This Week's Theme: Grape Tomatoes!

I bought a bunch of grape tomatoes at the grocery this week and then when I was meal planning and perusing recipes I happened to come across three different recipes to use them in. Odd. Its as though grape tomatoes were meant to be this week.

Is there some cosmic significance to all of the tomatoness this week? Could the sudden abundance of tomatoes in my life have some hidden meaning?

The dream dictionary lists this info about "dreaming' of tomatoes:

To dream of eating tomatoes, signals the approach of good health. To see them growing, denotes domestic enjoyment and happiness. For a young woman to see ripe ones, foretells her happiness in the married state.

Well, shit fire! If all that is true and applies to the waking hours then dammit I'm in for some goodness in the next few weeks! Ya hooey! Sounds good to me so let's just go with it,mmmkay?

I've got three recipes I'll be sharing this week:

**Chicken salad with Grape Tomatoes

**Flounder Packets with Lemon and Tomatoes

**Couscous with Grape Tomatoes

Speaking of tomatoes...the seedlings are growing in the starter tray and ALMOST ready to be transplanted into the garden plot. I've got the soil all worked over in the plot and ready for the seedlings and seeds to be planted. So far everything but the peppers have sprouted.

I planted two different types of tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, brussels and peppers in this batch. I don't have the tray in front of me, but I might have planted some onion too-or I might be saving those seeds to go directly into the garden with the cucumber seeds...can't remember. Oh well.

Got some mesculin greens mix started in a window box too.

I want to get some summer squash and corn started too. Probably start those the first week in April.

I need to get the circle dug up and the bricks installed for the herb wheel also. If the weather cooperates I'll get all of this and some tree mulching done over the weekend.

Scones, Galettes, Pasta and More!

I am addicted to food blogs, but really what respectable foodie isn't? There are so many talented, interesting cooks out there and so many delicious recipes to try. I myself haven't cooked anything blog-worthy in over a week. Times are hard-I've been doing big batches of chili and other cheapie family meals that last a couple of days in order to get by till next payday and the next round of grocery shopping.


That does not mean my urge to cook and bake isn't there though-its actually full on strong! The arrival of fall makes me want to roast, slow cook and bake things everyday. Being here in Georgia, fall is kind of an odd time..one day it will be 85 degrees and the next overcast and cool so I've still got some summery things to try out during our transition into the cooler temps. I've been carousing food blogs daily and have a giant list of new recipes I plan on trying in the near future-should funds allow it.


Anyway, here's a sneak peak at some of the food blog recipes I plan on trying in the upcoming days and weeks:

BLACKBERRY SCONES by Everybody Loves Sandwiches

Lemon Nutmeg Scones by Taste and Tell

Blackberry Peach Galette by Everybody Loves Sandwiches

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette by Smitten Kitchen

Ina Garten's Grown Up Mac and Cheese by Butter and Sugar

Rachel Ray's Penne-Wise Pumpkin Pasta by Taste and Tell

Spanish Style Plantain Omelet by Bren

Low Cal Spring Rolls by La Mia Cucina

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Salad

Chipotle Corn Salad by Alosha's Kitchen

Blackberries: Picking and Freezing

Red spent last week at work with me, and one of the days he was there we walked the trail around the softball fields and found wild blackberries growing in the brush. I remember going to the edge of the woods or the fence line dividing my auntie's yard from her neighbor's when I was a kid and just sitting in the grass picking berries and eating them with my cousin.

I figured Red might get a kick out of picking them and then bringing them home to eat. Needless to say -Red looks impressed in the pictures below-but once he tasted one he wasn't so into it. Blackberries are pretty tart and the seeds turn some people off. They are great in pies and sauces and tarts though.

Most of the berries aren't ripe yet-but I didn't want to let the ones that are go to waste so today I went out on my own to pick them. Its probably much easier to pick them on a farm-but I've got free berries at my fingertips so I'm going to take the risk. here are plenty of snakes in the brush, so I was wary of that. Plus, the berry plants have tons of thorns on them-I just threw on a pair of gardening gloves and sprayed myself down in bug repellent. Nasty red bugs love the plants, i.e. Chiggers. I got attacked by red bugs a few weeks ago and I am not in a big hurry to deal with that again. Imagine intense itching that doesn't stop even with layers of calamine lotion, hydro cortisone and fifteen other anti-itch creams, oils and lotions.

Anyway, I got about a pint of berries from picking today. Not quite enough to much with so I will freeze them for later. I'm pretty obsessed with the idea of baking tarts right now and a blackberry tart sounds fabulous to start my tart making extravaganza.

Freezing berries is really pretty simple-so simple I feel silly even blogging the instructions, but there was a time in the past when I wasn't sure how to do it and googled it myself-so maybe this will help someone else.

This method works well for pretty much all berries, I've done it with blueberries and raspberries before when I had picked them up in bulk.

First wash your berries in a colander. Gently rinse them and then let them drip dry in the colander for about 10 minutes.

Empty them to a paper towel to absorb any remaining liquid. Don't squeeze or press them. just blot them gently and let the paper towel absorb the rest of the water.

Spread the berries out on a baking sheet or other pan with a lip on it. Doing this instead of just dumping the berries into a bag and freezing helps them not only freeze faster but they freeze individually and not in one big clump. This allows you to use only what you need and put the rest back in the freezer without having to defrost an entire bag.

The berries will freeze quickly-usually within a couple of hours. I put mine in my deep freezer-its colder than my regular freezer. Once they have frozen, you can then dump them into freezer bags and put them back in the freezer for later use.

Now, I'm off to search for the perfect blackberry tart recipe to test out.