Tomato Riches

This week is going to be a week that is all about tomatoes.

That sounds like an odd thing to say and, really, when I reread it, it is an odd thing to say. However, it’s perfectly true.

You see, on Saturday, before we went to the Herb Festival, my mother and I stopped by her local farmer’s market. Last time I went, I scored a deal on a bushel of tomatillos. I turned those into a large batch of salsa verde which is now residing in my freezer.

Well, this time, the same kind farmer who sold me my bushel of tomatillos offered me a deal on his tomatoes. I had every intention of buying some of his tomatoes because I’m still waiting for what’s left of my heirlooms to ripen as well as all my other tomatoes. He had lovely heirlooms and I planned on getting a few.

Well, he offered to sell me the entire flat of tomatoes for the low price of $6. This ended up being approximately 10 lbs of tomatoes. No, I’m not kidding.

Of course, I said yes. I would have been an idiot not to take him up on his offer. In Jungle Jim’s, a pound of heirlooms typically runs about $4.99/lb so you can see why I was so excited to get my tomatoes.

I carried the tray to my car with my mother’s help. It was quite heavy. It was also quite a lot of tomatoes. I gave my mother a couple and that left me with approximately 9 lbs. Since she’s going off to the UK this week and my dad isn’t much on heirloom tomatoes, I couldn’t persuade her to take any more.

Which means I am going to have a very tomato-y week. I did make one batch of marinara with them which I plan to freeze and enjoy during the winter months. I’m also planning on making some pico de gallo as well as a tomato tart. Tonight, I’m going to try an heirloom tomato and mint salad.

It’s a good way to find creative uses for tomatoes. My goal this summer is to make sure I have some food squirreled away for the winter that makes me feel a little taste of summer when I go to eat it during the cold months. It’ll be nice to open a Ball freezer jar of marinara sauce when it’s defrosted and know that the tomatoes were fresh when it was made and the basil and oregano came straight from the garden. As much as I like the winter, as a veggie lover, I miss the freshness of summer. Sure, thanks to modern technology and preservation methods, you can still buy tomatoes in February in any grocery store. However, they simply don’t taste the same. They don’t have nearly as much flavour and end up being a poor substitute for a tomato fresh picked from the garden.

So, I hope that I’m going to counter that by utilizing my large amount of tomatoes. I find them far more versatile than the tomatillo bushel I had a few weeks ago. It’s far more exciting to have tomatoes. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say but I will admit, vegetables make me very happy. Again, this is a strange thing to admit but it’s the truth. Vegetables force me to get creative with my cooking. I find little more fun than taking my burlap tote to the farmer’s market and filling it to the brim with beets, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, corn and beans. The great thing is that I always end up using every vegetable I buy. I’m not a vegetarian by any means but I could probably live as one if I had to someday.

I realize that my fascination and love for veggies is a little bit of a peculiar thing to blog about. However, it’s Monday and the alternative is for me to blog about how I don’t like Mondays and I find that I do that a little too often. Thus, tomatoes and vegetables seem like a nice alternative. And yes, I realize that technically tomatoes are fruits not vegetables but I find when people point that out, it’s annoying. To me, a fruit is something you can bake in a pie for dessert. You certainly can make a tomato pie or tart but that’s not dessert, that’s an entrée. You should be able to make ice-cream from fruit to be enjoyed on a hot day from an ice-cream cone. I’m sure some gourmet has made tomato ice-cream but, really, would you want to eat tomato ice cream on the beach?

I know there’s some scientific, herbolistic reason that tomatoes are considered fruits but I think those scientists and herbologists should run the “Ice Cream Equation” by each other next time they designate if something is a fruit or vegetable. Would you go to the store to buy a pint of tomato ice cream? No? Then TOMATOES SHOULDN’T BE FRUIT.

Sorry. I digressed. I actually didn’t realize I felt quite as strongly about the fruit/vegetable classification system. Apparently I do.

Back to my original point: In short, I have to say, there are far, far worse things to deal with than having a large array of tomatoes to use. I’m quite sure I will find a way to use them all up one way or another.

My theory is this, to paraphrase Dale Carnegie: When life gives you a giant box of tomatoes, make marinara. Or Salsa. Or salad. Or a tart.

Happy Tuesday!

Evil Strawberries of DOOOOOM!

It's not so cold this morning. As I was coming in to the office, I saw three deer scamper off into a nearby field. I miss the deer. I used to see them all the time in my apartment but now, living in a more urban area, I never see any. I see plenty of squirrels and the occasional bunny but no deer.

I woke up in a bad mood this morning. Don't you hate that? I've been trying to be in a good mood but it's the type of day where I just feel like sniping and being crabby. It'll wear off in a while, I hope. I just can't help it. Sometimes, we just wake up in bad moods. I realized I was in a bad mood when I was yelling at my toast for popping up too soon even though it was my fault I hadn't adjusted the darkness level. My toaster is not a good toaster. In order to get the bread to pop up, you have to turn the dial all the way to the left. This is fine until you make toast again and you forget to readjust it. It means soggy toast. Soggy toast doesn't make me happy as crispy toast.

It's still toast, however and I am not a Monkeypants who turns down toast, even the soggy kind.

I am going to try to pull myself out of my bad mood. The problem is that I stay up too late. I plan on going to bed early and then when it's time, I realize I had intended to get a lot more done with my evening so I don't end up going to bed for at least another hour. Nevertheless, it could have been worse. Fortunately, I don't have any meetings today so I can stay at my desk and be bad moody by myself.

Wait, correct that...I do have a meeting. Bugger. Oh well, I'm always complaining I never get invited to meetings while my coworker, supposedly my 'equal' goes to about five or six a week. She's the one that gets put on the project teams. Me, I get to stay at my desk and make sure everything else gets done. Not that I'm bitter.

Oh, who am I kidding?I am bitter today. It's a result of my crotchety mood. I don't even get to go to this meeting today by myself; my coworker is going to join me because heaven forbid I actually get to do anything on my own to show that, you know, I actually have skills.

Still, I quite like meetings. I've taking to doodling and making origami. Yesterday, I made a large pencil topper origami thingy that I called the quadopus. It's an octopus with only four tentacles. Hence the quad part. That's the latin word for four, right? It actually more looks like a circus tent but in my mind, it's a quadopus. I think the origami might have been a bit distracting so maybe I should keep to my doodling.

Lately, my doodlings have been odd. It started with a little picture of fruit that I called "The Evil Strawberry of DOOOOM!" I then drew a sad banana that I labeled, "The Sad Banana." I also drew "Boomer Blackberry." For some reason, I seem to enjoy doodling fruit. I'm not sure why. Yesterday, I drew "The Great and Awesome Pumpkins", "The Raincloud of DOOOOOM!" and "The Squashed Strawberry." Clearly, the strawberry had done something in my mind and had passed off its dooming mantel to the raincloud. Don't ask me, I just doodle.

It's ok until my boss asks me what I'm doodling. I think he thinks I'm not paying attention. The thing is that if I don't doodle, I can't focus. I need to be doing something like that so I can listen. I rarely take notes in meetings anyway unless I deem it necessary. If I doodle, it streamlines my brain so that I can actually listen to the exciting talk of WAR files, API's, server switching and XML files that really doesn't affect me that much. I showed my boss one of my doodles the first time he asked. It was a picture of the Kool Aid Jug Man as a vampire. My coworker was wearing a shirt with the Kool Aid Jug Man on it with a caption that said "Oh, yeah!!!" Apparently, this is something I should know but the only exposure I've had to the Kool Aid Jug Man is on "Good Eats" with Alton Brown on the food network. He was making some disgusting frozen pickles that he flavoured with a 'drink mix' that he wasn't allowed to name for license purposes. However, he gave us a 'clue' by having a Jug Man crash through a wall and say "Oh, Yeah." I figured it was Kool Aid but I had to Google it to see what the "Oh, Yeah" thing was about. I'm still not sure except it was part of the advertising campaign way back when.

I seem to make a lot of things monsters in my doodles. Aside from making the Kool Aid Jug Man a vampire, I made a pine tree into a Frankenstein. In our conference room, we have one of those paintings with Indians in it (meaning the Native American kind, not the Asian kind). They're on a trail in the snow and there are pine trees all around. So I drew a tree and it turned out crooked so I made it into a Frankenstein.

I suppose my corruption of normal-seeming objects into monster-type things speaks of some psychological misfire on my part. I'm not sure. All I know is that it's quite fun to draw Evil Strawberries of DOOOOM! Actually, it's just fun to say DOOOOOOM!" which is probably why I always label my Dooming objects.

I'm not sure what I'll doodle today. I'll let you know if it turns out interesting. I consider it a stream of consciousness thing. I rarely plan my doodles. I just go with the flow. Which, now that I think about it, might not be something I should really admit because that may make me seem a little twisted.

My boss just came by to see how things were going. He does that from time to time. He's not in the office much lately; he's too busy trying to get our new building up and running. We just found out that we'll now be there by the first weekend of December. Two days ago, it was "definitely by Thanksgiving." I know our lease in the current building expires at the end of December so we have to be out by then. As long as the weather cooperates, I can live with it.

My boss is gone now, obviously. He doesn't really have a clue what I do. I think he tries to but he'd rather do the more technical stuff and I can see his eyes glaze over when I tell him what I'm working on. Also, he doesn't really know how to talk to me because he thinks every thing I say is sarcastic which, actually, is not true at all. Still, he doesn't seem bothered with how I spend my time as long as I am working. For the most part, I am. I just think I need to get in a better mood.

Maybe I'll doodle some more evil fruit.

Happy Tuesday.