Fried Red Jersey Tomatoes

 Fried Red Jersey Tomatoes

Did you know that tomatoes don't have to be green to be fried? We love and enjoy red Jersey Fresh tomatoes fried. All you will need is one large red tomato to serve 2 people. Two slices per person is perfect for a side dish. To complete the meal, serve fried tomatoes along with a protein, such as meat, chicken, tempeh or fish, and a starch, such as Jersey Corn. 

• This is a GardenCuizine freestyle recipe - meaning that you can use how ever much you want of any of the ingredients used. 

Ingredients

• 1 large Jersey Fresh tomato about 3 1/2 inches, sliced thick
• Seasoned salt
• Black pepper
• Garlic powder 
• Peanut oil
• Stone ground yellow corn meal 

Putting it all together

1. Rinse your tomato(s), air dry, then slice into thick slices. 
2. Sprinkle with seasoned salt, black pepper and garlic powder.
3. Heat oil in skillet. We use a stainless steel skillet.
4. Dredge the tomato slices in corn meal just before frying.
5. Carefully add tomato slices to the hot oil in the pan and sprinkle additional corn meal on the top of the slices. Cook until golden brown.
6. Turn and cook the other side.
7. Serve immediately. 

 - Enjoy! 

GardenCuizine Nutrition Data:  2 thick slices tomato uncooked: Vitamin C, good source: 7.4mg (10% DV); Fiber 0.6g (3% DV); Potassium 128mg 5% DV); Vitamin A (3% DV) and other vitamins and minerals.

Recipe, photos and blog and video posts Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved. 

Black Bean Veggie Patties - Jersey Fresh recipe

Ingredients:

• Canned black beans
• Green pepper
• Onion
• Garlic cloves
• Egg
• Chili powder
• Bread crumbs
• salt and pepper to taste 

Recipe link: https://findjerseyfresh.com/JerseyFresh/recipes/black-bean-veggie-patties

For gluten-free, simply use GF breadcrumbs! Enjoy!

Easy steps to make a Veggie Quesadilla

Romanesco #gardencuizine #haveaplant

Incredible Edible

 

Meet Romanesco, one of the wildest looking veggies on the planet! This fascinating, Italian heirloom veggie is sometimes called Fractal Broccoli. This beauty was grown in New Jersey! If you see it at your local farmers market or grocery story give it a try. It's super nutritious and you can eat it and prepare it as you would broccoli or cauliflower. The head is chartreuse and the leaves are green of course; although purple leaves would make it even cooler!!

Related Links

If you Love Cauliflower, it might be time to try Romenesco

Incredible Edible

Photograph Copyright (C)Wind Photography. All rights reserved.

Jersey Fresh @BurlCoNJ Cabbage and Radish for homemade Sauerkraut #gardencuizine #probiotics @eatright

Homemade Sauerkraut with Radish 

We stopped by our local farmers market at Burlington County Ag Center yesterday. In addition to Jersey corn and fresh peaches and cherries, we picked up a whole head of cabbage and a bunch of spicy red radish to make homemade sauerkraut. 

I used the same recipe that was already posted here on GardenCuizine.com, but I will mention it again since it is so quick and easy.

You will need 1 head of cabbage. The first time I made sauerkraut, I used a supermarket cabbage. It was good; but, this time I'm using an even fresher head of cabbage from our local farmer's market. I can already see a difference in the amount of brine. Fresh picked cabbage has more water. 

Rinse and peel off any damaged leaves. Slice in half. Remove the core. Slice ribbons similar to coleslaw and put in a large bowl. I used a large stainless steel bowl and had it on a digital scale so I could weigh the cabbage. Our sliced cabbage weighed almost 4 lbs. Note: don't forget to tare the bowl on the scale first so you don't count the weight of the bowl.

We also added a small bunch of spicy red radish. Rinse and slice and add to the cabbage.

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of course salt (not iodized) per 2 lbs. of sliced cabbage. I used just under 2 tablespoons since the weight was just under 4 lbs. Massage the salt into the veggies. I wore food safe plastic gloves.

Place the prepared veggies loosely into your desired mason jars or crock. Tamp down with a wooden spoon and cover the jars. Brine will increase over time. 

I debated on what to use to cover the jars. What do you use to cover your jars? I decided to use a paper towel under the screw caps. That way any natural gases that occur in the fermenting process can escape. 

I still may end up covering the jars with the metal lids so the brine does not evaporate. The gases can still be released when I open the jar daily to tamp the cabbage down beneath the brine.

Photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

@JerseyFreshNJDA Blueberry season is here! #GardenCuizine @blueberry411 #FindJerseyFresh #JerseyFresh

My Handful of Blues

Good Source Vitamin C

How do you like my handful of blueberries? Harry took this pic last weekend just before we washed the blueberries and froze them. We always get a case or two from Trinity Church's annual Blueberry Festival in Moorestown, NJ. 

Now is the best time to stock up on blueberries. Fresh blueberries taste great in fruit smoothies and add nutrients to so many recipes. This morning we enjoyed Harry's homemade, gluten-free blueberry pancakes for breakfast!

Blueberry season began June 15th and continues through August 15th. Be sure to pick up your Jersey Blues and enjoy. Blueberries provide a good source of Vitamin C and many other healthful nutrients.

Blueberry Nutrition: 2 ounces: 32 calories, 1.4g dietary fiber (6% DV), 5.4 mg Vitamin C (10% DV), 8.2g carbohydrates, 43 mg potassium (2% DV), plus other nutrients!

Related Links
Blueberries Health Research

Photograph and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Hand picked our first Jersey Cranberries! #gardenchat @PinesAdventures #GardenCuizine @JerseyFreshNJDA @USCranberries

Vaccinium macrocarpon

Harvesting
Jersey Cranberries!
High in Vitamin C and dietary Fiber

New Jersey ranks in the top 5 in the nation of Cranberry producers. Wisconsin and home of Ocean Spray in Massachusetts are also top producers. October always features tours for Cranberry Farms during harvest season. We finally got a chance to attend one yesterday! We drove to New Jersey's Pinelands where cranberries (and blueberries) grow and thrive.

Dry Harvesting at Quoexin Cranberry Co. in NJ 10/28/17

The sandy soil, pH and water in New Jersey's Pinelands is perfect for growing cranberries. Here is my recap of our fantastic tour hosted by Pinelands Adventures to one of the oldest independent cranberry growers in NJ: Quoexin Cranberry Company located in Medford, NJ - owned by Tom and Christine Gerber. 

As supporting members of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance we received a discount on the cost to attend, which was an added bonus.  

Quoexin Cranberry Farm features 50 beautiful acres of pinelands and cranberry bogs. "The cranberries color up late September," according to our tour guide Rob Ferber, Director of Pineland Adventures. 

Both cranberries and blueberries have a long history of cultivation in the Jersey Pines. Quoexin farm operated their first bogs as far back as 1835-1840.

I always thought cranberries grew in water. This trip taught me that cranberries actually grow on short vines in soil. Flooded bogs with red berries floating on the top are examples of wet harvesting. The wet harvesting method is used for the bulk of Jersey cranberry harvesting. The bogs are flooded with water and cranberries float to the top to be scooped.

Farmers who sell cranberries as fresh fruit use a dry vs. wet method of cranberry harvesting. Bogs are not flooded with water. Instead, they are raked out of the cranberry vines with special equipment that look like lawn mowers.

Quoexin Farm uses self-propelled Western Dry Picker equipment that has a burlap bag in the back to catches the cranberries as they get pulled off the weedy vines. 

Quoexin Farm owner Tom Gerber looking over a fresh Cranberry Harvest

As the bags are collected they are dumped into large holding bins before going to the packing house for sorting.

We were able to get up close to the cranberry bog edge. Once up close, we could see the red berries all over the low growing vines. This was the first time I ever picked cranberries! The raw cranberry's tasted good and not as tart as I expected.

 

Cultivars of cranberries include:

• Howe (discovered 1843 in East Dennis, MA)
• Champion
• Early Blacks (discovered 1852 in Harwich, MA)
• Jerseys
• Wisconsin Gray Leski #1
• Stephens - (discovered 1940 in Whitesbog, NJ)
• Ben Lear

The Jersey Pinelands sits atop the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer, a water source with 17 trillion vital gallons of water.

After the tour, for dinner we used some of the fresh cranberries in a dish called Ruby Chicken. We will make it again! It combines cranberries with flavors of orange, cinnamon and ginger.

This trip reminded us not to wait until Thanksgiving to enjoy fresh cranberries. We plan to keep enjoying them in recipes and will look for Top Crop brand, which is the label to support this local NJ farmer.

We really enjoyed visiting Quoexin Cranberry Farms beautiful property. Thanks to Tom Gerber and family and Rob and to all involved. We look forward to more outdoor adventures and learning more about our states precious resources, environment, history and where our foods come from.

I planted a few sprigs of fresh cranberry vines in one of our raised beds. It isn't very sandy and is certainly not a bog. But, we'll see... today is raining and maybe some will take root and we can have the thrill of picking a handful of our own cranberries in the New Year!

Nutrition Data Cranberries
Excellent Source: Vitamin C, dietary Fiber
1 cup chopped (110 grams) = 51 calories, 15 mg (24% DV) Vitamin C; dietary Fiber 5.1g (20% DV); Vitamin E 1.3mg (7% DV) and other nutrients. 
Cranberries also contain proanthocyanidins that can enhance gut microbiota. Cranberries have bioactive catabolites that have been found to contribute to mechanisms affecting bacterial adhesion, coaggregation, and biofilm formation that may underlie potential clinical benefits on gastrointestinal and urinary tract infections, as well as on systemic anti-inflammatory actions mediated via the gut microbiome.*
http://advances.nutrition.org/content/7/4/759S.full 
 
Related Links
SavetheSource.org

7 Things You Didn't Know About Cranberries 
Health Benefits of Cranberries
The Cranberry Story 
Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Harvesting Passon Fruit. When are they ripe? Freezing the pulp #GardenCuizine #JerseyFresh

Harvesting Passion Fruit

Stage 2

Stage 1: Grow Passion Flower vines.  

Stage 2 brings us to yielding and harvesting Passion Fruits.

We allowed our passion fruit vines to take over Mom's tomato raised bed. Their spiral tendrils gripped the San Marzano supports allowing the vines to quickly grow up towards the sky. Throughout the summer we enjoyed a spectacular show of extraordinary purple blooms. Passion flowers last for just a day before developing into fruit.  

The vines grew to the top of each tomato support and formed a huge canopy. We soon discovered abundant, lime-sized, green fruits dangling beneath the vines. Unlike limes, passion fruit skins were smooth.

At first, we weren't sure how to tell when they were ripe. But, it didn't matter once I heard the weather was going to dip to our first frost. I decided to pick all that I could gather before they were ruined. Some fruits were small, but I picked them anyway. Ideally, a longer growing season would have been nice. It would have been best to allow the fruits to ripen on the vines and fall to the ground.

Our passion fruit harvest filled 2 large colanders! The majority of fruits were firm so I left them out on the kitchen counter this past week. As they ripened, the skin color changed from lime green to a paler, yellow-green and the skins got crinkly and soft. And, the flesh around the small, watermelon-like seeds was juicy and translucent when ripe.

Today, I decided to sacrifice a fresh picked firm fruit to see if there was a difference between the pulp of a paler, soft fruit vs a greener firm one. Test for ripeness by pressing the outside of the fruit with a finger - like poking a finger into yeast-risen bread dough to check readiness. Soft, ripe fruit will leave an indent; those are the ones I've been washing and cutting in half first. 

The pulp easily scoops out with a spoon leaving 3 rows of pithy, weird-looking bands along the inside walls of the fruit, which I imagine taste bitter like the pith of a lemon or lime. I tossed the skins in the compost and saved the juicy seeds in a storage container and froze it. I've been adding more to the container as the fruits ripen. 

There are different types of flamboyant passion flowers that yield different tasting fruits. For example, purple, more juicy fruits from Passiflora edulis, known as lilikoʻi in Hawaii, and some yield more banana-like shaped fruits. Ours is commonly known as Maypop - Passiflora incarnata.

Stay tuned for Stage 3 - Passion Fruit Recipes and Nutrition Data! 
Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Beat the heat with antioxidant-rich, hydrating Watermelon @JerseyFreshNJDA #GardenCuizine @KidsEatRight #healthykids

Cool off with a refreshing slice of
WATERMELON

Our 7th heatwave continues here in New Jersey. The temperatures have been so hot and dry. Birds were thankful this morning when I refreshed their birdbaths. According to Rutgers NJ Weather, this summer has been the 4th warmest since 1895. Today's real feel temp is triple digits! Everywhere you look, lawns are crispy, shrubs and gardens are withering. We sure are desperate for rain. Even established trees are dying, with some actually falling over. This kind of heat makes me think about a few important reminders: 1) be environmentally responsible - never take water for granted and 2) don't let yourself dehydrate! 

The human body including our brain, heart, lungs and skin is primarily composed of water. Hot temperatures increase risk for dehydration; drink plenty of water. And, eat more Fruits and vegetables to contribute nutrients and water to the body. For example, WATERmelon contains 90% water. Strangely enough, watermelon grows really well in drought conditions like we've had this summer.

On my way home from work at Bridgeton this week, I stopped by Lima Family Farm-stand and spoke with farmer Jacob and his sister, Janice. He said, "it has been a great summer for melons" especially watermelon and cantaloupe. I decided to buy a whole watermelon with seeds rather than seedless. Janice and I think watermelon with seeds have better flavor. Which do you like better?

Watermelon nutrition benefits include: Vitamin A, potassium and antioxidants like citrulline, lycopene, beta carotene and Vitamin C. Fresh watermelons are still available at local farm markets!

Enjoy watermelon for a low calorie, refreshing snack.

Watermelon Nutrition Facts
Excellent Source: Vitamin C
Good Source: Vitamin A
1 cup diced Watermelon = 46 calories; total carbohydrates: 11.5g; dietary Fiber: 1g (2% DV); Vitamin A: 865 IU (17% DV); Vitamin C: 12.3 mg (21% DV); Potassium 170 mg (5% DV); plant sterols: 3 mg; Water 139g
Related Links
The Water in You
Watermelon Nutrition and Growing Tips 
Photo and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Today in Our Garden @birdsblooms #NJ #gardenchat Growing food teaches us not to waste food or water

Today in Our Garden

Use it or lose it!
Food Appreciation

Our gardens exhaust us during August. Now is about the time every season when we slack off in the fight against fast growing weeds and make time to enjoy the birds and blooms. We also start collecting seeds for next years plantings and are busy canning and preserving in the kitchen.

As we think about all there is to do... food is ripening at a rapid rate. Use it or lose it!

• Picking and preparing fresh, organic, homegrown foods gives us a total appreciation for our food and our environment.

Vegetable gardening also makes me wonder: Would people eat less if they grew and prepared their own food? We know scientific studies show that people do eat more fruits and veggies when they garden, but would they eat less overall?

Tomatoes
Heirloom tomatoes are ripening faster than we can pick them! Favorites include Chocolate Cherry tomatoes (shown). Harry cooked our first homegrown San Marzano tomatoes and made 5 quarts of pasta sauce so far with more tomatoes cooking down now. We freeze the quarts.

As gardening cooks, we want to savor and not waste what we plant and harvest. Cooking down a stockpot full of homegrown, ripe, plum tomatoes (with added basil, garlic and onion) made us realize that it sure takes a lot of tomatoes to make just one quart of sauce.

Onions
Garden space needed for growing onions has made us appreciate the abundance of onions always available at the market. We picked our first Ailsa Craig onions yesterday. Most green tops died back and the onions easily pulled up from the soil.

We probably should have picked the onions sooner. And, we weren't sure what to do about the dirt on them? We rinsed the dirt off. The onions are now air drying on a table outside. As you can see, their shape is teardrop and not large and round. 

The fun of gardening includes learning from other gardeners. Stay tuned for updates on how to grow bigger and better onions. If you already know - please share.

Grapes
One of our best years! Mom even helped pick the grapes off the stems. We picked 13.5 lbs. from one, established red grapevine, which made 12 pints of organic grape jelly.

Cow Peas
Cool beans: Fagiolo Nano Dolico -dall'occho: Italian black-eyed peas climbed up into our tomato vines this year - another garden first for us. I didn't realize they climbed. The pods hang like green beans and can be eaten green or left on the plants to brown. I've been picking them as they turn brown and plan to make Hoppin John with homegrown black-eyed peas for good luck in the New Year. 

To release the peas, rub your finger along the pod edge. If the bean is dry enough, the edge will split like a zipper and the beans can easily be dumped out.

Acorn Squash
Look what I found this morning! We have acorn squash growing from rotten squash rejects that were tossed in the beds last Fall.

Happy and Healthy Gardening! 

Related Links
Backyard Gardening, Grow Your Own Food, Improve Your Health 
GardenCuizine Recipe Baked Nutty Acorn Squash

Blog post and photos Copyright(C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Growing Onions #GardenCuizine

Growing Onions

We're growing onions for the first time this season! Rather than growing onions from seed, we ordered a bunch of Ailsa Craig onion sets (seedlings). Mom planted a batch for us today while Harry took a short video of us, which hopefully we'll post for you in the future. 

Onion Nutrition
As I tweeted earlier today, onions add flavor and healthy nutrients to foods; including dietary Fiber, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Quercetin (anti-inflammatory, flavonoid) and plant sterols.

Types of Onions
As you start shopping for onions you will come across many varieties and descriptive terms such as: "long-day, intermediate, short-day (10-12 hours of daylight)" onions. Here in NJ where day length can reach 14 hours, we're able to grow long-day onions, such as Ailsa Craig - a large yellow onion. 

Where can you buy Onions for Growing?
Our Ailsa Craig open pollinated, English heirloom onion sets were ordered from Territorial Seed because someone I know grows that variety and orders their onions from them. There are many other reliable garden suppliers online too that sell onions. Shop around and have fun. Ours were back ordered, but arrived just in time for planting in early spring as promised. 

I opened the box as soon as it arrived yesterday so the dormant onions could breath. Even though the suppliers planting guide said to keep the seedlings dry, I moistened a paper towel and wrapped it around the roots overnight. 

Onion Sets
Today, I removed the paper towel and cut the rubber-band that held the group of onion sets together. Then sorted them - putting aside the smallest sprouts and grouping the larger sprouts in groups of 6. The smallest were planted in cell packs that I am keeping outside so they can grow a little more before transplanting them to the garden. 

All the larger sprouts got planted in a raised bed 4 to 6 inches apart and about 1-inch deep. The raised bed is located in full sun and provides compost-rich, loose soil and good drainage. We opted not to use a pre-emergent herbicide as the supplier recommended because we grow all our produce organically.

Stay tuned for more updates on growing onions. 
Thanks Mom!

Related Links
Phytochemical and Health Properties of Onions
Benefits of Quercetin (in onions, apple skins, tea and red wine)
Blog post and photos Copyright (C)2015 Wind. All rights reserved.

Orchards of pink peach blooms now throughout New Jersey! #GardenCuizine

Throughout New Jersey, early April is when you start to see Peach trees beginning to show off their blooms. Fields of pink blossoms caught my attention on my way to work last week as I traveled south on Route 55 through Gloucester and Cumberland counties. Today, we decided to take a family drive through some of those areas in South Jersey to see some peach orchards and enjoy the beautiful spring day.

As we followed our self-guided tour, we managed to see several breathtaking fields of pink peach blooms with vibrant yellow forsythia scattered throughout the landscapes. We followed a tour map provided by Rutgers NJ Agriculture Experiment Station several years ago. We noticed that due to increased housing developments, sadly there was a decline in acreage dedicated to growing peaches. Farms still exist, even though they were somewhat sandwiched in between new homes and commercial businesses built on what used to be exclusive NJ farmland.

The NJ Peach Promotion Council reported in 2010 that the US census listed around 6,600 acres of New Jersey land dedicated to Peach farming. New Jersey, produces 68,000,000 pounds annually. And, of that, about 65% of the acreage is located in Gloucester County.

According to the NJ Peach Promotion Council, New Jersey ranks 4th among the top peach producers - following California, South Carolina and Georgia. I'm always amazed at the wide variety of cultivars among common fruits and vegetables. There are 40+ varieties of Jersey Peaches!

What are your favorite recipes using peaches? 

Peaches

A nutritious fruit to look forward to this summer.  

Jersey peach season starts late July through September.

GardenCuizine Peach Nutrition data: coming soon...
Related Links
NJ Peach Promotion Council 
A History of the NJ Peach 
South Jersey Self-Guided Peach blossom tour map
Peach Facts courtesy of Colorado State University Extension
Top 10 Ways to Enjoy Peaches 
Buy some Just Peachy Salsa support the Food Bank of SJ
Photos and blog post Copyright (C)2013 Wind. All rights reserved.

Jersey Tomato Tasting at Pope's Gardens #GardenCuizine #fb

Jersey Tomato Tasting

Labor Day Weekend! 

Pope's Gardens rolled out the tomato red carpet for their customers today and will again tomorrow for taste testing over 30 varieties of organically grown tomatoes. Owners Joan and Jim Pope plated up free tomato tastes of everything from cherry tomatoes to beefsteak heirlooms. Nothing beats picking Jersey fresh cherry tomatoes straight off the vines! They also had many varieties of peppers on display, including Scotch Bonnet, Pepperoncini and Thai hot. 

Jersey tomato taste test trials included:
Cherry and Grape tomatoes  

Sungold
Sunsugar
Juliet (grape)
Sweet Million

Black Cherry 

Supersweet 100
Riesentraube (grape)

Modern Hybrid tomatoes 
Supersonic
Bush Big Boy
Big Boy
Early Girl
Better Boy
Lemon Boy (yellow)
Golden Jubilee (yellow)
La Roma (plum)
Roma (plum)
Jetstar
Goliath
Celebrity
Supersteak
Beefsteak 

Beefmaster

Heirloom tomatoes
Belgium Giant 

Hillbilly 

Amish Paste (plum)

Black Krim 

Old German 

Rutgers 

Brandywine 

Sausage  (we didn't try sausage, but heard it tastes great!)

White  (sweet and delicious!)

Box Car Willie 

Mortgage Lifter 

Arkansas Traveler 

Ox Heart  

Cherokee Purple

Our favorite top 3 cherry tomatoes were Sunsugar, Black Cherry and Riesentraube ("giant bunch of grapes" German heirloom grown by the Pennsylvania Dutch). We were familiar with the tastes of many of the large tomatoes on display. Among our favorites are Rutgers (of course!) and Brandywine. White tomatoes were a new one for us - they were more yellow than "white". We were impressed with their delicious, sweet taste.

Saturday was a very hot and humid today in South Jersey. Mom took a few tastes, then tried to stay cool, waiting patiently in the shade while we strolled around Pope's Gardens to look at their goat, cat, ducks, bunnies, Scottish Highland cattle, Emu and other animals.

Do you think I would leave a garden center empty handed? Impossible! Pope's Gardens offers a wide variety of annual and perennial plants. We picked out a few new Asters and Mums, along with Salvia uliginosa - bog sage, Fountain Grass Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Red Head', Dallas Blues grass Panicum virgatum and Crepe Myrtle - Lagerstroma Pink Valour.

Happy Gardening and Healthy Cooking with Vitamin C-rich tomatoes. And, best wishes for a safe and Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Related Links

Story behind Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes
Photos and blog post Copyright (C)2012 Wind. All rights reserved.