garden-fresh bruschetta, a healthy alternative to pizza

john — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:10:23 +0000

Bruschetta is one of those comfort foods that is simple to make, healthy and oh so tasty. Historically, bruschetta is just grilled bread flavored with garlic and olive oil with a pinch of salt. Regional and modern variations add toppings. Like any recipe, the better your ingredients the better your result. And what better ingredients than fresh produce directly from your own garden or local farm stand.

The pictured bruschetta at left modifies the basic recipe by adding blanched kale and black olives. Later this week, when we harvest our first eggplant, we will saute thin slices in olive oil and garlic. Regardless of what topping you choose, the one common ingredient to all bruschetta, and the most important, is the bread. Use a hearty, crusty bread such as Trader Joe’s Tuscan Pane.

mediaOrganic’s Garden Fresch Bruschetta

ingredients

slices of your favorite hearty bread
garden fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced
onion, diced
fresh basil, chopped
salt
olive oil
garlic clove, whole
grated parmagiano reggiano
a hot grill, stovetop grill pan or panini press

To make the topping mix the tomato, onion, basil, salt and olive oil together in a bowl and let sit while you prepare the bread. Lightly brush the bread slices on both sides with olive oil and grill until nicely toasted with grill marks on both sides. Rub the garlic clove on one side of each toast slice. Top with your tomato mixture and sprinkle the grated cheese over the top.

Mr. Tomatohead

john — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:50:41 +0000

My wife decided to have a little fun with this one. He as mozzarella eyes Click on the thumbnail to get the full photo.

yes, it can get too hot for tomatoes

john — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:46:39 +0000

This year I’ve learned that even in my Boston-area northern location there are spots that can get too hot. Witness my sunburned tomatoes. These were planted in front of a very large south facing panel of glass with a reflective UV coating on it. What started out as a great location in the Spring turned into a lousy location with the peak Summer sun. Plenty of water wasn’t enough to prevent this. No wonder my watermelons did so well in this bed two years ago, and peppers the year before that.

Tomato Tomahto

john — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:37:49 +0000

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen fast and furiously. It started with a trickle, first tomato harvested on June 30th. This week things have picked up a lot. Ironically, the rest of the family is in Florida this week so I’ve got these all to myself. Tomato, basil, mozzarella with a pinch of salt, pepper and drizzle of olive oil = heaven.

Frost Warning in Effect

john — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:46:52 +0000

<<This is how we protect our tomatoes (that have blossoms) when there is a frost warning.

And this is an innovative use of an extra mattress pad to protect our container plants in the courtyard. >>

Getting an early start

john — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:22:42 +0000

Hooray! Our first plants went into the ground this past weekend. The second week of April is a little early for us in Massachusetts but the plants are beginning to show up at the garden centers and the wife and I couldn’t resist the temptation of trying a few new things, the first frost be damned.

We are making our first foray into cauliflower with a varietal called “snowball”. Naturally, the deer found them the very first day and nipped the tops off of half of them. Needless to say, the row covers went on immediately.

We also planted some romaine and red leaf lettuces just for the heck of it. We’ve not had much luck with lettuces in the past but we keep trying.

Finally, we took a flyer on some early determinate hybrid tomatoes, the common Better Bush (65 days) and Celebrity (68 days). After last year’s late blight debacle, we are starving for some genuine home growns. We have a very warm south-facing bed next to the house that should protect the plants from any remaining frosts should they occur (we hope). So perhaps with a little bit of luck and good weather, we may be harvesting our first tomatoes by the end of June.

first tomatoes on the vine!

john — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:40:29 +0000

I discovered these litte treasures while tending the garden this weekend. The variety is a determinate hybrid call Bush Goliath that we picked up on a lark at Lowes. We’ve been growing heirlooms exclusively for the past few years so it was time we added some modern hybrids. These are about a 60 days to maturity. Naturally, I failed to record in my journal the date they went into the ground but I’m thinking it was mid-April, about the same time the blackberries went in. It’s been a fairly cool season to date so everything is behind schedule. But I think we’ll be harvesting our first tomatoes in early July.

heirlooms at the local flower outlet

john — Tue, 26 May 2009 11:28:17 +0000

It’s a nice discovery when you find heirloom tomatoes at the local flower outlet. I’m so used to seeing the standard hybrids. Our own green zebra seeds never sprouted this year (they were left over from last year) so we were pleased to be able to try growing them again. Last year’s green zebra’s all suffered from blossom end rot whereas none of the other varieties did. Could it have been a bad batch of seed? We’ve rotated the tomatoes to a new bed this year so we’ll see.

First Tomatoes of the Season

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:01:04 +0000

A Roma on the left, and a Marvel Striped on the right. The Roma came form Lowes to replace a Cherokee Purple that was mysterioslu brokne off at ground elvel, and I think it went into the ground June 1. Roma’s are 76 days so it’s way ahead. Marvel Striped (started from seed April12) was planted May 17; it’s 90 days and also ahead of schedule. I suspect this may be due to the Trex raised beds being so warm. This Marvel Striped was at the very bottom of the vine, most of its still-to-ripen-relatives are MUCH larger.

Big Doings in Small Spaces

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:13:21 +0000

Our potager-style vegetable garden is coming into it’s own. Summer of 2008 has been just about a perfect garden year – the weather has been beautiful, warm but not humid and we’ve had plenty of rain. Of course, with garden there are always high and lows, oftenat the same time. The lone tomatillo I planted hasn’t had any fruit, and some of the tomatoes are showing signs of blosson end rot. But then again, the watemelon is amazing, and we even have decroative white mini pumpkins growing that I never even seeded! We bought a bag as Thanskgiving decoration at Costco and threw them onto the front bed to compost. Well, of course over a dozen of them sprouted! So I kep the biggest one going, and you can see it in the same bed as the watermelon vines. We have more veggies than we can even eat!

The chicken coop is finally finshed and we have our permit from Westwood. The coop design is the well known Playhouse Coop. It’s just the right size for 3-4 chickens. We have three, 1 Buff Orpington, 1 Autralorp, and 1 Easter Egger. The first will lay lay brown eggs, and the Easter Egger lays a blue or green egg. They’re 4 weeks old this week, and still a few months away from laying.

One nice surprise this year are the watermeloms; they’re growing on the front steps. That’s by far the warmest spot around our house due to the south facing windows and the hard surfaces. The watermelons seem pretty happy there. The vines are just growing all over the place and osme of them are more than 15 feet long. Next year we will have to crop rotate, so we might actually goew these in the front yard under some ornamental grasses that get pretty tall. Or we might put them were you see the tomatoes, and plant giant sunflowers behind them as a livng screen because the tomatoes will need to go into a different bed as well.

mediaOrganic » Tomatoes