HAPPY FOOD DAY 2011!!!

"Flowers, Fruit with a Woman Picking Grapes" by Christian Berentz (1689)

[fresh picked] Get Ready: Food Day 2011 is October 24!

Read on to find out what this day is all about and how you can get involved. Food Day 2011 (hat tip to The Kitchn for the link and lead).

Blog update

Hi readers! I'm under a triple dose of deadlines right now, so I'll be having to step away from blogging until I can complete my work. I'll be back at the beginning of November with more recipes, ideas and tips for working with your harvests, whether they are hand-picked, foraged or store-bought!

[extra! extra!] Apples

I'm extending this seasonal feature through mid-October due to popular demand! 

This series spotlights those common fruits and vegetables which may be a very large part of the current harvest in your garden, from your CSA, etc. Links to 5 different recipes should inspire you to prepare your fresh produce in myriad ways so you have a good chance to achieve zero leftovers/waste. If you try any of these recipes, please let me know how you liked them! All recipes call for freshly picked ingredients. 

5 RECIPES FOR APPLES

1. From Framed Cooks: Ham, Brie and Apple Sandwich

2. From Food & Wine: Pan-Seared Sausage with Apples

3. From Southern Cooking: Apple Conserve

4. From Paula Deen || Food Network: Apple Strudel

5. From Yankee Magazine: Apple Quiche

[in case you missed it] BuzzFood in September

Here's what I've posted in September at my other blog, BuzzFood (that you haven't already seen here):

(all links archived here)

September 2

Amuse Bouche || The 25 most expensive restaurants in America (Bundle)

September 14

Sauce Me || Granzella's Muffuletta Mix

September 19

Amuse Bouche || Why You Should Be Making Holiday Cookies Right Now (The Kitchn)

September 20

Amuse Bouche || Endless Simmer: Top 10 New Foods at the 2011 State Fairs (Huffington Post)

September 20

Locavores || Hitchcock Restaurant, Bainbridge Island

September 21

Amuse Bouche || Seattleites diss local restaurants in LivingSocial survey | (Seattle's Big Blog)

September 23

TV Dinner Dish || Hell's Kitchen redux [spoilers]

September 29

Adventures in Foodieland || Buffet Table for September

September 30

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUZZFOOD! || Three years old!

Remember to follow me in Twitter @CSA_foodie if you are interested in reading both blogs as links to new entries at bothExtra! Extra! and BuzzFood appear there automatically (thank you, Hootsuite!).

[diy edibles] Should I pull up my tomato plants?

This is a common question in the fall for back-yard gardeners living in many of the northern tier states, where it can be harder to sustain the long growing season needed for tomatoes to do well while still on the vine.

The answer is that you can do a couple of things in order to save a handsome crop of green tomatoes in the face of darker days or incoming inclement weather or frost.

1. You can pull up your plants, roots and all, shake off the excess dirt, then hang them upside down in a fairly dry, warm place (you can do this in a greenhouse, your basement or garage, or an unused room in your house). Tie them up where the plant stems join the roots, and let them ripen on their own. Pick regularly as they color up.

2. Pick them. Arrange the hard green fruits in single layers on trays that you set out in a fairly dry, warm place (you can do this in a greenhouse, your basement or garage, or an unused room in your house). A popular way to do this is to place them on a bright windowsill, which is effective, but if you have a lot of tomatoes, you may wish to do just a few at a time so you don't have too many ripening at the same time. Whatever you do, use them as they color up.

3. If they are growing in a pot, move the entire pot indoors and let them dry out and color up indoors near a bright spot.

If you planted multiple varieties, you may wish to keep your pickings separate so you know which fruits belonged to which plants. Or you can do like I did one year; I picked a boatload of Lemon Boys and Purple Cherokees in mid-August in anticipation of several days of rain, wind and hail. They all looked the same going onto the trays, a pale green and similar in shape and size. Slowly, though, I saw some of them turn white while the others turned a soft pink, and then, as they continued, they grew darker in color until I had a gorgeous explosion of bright yellow and dark purple tomatoes to pick from a few weeks later.

Picking or pulling them up early does not affect their flavor or their color at all, by the way, so don't be afraid to try this great technique for saving valuable plants when it becomes necessary!