but they are just approximate, I created the recipe using weight.

600 grams [1 1/3 pound] raspberries (mine were frozen, I just put them in the pot still frozen)

200 grams [7/8 cup] granulated sugar

500 grams [1 lb 2 ozs] pitted sour cherries (I have a book that says this is 600 grams or 1 1/3 lbs before pitting, I don't know, I weighed them as I pitted them.  Why measure them twice?)

500 grams [2 1/4 cups] granulated sugar

Juice of 1 lime 2-3 Tbsp (rinds reserved)

Bring raspberries and 200 grams sugar to a simmer, simmer for 5 minutes.  Turn off and allow to cool slightly (I let it cool just long enough to set up my Fruit and Vegetable Strainer).  Set the raspberries aside and combine the pitted cherries, 500 grams sugar and lime juice in a large pan.  Bring up to the simmer and simmer gently for 5 minutes, crushing the cherries with a potato masher as they cook.

Remove the seeds from the raspberries in a food mill, chinois, sieve or a Kitchen Aid attachment. Add the raspberries to the cherries along with the reserved lime peels.  Heat the jam over high heat,  once the fruit is boiling stir constantly until the setting point is reached (this jam was set for me at 220°). You can also do the cold plate test, when you think your jam is set place a small amount on one of the plates in the freezer and place it back in the freezer for several minutes. Test the dollop of jam by pushing it with your finger, if it wrinkles up it is gelled and you can can your jam.  Remove the lime peels from the jam before canning.

Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  Wipe the rims clean with a damp paper towel or cloth and place on 2 piece lids and tighten by hand.  Place filled jars in a water bath canner with water covering the jars by at least 1 inch.  Boil for 10 minutes, when the 10 minutes is completed turn off the heat, remove the lid and leave the jars in the canner for another 5 minutes.  Place the jars on a towel, dish cloth or receiving blanket or a cooling rack, with at least 1 inch between jars. Allow to cool completely, 12 to 24 hours. Once cool take off the bands, test the seal by pushing up on the lid with your thumbs. Any jars that have not sealed properly can be placed in the fridge. Clean the top of the jars, label and store in a cool dry place. 

"Helping" to Taste Test a New Cheese

Last Thursday after my CSA pick up I was able to sample a new cheese being created by Point Reyes Farmstead.  I have been selected as one of 20 cheese testers to give them tasting notes on the cheese samples we receive and post our experiences on the blog at Culture Magazine.  While I picked up my vegetables and socialized I day dreamed about the cheese that I would be tasting.  I also kept myself busy helping my friend Denise eat the spinach from her share.  If you want to read my impressions of the first cheese and the qualifications I have to help with this project head over the Culture Magazines's blog.

Here is a teaser:

My name is Robin Berger, you can find out more about me and what I like to cook on my food blog: http://blog.hippoflambe.com . There are no recipes for hippo on my site, I just threaten my children with serving it when I get tired of answering the question, “What’s for dinner?” Aside from being a foodie I have been a cheese lover all my life, happily eating from every category of cheese even when I was a child. When I was eight, a family friend once left me alone with an entire 10 inch wheel of Brie she was letting come to room temperature

Find the rest of the post here:  Sampling a New Cheese

Eggs Benedict with Whole Egg Hollandaise

When we go out for breakfast Lewis orders eggs benedict with the hollandaise sauce on the side.  Most of the time he takes a tiny taste of the hollandaise and then eats his eggs without it.  Which leaves me to happily eat my hash browns by dipping them in his hollandaise sauce.  So when I decided to make eggs benedict for Father's Day I really did not need to make hollandaise.  However without making it I felt guilty, like I was short changing the work needed for a special breakfast.  Plus, for me it is not eggs benedict without hollandaise and I was eating breakfast as well.

All the recipes I found for hollandaise called for a very simple list of ingredients and all of the them called for egg yolks only.  Personally I hate using only part of the egg, transferring the part you don't use to a container in the fridge where it will be forgotten.  Instead I used whole eggs that I pushed through a sieve before cooking.  One of the reasons to use egg yolks only, besides from the increased richness and fat, is the whites can cook up less smooth then the yolks on their own.  By straining the eggs before cooking the hollandaise you remove the chalazae, which is the protein strand that suspends the yolk within the white.

In the end the hollandaise I made had a light clean lemon flavor, was still rich and satisfying and even Lewis ate a very modest amount on his eggs.  Julian and Sebastian both declared it disgusting, so I know it retains its classic hollandaise qualities.

Whole Egg Hollandaise

2 whole eggs

1 Tbsp cold water

4 Tbsp butter, softened

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (or to taste)

Strain the eggs through a fine mesh sieve into the top of a double boiler of a bowl placed on top of a pan of hot water.  Add the tablespoon of cold water to the strained eggs and turn heat the pan so the water is hot but not boiling.  Beat the eggs and water with a wire whisk continuously until the mixture is light and filled with tiny bubbles.

Add the butter to the mixture a tablespoon at a time and whisk until the butter is fully melted and incorporated.  Check occasionally to make sure the water is not boiling.  Continue to add the butter a tablespoon at a time, waiting until the last piece melts and is incorporates before adding more and whisking it in.

Add the salt and part of the lemon juice and taste to see if you want more lemon juice.  The sauce will thicken more once it is removed from the heat.  Turn the heat off and set aside while you make prep the eggs and english muffins.

Eggs Benedict

serves 4

8 slices good quality smoked deli ham (I used Vermont Smoke and Cure)

4 English muffins, split and toasted

8 eggs

1 recipe whole egg hollandaise sauce

Place the ham on each English muffin half and set aside.

bring a large pot half filled with water to the boil with 1 tablespoon of white vinegar.  While the water is heating crack two eggs a piece into small ramekins or teacups.  When the water is boiling turn it off and add the eggs by submerging the side of the ramekin into the water and slowly tipping them in.  Once all the eggs are in the water turn the heat back on to the lowest setting and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place on top of the ham.  Serve with the hollandaise sauce on the side.