What's Cooking

[Cheese]

Well it's that time of year...and what time is that?...tomato time.

We're harvesting about 1 to 2 ripe tomatoes everyday from the Cherokee Purple tomato plants. They're perfect for BLT's.

In the first photo from top to bottom:
Fresh basil chiffonade from the garden
Kowalski's Applewood smoked, thick-cut bacon
Red leaf lettuce
Cherokee Purple tomato, those 3 slices are from one tomato. Each slice is about 3/4" thick
Kowalski's fresh mozzarella made in the store while you watch
Kowalski's home baked parmesan-herb bread for toast

My wife likes Stonewall Kitchen Farmhouse mayo on her BLT while I prefer good old-fashioned Miracle Whip.

https://www.kowalskis.com/signature-products/signature-specialty-cheese/fresh-mozzarella

https://www.kowalskis.com/signature-products/signature-bakery/artisan-bread

 

[Mike Goetzke]

Went to a cabin for vacation last week. I brought my Weber Traveler with. Couple weeks ago I saw this accessory to allow the use of a rotisserie and enable pizza oven cooking. This thing worked like a champ!

We cooked two chickens on the rotisserie and fit 8 ears of corn. We also cooked three 8" in the pizza oven.

 

[tjbnwi]

Being from Chicago…….

Maxwell Street bone in pork chop sandwich. They are very simple to make. Fried these chops on the Weber Slate griddle.

Season pork chop with salt, pepper, a little garlic salt or granulated garlic. Heated the griddle to medium hot, put down a little butter and placed the chop, Cooked 5ish minutes, flipped, cooked 5ish minutes, flip, about 3.5 minutes, flip, about 3.5 minutes. As these were cooking I grilled some onion (should have done 2 slices). Didn’t have proper size role so I toasted the bread on the griddle.

Place chop on bread, dress with onions and mustard. Some add sport peppers, I do not.

The bone is in, a little care is needed when eating.

Also fried some spuds, placed finished spuds in cast iron pan, topped with cheddar, used a dome to melt the cheese.

Griddled to perfection, very tender, easy to bite.



Tom

 

[Cheese]

So, in addition to the individual tomatoes used for BLT's, Roma tomatoes are also at their peak and they're just a lovely crop to can for use over the winter months. It's really NOT a cost saving method but rather a more luxurious way to savor tomato based sauces throughout the winter months. I prefer to use a mix of Farmers Market purchased Roma tomatoes along with a large dose of home grown Cherokee Purple tomatoes. The Cherokee Purple have more flavor and more liquid while the Roma's have more pulp and more body.
I use a Kitchen Aid mixer with a food mill attachment to process the tomatoes. The skins and seeds of the tomatoes are captured while the rest of the goodness is released into the pot for further processing.
Reduction of the tomato mixture/puree is mandatory to increase the flavor of the tomato sauce.

Here's a scene from the beginning of last year's sauce reduction along with a photo of this year's final sauce production.

Interestingly enough...this years sauce production dated 10/3/25 mirrored last year's sauce production dated 10/3/24...how does that happen in this world?