This recipe is similar to the Fresh Tomato Soup recipe in an adjacent post, Simple and Delicious.
Ingredients:
1/2lb fresh tomatoes
1/2pint white stock
1/2 oz butter
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of cornflour
piece of carrot
1 small onion
Scraps of bacon
Pepper
Method:
Melt the butter and fry the bacon and vegetables without the coloring. Add the stock, seasoning and tomatoes. bring to boiling point, cover and transfer to a simmering oven for 30 minutes. Pass through a fine sieve or liquidizer and return to the pan. Blend in the cornflour and a little cold stock, and add to the strained liquid and stir until boiling. color with carmine to taste.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Fresh tomato soup
This delicious recipe can be made and consumed immediately or stored frozen for 3 or 4 months.
Ingredients:
1lb of fresh tomatoes
11/2 ozs butter
1 onion
1 carrot
A few drops of carmon
A few scraps of bacon
1 pint of white stock
1/4 pint milk
Bouquet garni
Seasoning
1 teaspoon full of sugar
2 heaped teaspoonfulls of cornflower.
Method:
Slice the onion and carrot and saute with the bacon for about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, stock, seasoning and bouquet garni. bring to the boil then simmer gently for about 5 minutes. Cover and transfer into a simmering oven for 30-40 minutes. Pas through a fine sieve or liquidizer and return to the pan.
Blend the cornflower with the milk, add to the soup stir untill boiling. cook for 5 minutes add the sugar and carmine and serve.
Ingredients:
1lb of fresh tomatoes
11/2 ozs butter
1 onion
1 carrot
A few drops of carmon
A few scraps of bacon
1 pint of white stock
1/4 pint milk
Bouquet garni
Seasoning
1 teaspoon full of sugar
2 heaped teaspoonfulls of cornflower.
Method:
Slice the onion and carrot and saute with the bacon for about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, stock, seasoning and bouquet garni. bring to the boil then simmer gently for about 5 minutes. Cover and transfer into a simmering oven for 30-40 minutes. Pas through a fine sieve or liquidizer and return to the pan.
Blend the cornflower with the milk, add to the soup stir untill boiling. cook for 5 minutes add the sugar and carmine and serve.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
"Fresh Green Tomato Recipes"
Green Tomato Chutney
Green tomato chutney is a ideal with any cheese salad or dish.
The mix in this recipe will make approximately 6lbs of chutney. 5 lbs green tomatoes 1lb shallots or onions 12oz sultanas or raisons 1 teaspoon of salt 1 level desert spoon pickling spices 1lb sugar 1½ pints of malt vinegar Chop the onions and slice the tomatoes. Put into a saucepan, cover and simmer until tender, adding a little water if not sufficiently moist.
Adding remaining ingredients (The spices tied in muslin) and simmer without the lid until the consistency of jam.
Now Enjoy
Click Here!
Green tomato chutney is a ideal with any cheese salad or dish.
The mix in this recipe will make approximately 6lbs of chutney. 5 lbs green tomatoes 1lb shallots or onions 12oz sultanas or raisons 1 teaspoon of salt 1 level desert spoon pickling spices 1lb sugar 1½ pints of malt vinegar Chop the onions and slice the tomatoes. Put into a saucepan, cover and simmer until tender, adding a little water if not sufficiently moist.
Adding remaining ingredients (The spices tied in muslin) and simmer without the lid until the consistency of jam.
Now Enjoy
Click Here!
Friday, 16 January 2009
"Fresh Tomato Recipes"
Red Tomato Chutney
A tasty, chutney is an ideal accompaniment to meat, poultry, salads and sandwiches.
Red Tomato Chutney
Red tomato chutney is a favourite in many families and is easy to make. The mix for this recipe is enough to make 6lbs of chutney using the following ingredients
.
3 lbs ripe red tomatoes, blanched, peeled and sliced.
3lb. Dessert apples, washed cored and diced.
3 large onions, finely chopped.
12oz. (2 cups) sultanas.
12oz. (2 cups) raisons
1 tablespoon salt.
1 ½ teaspoons dry mustard
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 ½ lb. (4 cups) of soft brown sugar.
1 pint (2 ½ cups) malt vinegar
Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and place on a high heat. Bring the liquid to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, or until the chutney has thickened. Remove the pan from the heat and ladle the chutney into clean warm jars. Place a vinegar-proof cover over each jar and cap with a jam cover and elastic band. Label and date the jars and store in a dark cool dry place.
Now Enjoy.
Click Here!
A tasty, chutney is an ideal accompaniment to meat, poultry, salads and sandwiches.
Red Tomato Chutney
Red tomato chutney is a favourite in many families and is easy to make. The mix for this recipe is enough to make 6lbs of chutney using the following ingredients
.
3 lbs ripe red tomatoes, blanched, peeled and sliced.
3lb. Dessert apples, washed cored and diced.
3 large onions, finely chopped.
12oz. (2 cups) sultanas.
12oz. (2 cups) raisons
1 tablespoon salt.
1 ½ teaspoons dry mustard
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 ½ lb. (4 cups) of soft brown sugar.
1 pint (2 ½ cups) malt vinegar
Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and place on a high heat. Bring the liquid to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, or until the chutney has thickened. Remove the pan from the heat and ladle the chutney into clean warm jars. Place a vinegar-proof cover over each jar and cap with a jam cover and elastic band. Label and date the jars and store in a dark cool dry place.
Now Enjoy.
Click Here!
Tomato Freezing
Tomato Freezing.
Tomatoes can be successfully stored for long periods by freezing. All our surplus fruit can be sold, given away or stored. The best way to do this is to tin them or freeze them. Tinning them in my view kills off a large percentage of the flavor.
The only method that works successfully is to freeze them. There is something very enjoyable about eating your summer produce in a hot dish in the middle of winter when others have to rely on tinned tomatoes or imported tasteless ones with a carbon footprint the size of New York
There are two ways that I favour. The first is the simplest:
First wash the fruit to be frozen and then dry them thoroughly, at this point it is best to dry freeze them. To do this place them on a flat tray separated by a little space they should not touch. Then place them in the freezer for 24 hours. Once they are fully frozen, pack them into zip-up plastic freezer bags and place in the deep freeze, where they can be stored for up to 6 months.
When taken from the freezer for use, the skins can be removed simply by holding them under a tap running warm water, they can then be cooked from frozen.
If it is intended to fry them cover the pan until they stop spitting.
The second and more complicated way is to wash the fruit when first picked and then blanch them. Once blanched, the skins can be removed, and at this point each tomato can be cored if you so wish, removing the centre of the fruit. The fruit is then dried, and when dried placed in zip-up plastic freezer bags and stored in the freezer.
Click Here!
Tomatoes can be successfully stored for long periods by freezing. All our surplus fruit can be sold, given away or stored. The best way to do this is to tin them or freeze them. Tinning them in my view kills off a large percentage of the flavor.
The only method that works successfully is to freeze them. There is something very enjoyable about eating your summer produce in a hot dish in the middle of winter when others have to rely on tinned tomatoes or imported tasteless ones with a carbon footprint the size of New York
There are two ways that I favour. The first is the simplest:
First wash the fruit to be frozen and then dry them thoroughly, at this point it is best to dry freeze them. To do this place them on a flat tray separated by a little space they should not touch. Then place them in the freezer for 24 hours. Once they are fully frozen, pack them into zip-up plastic freezer bags and place in the deep freeze, where they can be stored for up to 6 months.
When taken from the freezer for use, the skins can be removed simply by holding them under a tap running warm water, they can then be cooked from frozen.
If it is intended to fry them cover the pan until they stop spitting.
The second and more complicated way is to wash the fruit when first picked and then blanch them. Once blanched, the skins can be removed, and at this point each tomato can be cored if you so wish, removing the centre of the fruit. The fruit is then dried, and when dried placed in zip-up plastic freezer bags and stored in the freezer.
Click Here!
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Tomato Pests and Their Control
Tomato Pests And Other Things That Crawl Around In The Night
Slugs & Snails
If you are going to be a pest be, a slimy pest and this pair are, you know where they’ve been by the trail of slime left behind in their tracks. They feed on the soft tissue of a number of vegetables and flowers and can munch their way through a young tomato plant stem or two in a night.
Control:
I find an un-broken line of wood ash or sawdust stops their capper, but if you are the sporting type and can’t sleep at night you can go big slug hunting. This only needs a torch and a can of water with a drop of washing up liquid in it. Look around the base of your plants and they will be there, then, give them a swim in your can of soapy water, end of problem. (For now) A chemical alternative, which does not involve wandering around in the dark but is not so, organic is the use of Slug Pellets these can be anywhere from Harrods to your local nursery.
Click Here!
Fruitworms
Fruitworms affect Bean, Pea, Peppers, Potatoes tomatoes, squash and corn, when found in corn they are called earworms. They are about 1 inch (2.5cm) long caterpillars. That can be either green or brown in colour with dark stripes down their sides
Control:
Spray with Bth in spring when the young are hatching. Introduce beneficial insects like lacewings or trichogramma wasps.
Hornworms
Hornworms can be as much as 4 inches (10cm) long and as thick as a finger, hornworms are a light green in colour with white streaks across the body. Small eyelike spots decorate their sides; their backsides sport a red or black spiky tail. They can devour most of a tomato plant in a day or two. Adults are large 4 to5 inches (10 to 12.5cm), brownish gray moths with orange spots on the abdomen. Eggs are tiny greenish yellow balls on the undersides of tomato leaves.
Control:
Spray small ones with Bth or neem oil soap. When they’re larger handpick and drop them into a can of soapy water. If you find a hornworm wearing clusters of small white eggs on it’s back leave it be . the eggs belong to a small braconid wasp that parasitizes and destroys the worm.
Eelworms
There are two forms of eelworm. The most serious is the Potato Eelworm. Infestations come originally from land where potatoes have been repeatedly grown. Affected plants will wilt in the hot sun, and will develop yellow and dead patches on the lower leaves.
Control:
There is no chemical control available for the amateur gardener.
Rotate potato and tomato planting around different parts of the garden. Avoid returning to the same planting site for as many seasons as possible to delay a damaging build up of the pest.
Once soil has become heavily infested it may be seven or more years before it is worthwhile trying to grow potatoes again. Self-set potatoes should be removed or they will defeat the object of crop rotation. Lift potatoes as soon as the tubers are ready to limit the increase in cyst numbers. Potato and tomato roots should be dried off and then burnt on the part of the garden where they grew. Plants grown in infested soil should not be transplanted to cyst-free areas, and the roots, including those of weeds, should not be put on the compost heap. Tomatoes can be raised in growing-bags which isolate the roots from the underlying infested soil and so prevent infestation.
Whiteflies
Whiteflies are small, a little larger than a pinhead, with tiny snow white wings. Whiteflies suck the sap from the plants and usuall gather on the undersides of leaves or near soft, succulent growth.
Control:
Natural predators include lacewings, ladybugs and mantids. Spray with insecticidal soap, or use garlic spray to repel whiteflies from plants.
Red Spider Mite
Red Spider mites are very difficult to see but you know you have them when you can see a silvery sheen on the leaves and fine white webs appearing around the leaves and stem of the plant.
Control:
Apart from misting the air, try the biological control Phytoseiulus persimilis a predatory mite. Biological controls can be very effective if introduced early enough. Azobenzene smoke is also quite effective.
Colorado Beetles
These fingernail-size beetles have domed –shaped shells brightly decorated with black and yellow stripes. The adults lay clusters of orange eggs on the undersides of leaves. The eggs then hatch, revealing lavae that look like dull orange blobs with black legs and head. They will attack any member of the potato family.
Control:
Spray with neem or Btsd. Introduce beneficial nematodes, ladybirds, lacewings etc. Handpicking is effective for adults, lavae, and eggs.
Slugs & Snails
If you are going to be a pest be, a slimy pest and this pair are, you know where they’ve been by the trail of slime left behind in their tracks. They feed on the soft tissue of a number of vegetables and flowers and can munch their way through a young tomato plant stem or two in a night.
Control:
I find an un-broken line of wood ash or sawdust stops their capper, but if you are the sporting type and can’t sleep at night you can go big slug hunting. This only needs a torch and a can of water with a drop of washing up liquid in it. Look around the base of your plants and they will be there, then, give them a swim in your can of soapy water, end of problem. (For now) A chemical alternative, which does not involve wandering around in the dark but is not so, organic is the use of Slug Pellets these can be anywhere from Harrods to your local nursery.
Click Here!
Fruitworms
Fruitworms affect Bean, Pea, Peppers, Potatoes tomatoes, squash and corn, when found in corn they are called earworms. They are about 1 inch (2.5cm) long caterpillars. That can be either green or brown in colour with dark stripes down their sides
Control:
Spray with Bth in spring when the young are hatching. Introduce beneficial insects like lacewings or trichogramma wasps.
Hornworms
Hornworms can be as much as 4 inches (10cm) long and as thick as a finger, hornworms are a light green in colour with white streaks across the body. Small eyelike spots decorate their sides; their backsides sport a red or black spiky tail. They can devour most of a tomato plant in a day or two. Adults are large 4 to5 inches (10 to 12.5cm), brownish gray moths with orange spots on the abdomen. Eggs are tiny greenish yellow balls on the undersides of tomato leaves.
Control:
Spray small ones with Bth or neem oil soap. When they’re larger handpick and drop them into a can of soapy water. If you find a hornworm wearing clusters of small white eggs on it’s back leave it be . the eggs belong to a small braconid wasp that parasitizes and destroys the worm.
Eelworms
There are two forms of eelworm. The most serious is the Potato Eelworm. Infestations come originally from land where potatoes have been repeatedly grown. Affected plants will wilt in the hot sun, and will develop yellow and dead patches on the lower leaves.
Control:
There is no chemical control available for the amateur gardener.
Rotate potato and tomato planting around different parts of the garden. Avoid returning to the same planting site for as many seasons as possible to delay a damaging build up of the pest.
Once soil has become heavily infested it may be seven or more years before it is worthwhile trying to grow potatoes again. Self-set potatoes should be removed or they will defeat the object of crop rotation. Lift potatoes as soon as the tubers are ready to limit the increase in cyst numbers. Potato and tomato roots should be dried off and then burnt on the part of the garden where they grew. Plants grown in infested soil should not be transplanted to cyst-free areas, and the roots, including those of weeds, should not be put on the compost heap. Tomatoes can be raised in growing-bags which isolate the roots from the underlying infested soil and so prevent infestation.
Whiteflies
Whiteflies are small, a little larger than a pinhead, with tiny snow white wings. Whiteflies suck the sap from the plants and usuall gather on the undersides of leaves or near soft, succulent growth.
Control:
Natural predators include lacewings, ladybugs and mantids. Spray with insecticidal soap, or use garlic spray to repel whiteflies from plants.
Red Spider Mite
Red Spider mites are very difficult to see but you know you have them when you can see a silvery sheen on the leaves and fine white webs appearing around the leaves and stem of the plant.
Control:
Apart from misting the air, try the biological control Phytoseiulus persimilis a predatory mite. Biological controls can be very effective if introduced early enough. Azobenzene smoke is also quite effective.
Colorado Beetles
These fingernail-size beetles have domed –shaped shells brightly decorated with black and yellow stripes. The adults lay clusters of orange eggs on the undersides of leaves. The eggs then hatch, revealing lavae that look like dull orange blobs with black legs and head. They will attack any member of the potato family.
Control:
Spray with neem or Btsd. Introduce beneficial nematodes, ladybirds, lacewings etc. Handpicking is effective for adults, lavae, and eggs.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Growing Tomatoes in Growbags
GROWBAGS
Growbags are an ideal way to start growing tomatoes, as the compost in the bag is sterile and free from disease or soil-borne pests.
Growbags are easy to plant up and can be placed in any sunny position out of the way.
They provide excellent growing conditions as the nutritious compost is free of all disease and pests, and the plastic keeps the roots warm for fast, vigorous growth.
Tomatoes are one of the favourite growbag crops, but it is best to grow the cordon types of tomatoes that fruit from a single stem, as they can more easily be trained to suit the situation they are in. Bush types tend to sprawl all over the place and are more attractive to snails and slugs.
Keep the tomatoes evenly watered especially when the fruit is ripening, feed once a week with a tomato feed when the first fruit appear, and pinch out the top of the main stem when 4 or 5 trusses are set. It is a good idea to cut small slots along the bag opposite the plant about half way up from the floor, when watering, water until water flows through the slots this will ensure the roots are well covered. A cane or thin stick should be placed in the growbag next to the plant and firmly supported by some means at it’s top end the plant is then tied to this stick or cane every 10 or so inches (25cm) as it grows, this is necessary to support the weight of the trusses as the fruit grow. Always check each plant every 3 or 4 days for shoots appearing between the main stem and a branch, these must be picked out as cleanly as possible as if left the plant will dissipate energy into growing these side shoots rather than the fruit.
At the end of each season the contents of the growbag can be spread over the garden as a compost or put on the compost heap ready to make a contribution next year as well. Growbags can be used for other plants as well as tomatoes, cucumbers peppers, and flowers can all be grown in this handiest of growing mediums.
Click Here!
Growbags are an ideal way to start growing tomatoes, as the compost in the bag is sterile and free from disease or soil-borne pests.
Growbags are easy to plant up and can be placed in any sunny position out of the way.
They provide excellent growing conditions as the nutritious compost is free of all disease and pests, and the plastic keeps the roots warm for fast, vigorous growth.
Tomatoes are one of the favourite growbag crops, but it is best to grow the cordon types of tomatoes that fruit from a single stem, as they can more easily be trained to suit the situation they are in. Bush types tend to sprawl all over the place and are more attractive to snails and slugs.
Keep the tomatoes evenly watered especially when the fruit is ripening, feed once a week with a tomato feed when the first fruit appear, and pinch out the top of the main stem when 4 or 5 trusses are set. It is a good idea to cut small slots along the bag opposite the plant about half way up from the floor, when watering, water until water flows through the slots this will ensure the roots are well covered. A cane or thin stick should be placed in the growbag next to the plant and firmly supported by some means at it’s top end the plant is then tied to this stick or cane every 10 or so inches (25cm) as it grows, this is necessary to support the weight of the trusses as the fruit grow. Always check each plant every 3 or 4 days for shoots appearing between the main stem and a branch, these must be picked out as cleanly as possible as if left the plant will dissipate energy into growing these side shoots rather than the fruit.
At the end of each season the contents of the growbag can be spread over the garden as a compost or put on the compost heap ready to make a contribution next year as well. Growbags can be used for other plants as well as tomatoes, cucumbers peppers, and flowers can all be grown in this handiest of growing mediums.
Click Here!
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