Tuesday August 7th

Yesterday I came home and knew that I needed to harvest tomatoes again. They are quickly gathering in my freezer and will, maybe this weekend, become s'ghetti sauce and possibly ketchup if I'm feeling very adventurous. I'm hoping we still have enough fresh toms left on the vine come August 19 when the entire family of my bf comes over to the house for a birthday party - fresh salsa! I have these great japanese tomatoes, that is how they were listed when I found them at my local Cosentinos market. A delicious medium pink tomato, I soon found they were called odoriko. For us, they are perfect all around tomatoes - I can slice them for BLT's or hamburgers or I can dice them and add them to the pre-made s'ghetti sauce from the store as a fresh addition. Once we learned how much we loved this tomato, I scooped and saved seeds and they seem to come back true so far, two years now. I'll save seed from these 6 plants and see what I get with them next year. This is a picture of my harvest from those 6 plants plus one cucumber. I will harvest clean the other 12+ tomatoe plants this evening once I get home.

Last night I got to see another episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown. I've been watching him for years and I swear, the man just makes sense. I repeatedly tell my bf, I love Alton Brown. I mean, who else on national television would use a giant box fan and heater filters to dehydrate fruit and then ADMIT it, again on national tv? No one, that's who. He's smart, he's economical, and he's passionate about local food and homecooking/preserving. I was happy to catch his show on dehydrating food.