Newfangled Fun with Melons and 'Maters
So, summer, being the awesome season it is, blessed us with an abundance of watermelon.
Other than slurping on a slice over the kitchen sink, there's been few variations on the theme. Until I picked up Sheila Lukins' Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Recipes for Each.
The Watermelon Salad on page 266 inspired me on Monday eve - I omitted cucumbers and tomatoes and mixed up chunks of watermelon and feta cheese with a little chopped mint, olive oil and cracked pepper.
I LOVED this salad; Scott was a little leery of it and didn't really praise it. That's okay, I devoured the leftovers for lunch the next day.
This was a week for trying new things: my friend Candice invited me over on Friday night for a little introduction to canning tomatoes.
Armed with plenty of chardonnay and sharp knives, we peeled and quartered about 30 tomatoes from her father's stockpile and boiled them in my enormous stockpot (found in the backyard of our first rental house in East Nashville in the backyard, along with some amazing All-Clad cookware, abandoned by the previous tenant - what?! Who trashes All-Clad?).
Peeled and quartered and ready to be delicious...
Steps of the canning process I was unaware of:
Peeling
Sanitizing the jars with hot water
Swaddling the end result in rags to insulate
The jars don't go "POP!" and seal right away.
I was surprised at how easy it is. Based on things I read and heard about nightmare canning mishaps and the risk of botulism and other nasty things happening, I was mildly concerned. Now I just want to get into those tomatoes and try my hand at homemade pasta sauce!
Yum. I love summer foods.
Other than slurping on a slice over the kitchen sink, there's been few variations on the theme. Until I picked up Sheila Lukins' Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Recipes for Each.
The Watermelon Salad on page 266 inspired me on Monday eve - I omitted cucumbers and tomatoes and mixed up chunks of watermelon and feta cheese with a little chopped mint, olive oil and cracked pepper.
I LOVED this salad; Scott was a little leery of it and didn't really praise it. That's okay, I devoured the leftovers for lunch the next day.
This was a week for trying new things: my friend Candice invited me over on Friday night for a little introduction to canning tomatoes.
Armed with plenty of chardonnay and sharp knives, we peeled and quartered about 30 tomatoes from her father's stockpile and boiled them in my enormous stockpot (found in the backyard of our first rental house in East Nashville in the backyard, along with some amazing All-Clad cookware, abandoned by the previous tenant - what?! Who trashes All-Clad?).
Peeled and quartered and ready to be delicious...
Steps of the canning process I was unaware of:
Peeling
Sanitizing the jars with hot water
Swaddling the end result in rags to insulate
The jars don't go "POP!" and seal right away.
I was surprised at how easy it is. Based on things I read and heard about nightmare canning mishaps and the risk of botulism and other nasty things happening, I was mildly concerned. Now I just want to get into those tomatoes and try my hand at homemade pasta sauce!
Yum. I love summer foods.
Ah jealous you got going on that! We still haven't gotten into it even though I've got a sh*t bunch of jars from my Grandma...
ReplyDelete