The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

How to Smoke Tomatoes

I know what you’re thinking, “enough with the tomatoes already.”
Believe it or not, it’s December but I still go out every day and pick tomatoes off the vine and eat them. They still taste great.

The skins of my tomatoes started to crack as the weather turned cold and the days became shorter. So I stopped watering them about four weeks ago—and they stopped cracking. I learned this trick from my brandywines.

We had an abundance of large cherry tomatoes. I didn’t feel like making a sauce with all these little tomatoes so my husband and I decided to do what we used to do every year at our old house—smoke them. I know what you’re thinking now: Aren’t they hard to keep lit?

Smoked tomatoes are delicious, but very labor intensive. Trust me though, they are worth it. It’s easy for me to say this because usually my husband does the labor. I just supply the tomatoes.

Colander O’ Plenty

This is my first harvest. All I picked were tomatoes and tomatillos though, which is O.K., because that’s all I planted.

I haven’t done anything with the tomatoes yet. I heard it was best to pick them, turn them upside down and set them on your counter for about three days. Supposedly this brings them to optimum sweetness.

I did make salsa with the tomatillos. I roasted them until they were slightly blackened. I let them cool then I put them in a blender with a small white onion chopped, 5 or 6 sprigs of cilantro and a couple cloves of garlic. I blended them for a few seconds and then added salt to taste.

We laid it over fresh cod, wrapped it in aluminum foil, and threw it on the grill until the fish was just cooked through. Yum.

Oh, by the way, I didn’t take any pictures.

Hey, I’m still getting used to all this blogging stuff.

My First Blog Recipe

This makes the second year in a row I’ve planted fava beans. I originally did it because of my friend Patti. (She likes to be called Patricia but I’ve been calling her Patti for 18 years now and I can’t stop now.) So Patti told me that favas are a good cover crop. They add nitrogen to the soil, which means that right after they’re harvested you can grow another crop of something else right on the top of where they were.

I now grow them because they are so tasty.

I’ve never published a recipe in my blog before. Here is the reason why: I’m not good at that measurement part, I’m not good at remembering where the recipe came from and I’m not good at writing them down.

See my dilemma?

Patti, the one who likes to be called Patricia, also gave me this recipe for fava beans
and it was from some kind of eating light or heart healthy cookbook or something like that. I made it with fresh fava beans from my garden and I liked it. My kids ate it which, of course, is the true test of a recipe at my house.

So I thought I would pass it on.

Patti’s Fantastic Light Fava Bean Pasta

About 1 cup of fava beans--hulled and blanched with the waxy outer shell taken off.
(You need about a third to a half a shopping bag full of fava beans to get one cup you can actually eat. )
About 1 pound of dry pasta like Cappelletti, radiattore or fusilli whatever you have.
About 1 cup of ricotta cheese
About 1 cup of pasta water
About 1 cup of parmegeana
About 1/3 cup of fresh mint chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Boil the pasta
Drain the water
Reserve 1 cup of pasta water
Mix everything up in the pot and serve
You can grate a little more parmesean and throw it on top if you like.
Serve with Chianti, of course.

I made it with grilled chicken once and it was really good. Don’t tell Patti because she’s a vegetarian.

My friend Patti is reading this right now rolling her eyes, swearing under her breath and saying “This is not the recipe I gave her!”

Thank you, Patti.