The "CLT" Sandwich - Cheese, Lettuce & Tomato

Recipe? You don't need no stinkin' recipe. Two slices good whole wheat sandwich bread, smeared with mayo. Slices of ripe, juicy fresh-off-the-vine tomato sprinkled with a little salt and pepper. Crisp lettuce. All topped with a slice of Guernsey Girl cheese fried in a lightly-oiled pan over medium heat until brown and bubbly on both sides. Oh man, I want another and my cheese is all gone. *sniff* These things were exquisite; no other word.

Guernsey Girl is one of the cheeses we picked up at Upper Canada Cheese when we were there. It's a halloumi-inspired cheese, meaning it holds together and gets brown, buttery and delicately squeaky when fried in a pan as above instead of becoming a molten mess. If you can't get Guernsey Girl, you could use halloumi cheese. I'll be scouting around to see what I can get here, for as long as the tomatoes hold out.




Last year at this time it was Tomato & Garlic Soup with Vegetables.

Why We've Been So Busy

Our house, it is not big enough. Actually, it has a "granny flat" that has been used as a summer cottage by Mr. Ferdzy's mom and her housemate. They have decided they like it so much, they want to move here permanently. And that means an addition. To help save some money, Mr. Ferdzy is supplying some grunt work.

Oh, and by the way, THIS is what a person has to do to get it to rain around here. Leaving the laundry out on the line overnight just doesn't do it. You have to call up and order a truckload of cement.


Well, it wasn't really a truckload. It was just a bit more than the minimum order. Since the minimum order was way more than we needed for the footings, we decided we would put a better sidewalk out in front of the house. That meant a week to dig, line with boards, and half-fill with gravel.


Did you know cement trucks come with a "remote"? I didn't. Kind of cool, really... but you have to supply your own navvies.


Flattening the cement.


Row, row, row your boat, gently down the Ankh...


Ah! Perfecto! Although it is to be noted that every time we do construction my gardening tools, not to mention some of my household tools, are never the same again.


The almost-finished sidewalk. We just have to remove the wooden forms, and cut some lines to prevent cracking and frost heaving. And plant some shrubs and things. But almost done, har.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I find I have some laundry to do.

Collective Farm Woman (Kolkhoznitsa) Melon

Kolkhoznitsa melons were brought to North America in 1993 by a member of Seed Savers Exchange, who acquired seeds in Krim, in the Ukraine. They were released under the translated name Collective Farm Woman. Since then, they have been gaining recognition and popularity as a very good early-ripening melon that's happiest growing in a season that's warm, but not wildly hot, and which is quite tolerant of cooler weather. Canadians, take note; this one's for us.

I have to say that unlike other melons I have tried to grow, these were a pleasure. Stuck the seeds in little peat pots in the spring, kept them warm, and they actually germinated. Planted them out (in the peat pots) at the beginning of June, and they did not sulk, pine or get eaten by pests. They just grew, steadily and modestly, putting out 2 or 3 melons per nice, compact little plant. It helps that this has been a hot summer perfect for growing melons; all they have needed is some extra watering as it's been so dry for us. The soil, of course, was well enriched with compost before we planted them.

You could grow these on a trellis, if you were prepared to support the individual melons. I'm told that cucumber beetles will attack them when they are young, and we protected them from cut-worms by wrapping the base of the stems with aluminum foil when we planted them out. They are supposed to be very vulnerable to powdery mildew, but we had no problems whatever, even though our zucchini have been stricken with it.

The melon pictured could have been a tad riper - they are ripe when they turn from green to golden, or at least golden with just a few green spots. This one slipped right off the vine as I was checking it, and it was certainly pretty close. They are supposed to be ready in 85 days from planting out, and our first one was ready at about that point, although most of them will be ready in closer to 90 to 100 days. Still, that's quite do-able.


We have not always been big melon fans in this house but we may change our minds. I've been swooning over how good these are. The flesh was the typical light green of a honeydew type melon, but particularly rich, floral and sweet in flavour. The flesh is also rather crisp and watery; more like a dense watermelon in texture than a typical musk melon. Unusual, and really appealling and refreshing.

I'm told - but I am not at all sure that we will have the self-discipline to make the test - that these store for several weeks if kept in a cool, dark spot once picked. (One person reported storing them successfully for at least 2 months!)

Ildi & Black Cherry Tomatoes

More tomatoes! Here's another pair of tomatoes from our garden this year. The little yellow ones are Ildi, and the brownish-red ones are Black Cherry. This is the first year we have grown both of these, and I can defnitely see growing them again.

The Black Cherry, as with most "black" tomatoes are nowhere near it. Their colour is their least attractive feature; dark red skin over green seeds and gel combine to give a muddy, brownish effect. They look more attractive when mixed with other cherry tomatoes in a range of colours. The tomatoes - large for cherry tomatoes - grow in cordons of about 8, and they are prolific, starting to produce after about 75 days in the garden. The plants are indeterminate, and the tomatoes just keep coming and coming. I've picked close to 200 tomatoes per plant - so far. The plants get pretty big too; ours have tipped over the tomato cages they were in and are still just rolling along.

Like a lot of black tomatoes they are rather soft and juicy, and I have found them prone to splitting, although others have described them as split-resistant. They have a rich, sweet classic tomato flavour well balanced with tartness and a hint of that smoky quality that so many black tomatoes have, and a lot of people really, really like these very much. We've been drying them, and they are fabulous, having a lovely scent and a rich, fruity flavour with hints of anise and apricot. They hold okay on the vine, but not nearly as well as Ildi.


Ildi is what is called a multiflora tomato - tomatoes are formed in large bunches, rather like grapes. They are advertised as forming 50, 80 or even 100 tomatoes in a bunch. Mine didn't get anywhere near that - more like 15 to 20 per bunch - but the bunches were plentiful, and since Ildi is also indeterminate, they are still coming. The tomatoes are small, about the size of a gooseberry and a similar elongated lemon shape, with a strong golden colour. At 60 to 65 days to maturity, they are quite early. The plants are reasonably bushy, but not nearly so rangy as the Black Cherries.

They often get confused with Yellow Pear tomatoes, which are another old variety of yellow cherry tomatoes, which have a neat pear shape but are not nearly so prolific and are milder (blander) in flavour; I wouldn't grow them if I could get Ildi.

Ildi are sweet and rich, with a lighter, fruitier flavour than the Black Cherries. We've been drying them too, and while they don't have the amazing scent of the Black cherries they are so sweet and fruity they could be taken for dried apricots. So far our crop is heading for over 250 tomatoes per plant, and I'm pretty sure they aren't nearly done yet. One seed supplier suggested that "trusses (of Ildi) can be picked, hung in a cool garage, and kept for weeks without fruit dropping." I haven't tried that, but I have noted that they hold on the vine (or off of it too) very well indeed.

Marmande Tomatoes

It's been busy as hell around here lately, I'm afraid, so there isn't going to be much besides varietal reports for a while. Mind you when it's also hot as hell and the produce is piling up there doesn't tend to be much cooking at the best of times. Simple salads, sandwiches, fruits (tomatoes! peaches!) and some corn on the cob dunked in boiling water just can't be beat at this time of year.

So anyway, this is a Marmande tomato. Apparently they are big in France, and the British like them too. People rave about the flavour. I'm afraid I'm not so impressed. They are semi-determinate (although mine wrapped up production no later than any of the determinates we were growing, and sooner than some) beefsteak-type tomato that should be ready in 65 to 75 days. However I did not find it particularly early. Flavour is okay, a standard tomato flavour neither intense nor interesting, and finally each and every tomato with exception of the one pictured above was a member of the Judean People's Front. (SPLITTERS!)

On the positive side, it is supposed to have reasonable disease resistance, but until that's an issure that's not an issue. It did produce a reasonable amount of tomatoes. But since we just didn't love them, it's safe to say this is one tomato we won't be growing again next year.

Viva Italia, Martino's Roma, & Romeo Tomatoes

What do these three tomatoes have in common? They are all Italian style paste tomatoes. They all grew in our garden this year. And probably, they will not be grown in our garden next year.

First of all, Viva Italia, which is a classic Italian paste tomato, producing 3 ounce fruits on a determinate plant; about 75 days to maturity from setting them out. This is one of the very few hybrid tomatoes we grew this year and I can't say it's any better than the open-pollinated ones; in fact we don't like it nearly as well as Amish Paste, Opalka or even Bellestar. It isn't nice at all when raw, and even cooked we found the flavour adequate, but kind of dull and lacking in depth. It's supposed to be a disease-resistant tomato which it may very well be, but since we had no troubles with any diseases in our garden this year, it didn't matter. And finally, it did not produce particularly large amounts of tomatoes compared to the others already mentioned. In short, there isn't particularly anything wrong with this tomato, but there are enough better ones out there that I think it's going to be dropped.

Martino's Roma - the little tomatoes on the right, in the above picture - did not wow us either, although I can see growing it again for canning whole. It's an open-pollinated heritage variety, also determinate and ready in about 75 days. The tomatoes are very cute, being fairly small (perhaps 2 ounces each) and very plentiful. The plants were absolutely loaded with tomatoes. We used them in sauce, and they were a pain to work with because they were so small - larger tomatoes are definitely easier. The skins were also remarkably thick and tough. Again, we didn't like them at all raw, finding them bland and dry, and did not think they had a particularly notable flavour cooked either, although they were a lot better cooked than raw, having a fairly standard classic tomato flavour. I think if I were to grow these again, it would be because I wanted to can whole tomatoes to be served as a vegetable. They are just the perfect size for that. Again, there are better tomatoes for sauce or crushed tomatoes; both in terms of flavour and a better size to work with.



And finally, these are Romeo. I thought they were relatively common - I remember growing them back when I had an allotment garden, as well as buying them as started plants last year (from which we saved the seeds for this years crop) but there is remarkably little information about them out there. Apparently they were introduced by Peters Seed & Research, an American based company that is now out of business. No one in Canada seems to be selling them this year.

They are a large, paste tomato produce on indeterminate vines and like the others they are ready in about 75 days. Again, they don't taste nice at all when raw, but we thought they had good flavour once cooked - perhaps not the best, but better than Viva Italia or Martino's Roma. They had a classic tomato flavour with a touch of sweetness to them. Some people report tomatoes of over a pound each from Romeo. Ours were considerably smaller than that, but still a good large size and produced reasonably plentifully on the plants. I would grow these again in a pinch, but I do think I like Amish Paste and Opalka better.

Tricolour Tomato Soup

Tomatoes! Tomatoes! Tomatoes! We're inundated with them, about which we are mostly very pleased. The yellow tomatoes were a mixture of Banana Legs and Taxi, the reds were Stupice and the green tomatoes were Green Zebra. Green Zebra is probably the most common green (when ripe) tomato, but I suspect you can use whatever yellow or red tomatoes you can find to good effect.

This is a rather glamourous soup with a few stages to it, but not difficult. You could cook the yellow soup base in advance and just finish it before serving to make it even easier. I meant to shred a little basil into the green tomato garnish but I forgot. You could do it, though.

4 - 6 servings


Cook the Carrot:
3/4 cup diced carrot (1 small)
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 cups water

Peel and dice the carrot, and cook it with the bay leaves in the water until just tender. Keep the cooking water.

Sauté the vegetables:
1 cup diced yellow zucchini (1 small)
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/3 cup diced shallot (2-3 medium)
1 tablespoon sunflower seed or olive oil

Prepare the vegetables and sauté them in the oil until soft and slightly browned.

Finish the Soup:
4 cups peeled, diced yellow tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons verjus
OR 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sherry (optional)

2 to 3 cups peeled, diced red tomatoes
1 cup peeled, diced green tomatoes

When the sautéd vegetables are ready, add the diced yellow tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes, until they are quite soft.

Lift the carrots from their cooking water with a slotted spoon, and put them in a food processor or blender. Add the yellow tomato mixture, purée until very smooth, then remove the soup to a pot. Use the water from cooking the carrots to swish out the food processor or blender, having of course discarded the bay leaves. Add this water to the soup.

Add the diced red tomatoes to the soup and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully to keep the red tomatoes as intact as possible. Serve garnished with the raw green tomatoes. We all agreed a dollop of sour cream or yogurt would also go well.




Last year at this time I made Corn Pudding.

Pickled Baby Corn

The baby corn to make baby corn pickles can be very hard to find. I've mostly found it at markets where there are a lot of Mennonite vendors; St. Jacobs in particular. It will also be expensive. It should be. Do you want to husk all those itty, bitty little cobs of corn? No. No, you don't. Give the nice lady the really very reasonable sum of money she is asking for, and a big smile. Also, go early or it will have sold out.

Of course if you are a masochist you could try growing a variety of corn specially bred for baby corn - there are several out there - and then husking them yourself. I haven't quite gotten there yet, but maybe next year or the year after.

Needless to say, these are a rare treat to be brought out on special occasions. The texture is intriguing and the delicate corn flavour and sweet-sour tang makes a good contrast to other pickles and relishes. They go well with almost any kind of meat, but especially more mildly flavoured ones like fish or chicken, as well as cheeses and cold cuts.

7 250-ml jars
1 hour prep time


1 cup water
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 quarts (8 cups) fresh baby corn cobs
salt

Put the jars to be used in a canner and cover with water by at least an inch. Bring to a boil and boil them for 10 minutes.

Be sure the corn cobs are quite small and that they have been well cleaned. Boil them for ten minutes in salted water and drain well. Pack them in the sterilized 250-ml jars.

Make a hot brine of the liquid ingredients, and pour them over the corn, to 1/4 inch of the top. Wipe the rims and seal the jars with prepared lids and rings (boiled 5 minutes) and process in a boiling water bath (back in the canner, in other words) for 10 minutes.





Last year at this time I was messing around with Sauerkraut.

Pear Jelly with Blueberries

Yeah, jelly again. Oh, but it's sooo good when it's unspeakably hot and humid out, as it has been, although it seems to have cooled off quite a lot since I made this a few days ago. I'd still eat it though. If there was any left, which there isn't.

I put the blueberries right into the jelly in 2 layers separated by plain pear jelly, just because I can't help myself; I have to get all fancy-pants. But really, I think it would have been just as good if not actually better to just serve the berries alongside the jelly. The plain parts of the jelly had a lovely smooth texture that should be appreciated on its own. You should still be sure to serve it with the blueberries, though. They add some tartness and bite to the pears, which are delicious but perhaps a tad too sweet and mild on their own.

This makes quite a lot, and could easily be cut in half. Although it keeps quite well for a couple of days in the fridge, if well covered. I covered mine by putting the clean, dry mold back over it on the plate.

The pears I used for this were described as "Japanese" but I didn't get a variety name. They were much like Bartletts, though. I'm going to have to track them down again, because they were very good.

6 to 8 servings
20 minutes prep time plus at least 2 hours to chill


1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
6 medium-large Bartlett type pears
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons plain gelatine
the juice of 1/2 large lemon or 1 lime
2 cups blueberries

Put the water and sugar into a good-sized pot ( because you'll need to get the pears in there too) and bring it to a boil.

Meanwhile, wash, peel and core the pears, and cut them into chunks. Add them all at once to the boiling syrup. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until the pears are fairly soft. Turn off the heat, and sprinkle the gelatine over the pears, and stir it in until completely dissolved. Stir in the lemon or lime juice.

Put the pears and their liquid into a blender or food processor and process until very smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides if necessary.

You will need a 6 cup mold, or individual molds. To put in the berries in layers, pour about a quarter of the purée into the mold, and add half the berries. Chill until just set, leaving the remainder of the purée out on the counter until that point. Add about half of the remaining purée over the first layer and chill until set, again leaving the remainder of the purée out. Finally, add the remainder of the purée and put in the remainder of the blueberries. Or you can make life much simpler and dump all the berries in at the beginning, or else don't even put them in at all but just serve them alongside the jelly. Like I said above, the plain jelly has a very appealling texture by itself.





Last year at this time I made Cucumber Relish, and Slightly Lemony Blueberry Jam.

Striped German Tomato and a Bacon-Cilantro-Tomato Sandwich

As with so many old tomatoes, the history of Striped German -sometimes refered to as German Stripe or Striped - is hard to trace. As far as I can find, it was introduced by Johnny's Seeds over 20 years ago, after having been a pass-around variety for some unknown length of time. Other hints suggest that it originated in Hampshire County, West Virginia. It's quite possible; the name suggests a "Pennsylvania Dutch" or at least Mennonite origin, and Hampshire County butts up against Pennsylvania Dutch territory. Old German is a very similar tomato, but larger and later. I haven't grown it.

Seed catalogues describe Striped German as in indeterminate, 80 day tomato, a fine flavored red/yellow bicolor with unusually well defined stripes, and a productive plant. I don't find the stripes that pronounced; more like red-orange marbling, with more orange on the outside than red. Mind you, I have exactly one plant to go by. I'm a bit annoyed by this; I planted 2 Striped Germans, and one of them is distinctly off-type, and not nearly as good. Somebody wasn't keeping their seed plants well isolated? Harumph.

However, a well-grown Striped German - and my other plant seems fine, and more or less as I remember from the last time I grew them - is a real treat. The tomatoes are medium to large (mine are more medium, but they're pretty crowded) with red, yellow and orange marbled flesh and skin. They are dense, with moderate seed cavities and gel, and good texture that balances softness and firmness. The flavour is sweet and rich with fruity, almost tropical, notes. They are one of my favourite tomatoes for eating fresh, and a lot of other folks rate them highly too.

My tomatoes are unusually round - this may be because I don't have completely pure seed. Many Striped German tomatoes are rather ribbed, to the point of being lumpy.


They make great sandwiches. The one above is a "BCT"; a bacon, cilantro and tomato sandwich. The use of cilantro and baguette made me think of banh mi, so I threw on a little hot sauce with the mayonnaise. Very yummy.

Cabbage & Cheese Curds with Tomato & Tamari

This ridiculously simple dish makes a nice light lunch or supper. There is something about the combination of tomato and tamari that really appeals to me. Of course I am notoriously fond of salt, so why wouldn't it? The cheese takes it from a being a couple of vegetables to being a main dish, if served with noodles or rice. Some nice crusty bread would work as well.

2 to 4 servings
20 minutes prep time


4 cups chopped cabbage
3 cups peeled, chopped tomato
100 to 150 grams (1/4 pound) cheese curds
1 or 2 tablespoons tamari

Put the cabbage in a pot with sufficient water to come half way up it, and bring it to a boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until just tender. Drain well, but keep it in the pot.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the cabbage, along with the tamari. Bring to a boil then simmer, stirring regularly, until the tomato softens, just a couple of minutes. Add the cheese curds and cover the pot. Cook for about 2 minutes more, until the cheese curds melt.

Serve at once over noodles or rice.




Last year at this time I made Fried Whitefish Fingers and Spinach with Celery.

A New Phase of the Garden

Things have changed a lot in the garden since I last wrote about it. It looks a much different, much less lush place. Partly this is because of a major error we made, but partly it's because a number of things are ready to harvest and we have been harvesting them. Potatoes, for instance.


Digging potatoes is a lot of fun - it's like digging for pirate treasure, only better because instead of digging up stupid gold and jewels you get something really useful: potatoes!


I'm still waiting - oh so patiently (well, kinda) - for our first ripe melon. They're looking good so far!


We have only one enormous Rouge Vif d'Etampes pumpkin vine, with only two pumpkins on it, but the pumpkins are large and absolutely beautiful. I expect they'll be ready soon.


We have some smaller pumpkins, Small Sugar, which have sprawled well out of their bed and produced about a dozen pumpkins. They should have produced more, but for our major error.



Little Ping Tung eggplants are coming along beautifully, and Little Fingers eggplants are not far behind.


My Sweet Pickles peppers are so weighted down with fruit that they have toppled over. They seem fine though, so I'm just letting them topple. Other peppers also doing well, although there seems to be some mild, leaf-wrinkling virus working it's way through the patch. No composting the plants this year.



We've started harvesting the short corn on the left (Quickie is the variety) and the mid season corn (not really visible behind the late season corn in front) will start very soon, within the week. We've managed to keep deer and raccoons at bay with electric fencing, but we are starting to see minor damage, either from crows or squirrels. Everybody loves sweet corn!



The tomatoes are now a semi-impenetrable, semi-collapsed jungle. We will need a better support system for next year. Meanwhile, we have been eating lots of ripe tomatoes and canning season will probably start next week. Uggh. Love the finished product, hate canning in August. September is so much cooler and better.



Carrots look big and leafy and we have even pulled out several very decent carrots, although I sure wouldn't say we have the knack for them yet. Beets have been harvested and replanted behind them, and the last bed there is full of potatoes waiting to be dug up.



Okay, now here's the big change. All those leafy peas and beans are gone, mostly because we killed them through our big error. We were using water from our deep well to water, and it was full of salt. We had tested it on a number of plants in the spring, and it seemed fine. But once the really, really hot weather hit in mid to late July, the combination of poor weather and bad water did in a number of plants, including almost all the peas and beans. (Lima beans just kept on trucking, amazingly enough.) You can see my Mammoth Melting we liked so much hanging dead at the back there. They were the last to die, and we will be able to save some seed from them, which is good.


We've planted more peas and beans in the hope of getting a second crop. We still have more to plant, including some short ones (Tom Thumb peas) that will go into the cold frames, and which we hope will keep us supplied until Christmas. We'll see; gardeners are incurable optimists!