Need to Save some Tomatoes?

January 10, 2023January 4, 2023 / The Missus / Leave a comment

2023 Recipe TUESDAY – #1

Tomato Spaghetti sauce

21 ripe farmers market tomatoes, peeled

3 sweet white onions

1 cup garlic (measure with your heart)

1/4 cup Italian seasoning (2 palm fulls)

1/8 cup garlic rosemary bread seasoning from Publix (1 palm full)

(*approximate measurements, more about proportions.)

—> Bolognese Sauce

Above plus:

Ground beef cooked with Montreal seasoning (to taste)

Excess fat removed

And then trust me: ——add KALE 👌

Super boost of Vitamin C and iron 💪

This experiment starts about 6 months ago when I received a huge box of Farmers Market tomatoes unexpectedly. No one in my family eats tomatoes except myself.

So what does one do with 30-odd tomatoes and an average liking of the fruit?

Make an fried egg and tomato sandwich of course!

(With our very own fresh eggs! If you need some hit up DocMayberry’s Farmers Market on our home page)

I made it “fancy” to my taste that day with some basalmic glaze, green onion and pickled onions. Heavy on the onions 🤣. I couldn’t find real cheese, so I used up some left over cream cheese. Lots of pepper and some sea salt. Strange craving day.

When I built the house we currently live in I made sure I had a 36” freezer because I was SICK of throwing away so many spoiled foods.

I learned that many foods do excellent in the freezer and it’s a healthy way to keep foods at the height of their ripeness / readiness.

So after my 2 tomato sandwiches I froze the rest and forgot about them.

Yesterday my husband got a big freezer haul and we had to pull out my tomatoes. So I ran them under the boiling water spout and peeled them easily, put them in a big bowl and left them in the fridge.

This morning I came back to my huge vat of frozen tomatoes. They seeped quite a bit of clear fluid without their skins. You will want to pour this out. Don’t. It is liquid sunshine and full of vitamin C.

My family only eats tomatoes in spaghetti sauce. Otherwise I probably would have tried a delicious Tomato Basil Soup. So, spaghetti sauce it was.

TOMATOES, onions, GARLIC, Italian seasoning, rosemary, bay leaves.

(The variation in color of garlic is due to me using up all our frozen garlic and adding some fresh garlic. And technically I used one purple onion & 2 white onions because the purple one needed to be eaten instead of using all 3 of the same type of onion)

I broke out my blender but of course it had to be charged and died on me.

I put two palmfuls of Italian seasoning and one palmful of Publix’s garlic rosemary bread blend —and hoped for the best.

Then my husband had to see what the commotion was and he pulled out the real machinery for such a big job and got me the Vitamix.

It was quick work now I had reinforcements.

After the spaghetti “soup” was complete and mixed I filled a large jar and put it in the fridge with 2 bay leaves on top. The rest went in quart sized freezer bags with a bay leaf (I have a lot of bay leaves).

So now to convert this to a meal my family would eat, my husband now invested in the process cooked up some ground beef to make it bolognese. He also got some REAL parmesan cheese 🥰.

The meat was seasoned to his liking with this industrial sized bottle of Montreal seasoning we got at Costco for another recipe I tried to follow.

I made some egg noodles from Trader Joe’s because my tummy likes them so much better than other noodles.

Then we drained most of the pasta water out. I read somewhere that keeping about a cup of pasta water helps the sauce meld with the sauce. Apparently it’s science and now all my sauces are a bit on the runny side. Maybe cream would help that…?

I didn’t want to make more dishes so I mixed it right in the pasta pot 🤷‍♀️.

Proportions.

Mixed. (Don’t forget to remove the bay leaves)

Plated.

And the kale is a happy addition from my husband ♥️ Genius! The bright notes in the fresh tomato eliminate the bitterness in the kale.

If you are anemic this is great. The iron from the ground beef is better absorbed with the wealth of vitamin C that accompanies it.

VERDICT:

10 out of 10. Can’t wait to eat again and probably the only way I’ll ever eat kale.

Recycling Ideas:

-Use tomato garlic sauce in 1:1 ratio with rice for a nice side dish. Possibly add turmeric and fresh ground black pepper for its anti-inflammatory effects.

2023 Recipes: Emphasis on Highly Efficient Cooking

January 4, 2023 / The Missus / Leave a comment

This stove and I are about to really get to know each other.

The goal of “2023 Recipe Tuesday” is to come out with some sort of culinary attempt every week since we know that health starts with what we put in our bodies.

American culture is one of convenience feeding and now our country has an overwhelming number of citizens with end stage heart disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases and cancer. It is not a direct cause and effect, but it all adds up. We need to start a culture of understanding what our bodies are processing in order to move and grow every day. Our children need to see this is an indelible part of our lifestyle and that dinner is a ritual that includes setting the table, a healthy meal and family conversations (and then of course cleaning up).

Mari Beth and I know very little about cooking. We are both completely self taught. We have busy lives (bringing you the most wonderful high quality horse manure compost fertilizer! So you can grow your own backyard farmers market 😁) and so our main requirements are: delicious, nutrient dense, easy and quick meals.

Some recipes may be reviews of other recipes.

Forewarning: I don’t like measuring and I like using food already in my kitchen. I will get better at this.

The other thing we will try to do is keep up with a general “grocery list” of items that are pretty good for giving you the bones of most of your recipes. Like say — onions, garlic, eggs, milk… so when you make your grocery run you will have a good start.

We will also be mindful of leftovers and using those into the next recipe.

Our YouTube channel should also include some coverage if you want to check us out there (@DocMayberryFarms).

Thank you for joining us and I hope you are able to find some information here to improve your health (and hopefully your family’s health) in a meaningful way ❤️

2-Step Potato or Green Bean Air Fried Side Dishes

May 16, 2022May 17, 2022 / The Missus / Leave a comment

Recently this has been a side dish to accompany any protein of choice that we have on repeat. Basically it’s potatoes or green beans lightly coated with olive oil and some seasoning and then air fried for 15min (for 0.75-1” potato squares) or 6-8min (for green beans).

Start with potatoes or green beans. My favorite potatoes are sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 0.75-1” chunks, but my family loves the teeny-tiny potatoes. You can get any of these at Costco in bulk or at Trader Joes. Our potatoes tend to last for a reasonable amount of time on the counter, so usually I purchase the potatoes in bulk at Costco.

Costco green beans option:

We don’t even cut them. Just coat & air fry! Next toss /stir / mix the vegetables with some olive oil and herbs to taste.

Lately the fastest and most appreciated version of herbs has been from Publix. Their bread dip seasoning blends is addictive: especially the garlic rosemary. There are also some flavor options at Aldi’s in a similar container. I am working on being ”greener” and growing my own herbs. One…. Step…. at …. a ….. time……… Today you may be happy to note I included some freshly grown dill.

Mix in about 1 tablespoon of seasoning and approximately 1-1.5 tablespoons of a healthy oil for every 2 cups of vegetables. You be the judge though; do what feels right. Sometimes I get fancy and I add fresh garlic or some chopped onion, bell pepper, zucchini or whatever veggie your heart may delight in that happens to be in your fridge.

So you can see this also helps us use some of our produce before it spoils.

Follow your air fryer’s directions. Ours has to have the plate heated before adding food. For denser veggies (potatoes) it usually takes 15min to cook. ”Lighter” veggies like green beans cook in the 5-8min range. I usually cook everything according to the longest requirement for whichever vegetable is present (i.e. if I have potatoes and green beans, onion, etc: then I cook 15min for potatoes).

You could cook separately but usually meal time is a mad rush and just needs to be done ASAP. Thus: high efficiency cooking!

Enjoy!