harvest season...

It's getting cold in Michigan, we're likely to have our first frost soon... and it's been an incredibly abundant harvest season. As I've been woefully inadequate as a blogger much of this year, I'll attempt to catch up with a couple harvest-related topics tonight. Our main farmers market is on Saturday mornings--and it's HUGE (yes, we're spoiled with probably 80 or more vendors, plus at least 2 other weekly markets that we can and often do attend). But this season has been especially warm, and a decent amount of rain--which means GREAT tomatoes, and lots of 'em. I've been eating Heirlooms sliced with mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes in my salads, fried green tomatoes (the one way my wife likes them), and ht elist goes on... but as the Roma's have been coming in, it can only be sauce-making time. We've been buying them by the half bushel or more (that's a LOT of tomatoes) and I've been cooking them down into a wonderful sauce--seasoned with basil, garlic, onions, carrots, and cooked for hours low and slow, then run through a food mill. Then we divvy it up, and freeze it for the winter. Now, it's not hard, but it is fairly time-consuming, and as anyone who has made this stuff knows--it's messy, as it spatters a lot. But I did the math--it comes out to about $0.55/cup--about 1/2 the cost of grocery store bottled stuff. And it tastes SO much better, and I know exactly what went in it, and I've supported a local farmer (or two or three) in the process.

That success led me to try an experiment--homemade ketchup. Similar process, except add vinegar, brown sugar, and tons of spices--cinnamon, cloves, ginger and the like... I hadn't had homemade ketchup since we made it when I was a little kid with our extra garden tomatoes. What a fun and tasty experience. I can't say it's cheaper than Heinz, and although it tastes pretty different from Heinz, I don't even know if it's better, per se--after all, what IS ketchup SUPPOSED to taste like? But fun, and a nice thing to share with friends at a party or two.

Next up... soup--from zucchini to minestrone, from goose to vichysoisse.