Sungold Sludge

I went a little tomato crazy this weekend.  I’ve been very enthralled with the whole canning food –pioneer life trend that’s been happening recently.  This is not to say that I am any good at it.  Currently, I have a few bags of frozen fruits, multiple jars of jam and a garden I need to deal with, but that does not mean I have “put up” enough for Joe and I to subsist on for the winter.  Really I just like the idea of being useful and home-makey.  So I got it into my head that I would try canning tomatoes. 

 Sure I could do something useful like make tomato sauce, or can whole tomatoes to use later in soups and sauces.  But no.  I was distracted by a recipe in Bon Appetít for homemade ketchup.  ‘Yes!’ I thought, ‘I can make my own ketchup, it will be very useful and delicious.’

So I immediately e-mailed a local farm and placed my order for a crate of 2^nd rate tomatoes at a discounted price.  A measly $25 for a crate I would pick up at the farmer’s market on Thursday.  Perfect.

When I got to the farm stand I was armed with 2 cloth bags to transport the tomatoes home.  I smilingly approached the man at the stand and told him of my order.  He said oh yes, we have seconds for you.  You can help yourself. 

I asked him how much was a crate of tomatoes (meaning how many tomatoes would I be getting), he told me a crate of tomatoes.  I nodded my ascent as if I got the joke and wasn’t at all trying to ask an actual question.

I was handed an empty crate which now looking back was the size of a pallet (well, maybe not quite that big, but it was rather large) and told to fill it up with whatever I wanted.  I started grabbing handfuls of different colored tomatoes and placing them into the black plastic crate.  When I got about halfway full, my heart started racing.  ‘Oh gosh, what am I doing, the recipe only calls for 5 pounds of tomatoes.’  So I interrupted the man again and asked how many pounds he thought a full crate was.  Oh about 35 pounds, he calmly replied looking at my crate.  I told him I thought I was ok with just a half full crate and I would still pay full price.  He told me no.  I was going to need to fill it up more.  I got a few chuckles and stares from other patrons at the stand noticing my panic and red flushed faced as I continued to plop tomatoes into the crate. 

I tried pushing them around to make it seem like more, the opposite of what children do to food they don’t want at dinner. 

I re-approached the man and told him the crate was full, I was ready to pay.  He, thinking he was being helpful, looked up at the sky and nonchalantly added 10 more tomatoes to my crate.  The one time the baker’s dozen elicits panic.  We then poured the tomatoes into my two bags, and I swear that when I picked them up it was closer to 50 pounds.  I’ve been lifting weights, so I’m pretty sure they weighed more than 35 pounds.

After lugging my 60 pounds of tomatoes home, I moved them into a wide shallow box, as the weight of all of them piled on top of one another was beginning to crush some of them.  Then I tried to push to box over to the side of my kitchen but apparently I am unable to push 75 pounds of tomatoes with one foot. 

When Joe came home and asked how my day was and what I had gotten at the farmer’s market, my reply was ‘Ok, don’t get mad at me, but…’ and thankfully he knows what that means – I have gone overboard on something.  I showed him the box. 

He agreed that it was over 35 pounds.

So to wrap this story up; yes I did make ketchup, no I did not use all of the tomatoes in that batch, and when you quadruple a recipe you also have to quadruple the time.  The ketchup turned out alright, not really ketchup as we know it (so I’m calling it catsup – because who really knows what catsup is) and it’s a bit spicy.   Too spicy for Joe, so now I have 12 pints of catsup that I ‘put up’ this weekend in case this winter we have to douse everything with homemade ketchup.  More likely this will become a Christmas present to at least 11 people. 

With the remaining 10 pounds of tomatoes, I made a vat of tomato sauce and froze it on Sunday.  But what I am going to share with you today is not a recipe for tomato sauce or ketchup catsup. I will share something far more manageable in the tomato realm.  Although I love this so much that next year I may only grow Sungold tomatoes and make this all summer long. So that when Joe asks me what’s in the garden I’ll have to say “Ok, don’t get mad at me, but…”

Bess’ Sungold Sludge

Sungold tomatoes are the small orange tomatoes.  They are as sweet as candy and just as pretty in my mind. My friend Bess, makes this delightful treat in the summer when her crop of Sungolds are ready.  I always secretly hope she will have some each time I see her.
 
1 pint of Sungold tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tb olive oil
Salt to taste

For assembly:
Fresh basil leaves, sliced
Goat cheese (or cream cheese)
Toasted French bread slices

 Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat, add garlic and sauté for about a minute.  Slice some tomatoes in half and add to skillet.  Add the other tomatoes and stir.  Adjust the heat as necessary so the garlic doesn’t burn.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the skins of all the tomatoes have burst.  If a tomato doesn’t split open, gently press on it with a spatula or poke it with a knife, but be careful of any juices spitting out.

Once the tomatoes have split, lower the heat a bit and continue to cook another 7 minutes or so until the juices are thick and syrupy.  Add salt to taste.

To serve, spread goat cheese on toasted bread, spoon the sludge over top and sprinkle with fresh basil.

I Am Not An Italian Nona

I don’t know if you knew that about me, but I’m not. In fact my WASP-y heritage prohibits me from becoming one, even though this is my lifelong dream. Basically, this means that I want to be really good at cooking Italian food. I’m not bad at it, but it does not come to me with ease or grace.

While in college some of my closest friends came from Italian backgrounds, and I was able to learn some basic principles from them through their family recipes. But as you can imagine, it is hard to cook gigantic dinners in college apartment s and dorms. Not impossible, but hard.

My group of friends and I would try to have “Family Dinner” on Sundays or at least once a week. This would be at various people’s apartments and usually consisted of giant quantities of food (we are talking college aged men here - they eat a lot). My sophomore year college dorm room had a tiny kitchenette that consisted of a sink, a small stove and oven and a refrigerator. There was approximately 2 square feet of counter space, which lead to creative storage and dish drying spaces. When I moved in, my mom unloaded all of her old pots, pans and utensils on me –most of which I actually still have.

In particular she gave me a gigantic stock pot. When I first got it, I said “Mom, I am never going to use this thing – it’s HUGE!” And she replied with a “Well, just keep it, you never know.” And once again the wisdom of mother panned out. I managed to cook up to 3 pounds of pasta at one time in it, which was just about how much was needed for a group of 6-8 college students.

I learned how to make marinara sauce, meatballs, eggplant parmesan and other dishes though the tutelage of college friends. And now, with Joe’s family, I have been able to learn even more about the art of Italian-American cooking. But the very intense crazy 'grandma-only' dishes have yet to be conquered by me.

For example, I tried to make Joe a 'welcome home' dinner this past Sunday of braciole. For those of you who don’t know what braciole is, it is magical. I had a bit of it from a friend’s grandmother once, and I would have had some from Joe’s Nana, except that he ate all of it before I could get my fork in there. Braciole is a piece of meat, either veal or beef, pounded thin and then wrapped around breadcrumbs, seasoning and hardboiled egg. It’s then braised and served with a tomato sauce and pasta. Like I said, magical. So I found a recipe online, and thought I could spend all day Sunday making it.

To make a long story a bit shorter, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Joe mentioned that he was glad he was not around to witness the debacle. There was profanity and the throwing of things. Wrapping meat around a filling successfully is my kryptonite in the kitchen. The braciole didn’t look good, but it tasted fine, and the sauce that went with it was great. So that is what I would like to share with you here today. If you know how to make braciole, or if you keep a small Italian grandmother hidden away for such occasions, please feel free to add it to the recipe.


Meat Braised Marinara Sauce As adapted from Tyler Florence’s “Ultimate Braciole”
I typically find Tyler Florence’s recipes good if not a little too involved. But this one looked promising. If you care to find his recipe for braciole, go ahead and give it a shot, but I am just going to share the sauce portion, which is still very good over pasta.

3Tb Olive oil
2 cloves
6 sprigs of thyme (washed but not chopped)
1 small (1-2 pounds) beef roast, or flank steak
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 ½ c beef broth
2 bay leaves
1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes (with no additional seasonings)
4 whole vine ripened tomatoes
½ pint grape tomatoes, whole
Salt and pepper
2 Tb balsamic vinegar
3 Tb parsley, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°, and season the meat with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven and add the garlic cloves and thyme. Once the garlic is fragrant, add the meat and brown on all sides. If the thyme and garlic start to brown too much, remove them from them from the oil, and set aside. Once the meat is browned, remove it to a platter and set aside.

Next add the onions and sauté until soft, about 3-4 minutes. Then add in beef broth and bay leaves, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Once the beef broth is boiling, add in the can of tomatoes, the reserved garlic and thyme and stir to combine. Once the mixture is fully combined, add back in the meat.

Nestle in the whole tomatoes around the meat, and toss in the grape tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the entire mixture to a simmer, then cover and place in the oven. Cook for about 2 hours, or until the meat is form tender (it will shrink in size a bit). Then remove the pot from the oven, and set the meat on a platter, and shred with a fork. Remove the whole tomatoes from the sauce, as well as the bay leaves and thyme springs. Blend the remaining mixture in a blender or with an immersion blender until combined. Then place the pot over medium heat.

Peel off the skin from the large whole tomatoes, and crush, then return them to the pot. Also, add back in the shredded meat and any juices that may have accumulated. Bring the pot to a simmer. Add in the balsamic vinegar and parsley and simmer for about 5 minutes. Check for seasonings, and serve over cooked pasta.