GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: tomato

  • Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Polenta Recipe Video

    Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Polenta Recipe Video

    When you buy too many of those cherry tomatoes at the big store, make this roasted cherry tomatoes and polenta recipe. This recipe takes tired, older cherry tomatoes and concentrates their flavor, drop them on top of a quick pot of polenta, and you have dinner, or part of a big dinner.

    I had bought a large package of cherry tomatoes at the warehouse style food store, the place where you eyes get big and you want to buy lots of stuff because you think its all a good deal, except that you have to cook it all. I have found that buying dried fruits and nuts at the warehouse store is a good deal. I keep them in zipper storage bags and put the nuts in the fridge, they last longer that way.

    The tomatoes sat on the counter for a week – don’t keep them in the fridge – and started to get soft and a bit wrinkled. I cut them in half, put them in an oiled pan, and sprinkled the magic ingredients over them, olive oil and salt. In the oven for 20-30 min, and out come something completely different that what went in there.

    roasted cherry tomato recipe

    The polenta is based on our quick stovetop polenta recipe, using the secret ingredient to cook the polenta faster. Add in some butter, and its a brilliant dish.

    You can top the cherry tomatoes with dried oregano or a mix of italian seasonings, it makes them that much better with little effort. I like to buy the larger container of italian seasoning, it goes on top of lots of foods in our house. Don’t use the best olive oil you have for this, as it is heated, so any subtle flavors are out the window. Use fine salt, not the course kind, as some salt might remain, and not everyone likes to bite down on chunks of salt, ok?

    Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Polenta Recipe Video
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Smart use of cherry tomatoes that are getting a bit old on the countertop. This transforms them into a new delicious thing.
    Ingredients
    • 1 package of cherry tomatoes
    • Olive Oil
    • Fine Salt
    • Dried Italian Seasoning Herb mix or Oregano
    • 1 batch of stovetop or microwave polenta, link is above
    • Hard cheese like Romano or Parmesan
    Instructions
    1. Slice all the cherry tomatoes in half.
    2. Place them in a lined and/or oiled sheet pan, ideally they will fill up tray.
    3. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle salt and seasonings on tomatoes.
    4. Roast for 20-40 minutes at 425F. Keep an eye on them.
    5. Cook a batch of the stove top or microwave polenta.
    6. When the tomatoes are oozing liquid and starting to collapse, they are done.
    7. Spoon polenta into serving bowls and top with tomatoes.
    8. You can drizzle more olive oil over the dish.
    9. Grate cheese over top.

     

  • How to save tomato seeds – GF Video

    How to save tomato seeds – GF Video

    Learn how to save tomato seeds from tomatoes in your garden. Watch our video, its super easy to do. Tomato seed saving works best with heirloom and non-hyrid tomatoes. Seeds saved from hyrbrid tomatoes will not yield the same tomato variety.

    Save Tomato Seeds For Next Season

    Simple right? Its not hard to save tomato seeds . The key thing to remember is to not use any of the seeds that are still floating in the tomato water after 3-4 days. These saved seeds will not germinate, as they still have that gelatinous membrane around them. There will be plenty of seeds at the bottom of your tomato seed container to dry for next year’s crop.

    Remember to dry the seeds on plain copy paper,  not  paper towels. The saved seeds will stick to the paper towels, they stick less to the regular paper. It helps greatly to write on the paper what kid of tomato the seeds are saved from. Learn from my experience…

    I keep all my seeds in the fridge or in a cool dry dark place in the basement. Save those silica gel packs from electronics packages, and put them in with the seeds, they absorb moisture from the stored seeds. You can also buy silica gel at a crafts store. Are there other methods for absorbing moisture in the seed packets? Let us know below.

    Here’s how one GF viewer saves tomato seeds:

    I save those but I keep them in a different fashion. If I find a tomato I like (heirloom, hopefully) I take a color photo of it before I cut the tomato. I then proceed to save the seed. I dry them on a plate myself. Once dried for a few days I make a small wax paper envelope, put the seed in and then staple it to the photo. If there’s some quality about the tomato I write that and the name, if I know the name, onto the photo. That’s my system for saving.

    how-to-save-tomato-seeds-2

    You might also consider doing a seed exchange with your friends, its a neat way to discover local specialty seeds. Or this could be the start of a new hobby of cross breeding tomatoes to create new varieties that work best in your micro climate. Neat stuff all round. Fedco Seeds has some great heirloom tomato seeds. Let us know your seed saving ideas below:

    how-to-save-tomato-seeds

    Click Here To Watch More GF Tomato Videos

     

     

  • Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe GF TV Video

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe GF TV Video

    Easy Cherry Tomato Recipe served over pasta, rice, or quinoa. Here’s a recipe for all those ripe cherry tomatoes in your garden. Roast the tomatoes with some garlic and the like, and its amazing.

    My friend Bill gave me this cherry tomato recipe; he’s been making it a few times a week. Its a great midweek dinner, or weekday dinner recipe, super simple.

    I make this with all yellow tomatoes, but you can ‘ use what you got ‘ cause that’s the GardenFork way, after all. The yellow cherry tomatoes have  lower acid content, and are sweeter, I think, than red cherry tomatoes, but that’s just my opinion.

    If you have a recipe for cherry tomatoes, please share it with us below, be great to hear from you.

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe
    Recipe Type: Pasta
    Cuisine: Italian
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 4
    Cherry Tomato Pasta recipe to deal with all the tomatoes you have in the garden.
    Ingredients
    • 2 pints cherry tomatoes
    • 1/4 cup olive oil
    • 4 large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    • 1 cup oil cured black olives – optional
    • 1 cup cubed feta cheese
    • 1 lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    Instructions
    1. pints cherry tomatoes
    2. /4 cup olive oil
    3. large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    4. cup oil cured black olives – optional
    5. cup cubed feta cheese
    6. lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    7. Cooking Directions
    8. Preheat the oven to 375F
    9. Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes. arrange the tomatoes in one layer in a 9 x 13 pan.
    10. Coat with the olive oil and distribute chopped garlic over tomatoes.
    11. Roast in oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes start to burst and brown slightly.
    12. If using black olives or feta cheese, add these after tomatoes are roasted.
    13. Cook pasta while tomatoes are roasting. Drain cooked pasta and divide between 4 bowls.
    14. Pour roast tomato mixture over the pasta.

     

  • Setting Up a Dutch Bucket Hydroponics System

    (Sorry about the Auto-Start on the Video. Don’t know how to turn that off–Rick).

    I’ve set up a hydroponics (soil-less growing in an inert medium) system inside the tunnel, which is itself inside my greenhouse. This is a little video on how I did it and how the system works. For early season vegetables, this scheme will work all the way up to Maine…at least that’s what Eliot Coleman says. You can have, however, just one or two Dutch Buckets (also called BATO buckets) in a corner of your house. Just as long as the temps stay warm enough for, in my case, tomatoes and peppers.

    There are some parts coming that are not in the video. One is an aquarium air pump to keep the growing liquid oxygenated. The other is an aquarium heater, which will warm the solution that is pumped over the roots.

    Also I failed to mention that this system doesn’t run continuously, it is On 1 hour, Off 4 hours.

    • It used to be that you couldn’t find drip irrigation supplies at garden centers and the big Orange or Blue stores, but now you can. However, you can order drip supplies from Drip Works online as well.
    • The Dutch Buckets came from Grower’s Supply, but there are many sources (be sure to order the siphons, 2 per bucket, which are separate). There are also videos on how to make home made Dutch Buckets (BATO buckets).
    • the Hydroton came from a local hydroponics store, but is also widely available on-line. You can also use any light medium, such as expanded shale, perlite or even river gravel (anything without limestone. To test, put a hand full of gravel in a jar of vinegar. If it bubbles and sizzles, you can’t use it.)
  • How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes : GardenFork Radio

    How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes : GardenFork Radio

    Call us: 860-740-6938  Want to know How to Grow Heirloom Tomatoes? or just how to grow tomatoes? Today we talk with my neighbor Priscilla, who is an heirloom tomato expert, and has more energy than I do even after drinking lots of coffee. Priscilla grows tomato seedlings of 30 different heirloom tomato varieties each year and sells the young plants at her farm stand at the end of her driveway.

    Priscilla mentioned several seed companies she is ordering from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a beautiful catalog and is very pro-active about heirloom seeds. Their site is here http://rareseeds.com/

    Totally Tomatoes is a catalog that has more tomato varieties than anyone else, I think. Their site is here http://www.totallytomato.com/

    Shumway Seeds website is here: http://www.rhshumway.com/

    We will also be posting a new GardenFork video this week on how to start vegetable seeds in these neat homemade cardboard containers Priscilla showed us how to make.

    Some of my favorite heirloom tomato varieties are Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Prudens Purple, and Juliette.

    What are your favorite tomato varieties? Let us know below:

  • Tomato Hornworms – how to get rid of them – GF Video

    Tomato Hornworms – how to get rid of them – GF Video

    Tomato Hornworms can ruin your tomato plants overnight. Here’s how to get rid of tomato hornworms. If you notice the leaves of your tomato plant have been chewed to the stalk, and it looks like the plant has been stripped of it’s leaves, you have a tomato hornworm infestation.

    Nothing like coming up to the house to find large portions of your tomato plants stripped of their leaves. This is what happened to us, so we made a video about the tomato hornworms who took over our tomato patch.

    The Tomato Hornworm is the caterpillar of the Five Spotted Hawk Moth, a relatively non-descript moth, but in its caterpillar stage wreaks havoc on tomatoes.

    In the video I talk about the eggs of the parastic wasp, then I realized later the white protrusions from the caterpillar are the cocoons of the braconid wasp, not its eggs, which is even better, as soon they will hatch and parasitize more Hornworms. If you want the whole insect story, check out the Tomato Hornworm page at Wikipedia.
    tomato-hornworm-2

    I have heard about cardboard collars one can put around a young tomato plant to prevent the Hornworms from crawling up the stem. Another way, according to Wikipedia, to reduce the resident population is to roto-till the garden, as this will destroy hornworm pupae in the soil.

    If you see a wild sounding moth-bug think flying chaotically around your garden, it could be the adult moth of the tomato hornworm. I have only seen the moth a few times, but its huge and looks like a crazy bug thing.

    tomato-hornworm

    We have a number of how to grow tomatoes and how to cook tomato videos on our site here. I especially like our cherry tomato recipes, one of them is a raw cherry tomato pasta dish that is brilliantly simple.

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe Video

    Fresh Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe Video

    Get Rid of Tomato Hornworms Video