Recipes from La Cucina Del Garga

Okay, I promised the recipes from the cooking class that FHFB and I took in Florence in my last posting.  I even figured out how to scan them from the little cooking booklet that Sharon gave us at our class. 
Woo Hoo!!!  Big Time!!! Really - I'm still struggling with getting photos from my camera to Picassa.  Some days I am extremely fluent in it and some days it's like I never did it before.  Does that ever happen to you with technology??

I'll be posting the appetizer recipe today - yesterday's posting was a little too long and I don't want to just list one recipe after another.

And I think each one of them deserves their own post. 

Our first course was a delicious bruschetta, made with small, fresh, insanely ripe organic Sicilian tomatoes. 



Sharon and I halved the tomatoes and spread them right onto a cookie sheet.  She was so delightful to work with, always smiling and giving great advice and sharing little tidbits of information about the food we were working with along with interesting facts about Tuscan cooking. 

So, so yummy!!

The red pepper flakes used in this recipe are from tiny little dried peppers that are just crushed and added to the tomatoes - not from a jar of crushed red pepper flakes. FHFB and I purchased a little bag of these peppers last year (mainly because I thought they were so cute) and put them into a small Mason jar once the cellophane bad was opened - you can see that I saved the label and taped it to the outside of the jar. 

We ate this appetizer while we prepared the rest of the dishes and drank the white wine - Pomino Bianco from the Frescobaldi vineyards.  I have more information about ithe wine and a picture of the bottle in my last post. 

So, if you can find some ripe Sicilian tomatoes give this simple rustic appetizer a try.  If Sicilian tomatoes aren't available at your farmer's market or grocers try some large organic grape tomatoes - we roast them all of the time here at Frog Hollow Farm and serve them on top of goat cheese on a crostini or on top of fresh ricotta cheese.    Here are two links to recipes from my collection that include roasted tomatoes:

Goat Cheese and Roasted Tomato Crostini
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/goat-cheese-roasted-tomato-crostini-10000002013001/

Ricotta and Roasted Tomato Crostini
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/ricotta-and-roasted-tomato-crostini-00000000048772/index.html
This particular feature in Real Simple featured 10 different ideas for crostini - all yummy.

See you next time with the recipe and photos for the Pasta Magnifico recipe!

Ciao, bella!

~~~A produce stand at the Mercato Centrale in Florence~~~

Joining Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum!

Making Tomato Puree at Frog Hollow Farm

I'm so happy to be back blogging - things are just way too busy for me around here between painting the big room, traveling and getting back to work on a consulting basis. Yes, I know, it'as all good and it's exactly what I want to be doing, but sometimes too many new things at once catch me off guard, and my routines become lost in the shuffle.  

 Blogging has unfortunately gone by the wayside, and I've been missing you all terribly.  

Today I thought I'd post about my morning project - making tomato puree from the delicious tomatoes in  FHFB's vegetable garden. 

This is a photo of his garden in the late spring - that's the side of our house in the background.

September has always been the time of year when I've been back at school either teaching or bogged down in the administrative tasks of getting a new school year off to a great start.  Now, with retirement, I'm working on taking in a deep breath and reminding myself that I have the time to do the things that need to be done, as well as the fun things that I love doing, like decorating, cooking, shopping, entertaining, designing etc. 

So this morning I thought I'd continue tackling the tomatoes by cooking them down, milling out the skins and seeds, and simmering the whole thing down to a thick delicious puree that I could freeze for the winter. 

 First off I needed to give them a good washing - at this time of year many of the tomatoes have fallen on the ground and have some dirt on them - and they just get dusty hanging out there on the tomato plants.

You can also see that they start growing a bit funny at this time of the year - earlier in the summer we don't get these types of markings on the tomatoes.

After I've washed the tomatoes I cut them up into quarters or smaller pieces and cut off any spots that wouldn't normally be eaten.  All of the tomato pieces are then put into a large stockpot, without any water, on a very low flame, with the lid on, until they cook down a bit.  You don't need to cook them down too much this time, just enough to be able to have them pass through the food mill easily.

This is a picture of the food mill that we use for tomato puree.  It clamps onto our counter and separates the puree from the seeds and skin.  This food mill is made out of aluminum and stainless steel.  A bowl to catch the puree is set up as well as a smaller bowl to catch the skin and seeds. 

After the puree is separated from the pulp and seeds, it's cooked down for quite a while, so that most of the water cooks out - this will allow for a richer puree when its made into a sauce later on.  I only add a small branch of fresh basil to the puree while it's cooking down - no salt or other seasonings until it's begin used for sauce later on.  You can remove the basil before freezing the puree, but you don't have to. 

I'm using these mason jars to freeze the puree this time.

Yes, all those tomatoes cooked down to only about 6 cups of puree. 

According to several on-line sources you can freeze the puree in mason jars with no problems (I always prefer glass to plastic) as long as you leave about a third of the jar empty, to allow for expansion.  We'll see how this works - I put them into the freezer up in the kitchen without lids on to see what happens - someone online recommended freezing without the lids and then putting the lids on afterwards - I don't know if that really makes a difference or not. 

Here they are on the top shelf of the freezer - without the lids.  Later tonight I'll put the lids on the jars and move them downstairs to the other freezer.

I hope that all is well with you and a big, big thank you so much for stopping by and not forgetting about me!  I have so many things to blog about in the next few days - our visit to Vermont, the decorating and new design in the big room upstairs and my new fall table setting in the conservatory. 

I'm participating in Metamorphosis Monday - I used to participate in that meme quite a bit and I'm happy to be involved again - there are so many creative ideas there - please take a moment to stop by.

Ciao, bella!

Voila!

What better way to spend a day than creating delicious dishes with vegetables from our garden, and with some additions from the pantry, fridge or freezer - very yummy creations are usually the result. 

FHFB's vegetable garden is in full swing right now, most especially with tomatoes.  These little yellow gems have the most exquisite flavor, and they don't seem to split as much on the vine as the smaller cherry tomatoes.