This is my last week of holidays for the summer. After this, it’s suck it up and get your head back at work time. I’ll officially be out of holiday bank. Though I really liked having 5 weeks off this year. That means I’ve officially worked at the same place for much too long, when they give you 5 weeks.
We’ve had a little bit of rain almost every day for a week. Not all day, just enough to make my garden and the lawn grow some more. We’ve picked tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini again this week. The lettuce is ready and the beans are flowering, so we will be getting some of both soon. We have kohlrabi too, though I have never before cooked it. The melons are all doing well and should ripen soon, along with some squash. And the little bit of rain has made the late potatoes that we planted take off and start growing like crazy.
So far this week the girls and I have visited with friends, we’ve prepared peaches for the freezer, made marinara sauce for the freezer and made some more oven-dried tomatoes. This time I took the suggestion of Diane at Westlake Musings (who resides in a neighbouring county) and packed them in olive oil. I made two jars, one just straight dried tomatoes in oil – they’ll be great on pizzas and the flavoured oil should make some great salad dressings. In the second jar I packed in some basil leaves and hot pepper flakes. That jar will be used for pastas. I have plans to use some of it tonight with a either cream cheese or ricotta mixed in and some cooked chicken. I’m not sure how shelf stable the oil packed tomatoes are, so I will use them up quickly and the keep the rest in the fridge. The olive oil will get a little cloudy and thick in the fridge, but all you have to do is allow it to come to room temperature again before use and it will be back to normal.
Linked to Frugally Sustainable, A Delightful Home, Foy Update – Eat, Make, Grow, Simple Lives Thursday, Gastronomical Sovereignty
lightlycrunchy 
sounds like a plan – enjoy your last week off
Thanks! Why does it seem to be flying by so quickly?
work weeks never fly by do they?
No, they don’t – not even when someone brings cake.
ha ha
Yum that’s a great idea! I think I may pack some myself 🙂
It’s definitely an easy project. I wish I’d done this years ago.
Great idea! I should do this soon. I love the idea of packing them with red pepper flakes and basil.
I’ve come up with a few good uses for kohlrabi (stir fry or slaw being the main ones), but it’s still a bit of a mystery to me. I’ll look forward to seeing what you do with yours!
I might just use it in a stir fry – our friend planted it (he’s sharing the garden with us). He’s from a polish family and they grew up eating it sautéed.
I bought a kohlrabi from our local organic farm recently and unsure what to do with it, I tried it grated in salad. It seemed quite moist – similar in texture to potatoes when you grate them – but it tasted fine. The dried tomatoes look great.
Thanks! I’m curious about the kohlrabi and how it tastes. I haven’t pulled it yet – may wait until we have a friend for dinner that knows what to do with it.
That is a great picture! I ended up doing the same thing last weekend. I took the sun-dried tomatoes I made, from some of my excess, and packed them in olive oil, as well. Next time I will have to try throwing in some herbs, like you did. 🙂
Thanks! I like the photo too. The jar looks so nice it’s almost a shame to use it, but they taste too good to ignore.
I buy sun dried tomatoes that aren’t packed in oil now since I’m trying to cut oils in my diet, but I remember using the oil from a jar of sun dried tomatoes to cook onions and other vegetables in for pasta. It’s like magic and makes everything absolutely delicious! Yours are really gorgeous!
I usually put mine in the freezer, although I tend to eat the dried tomatoes like candy at that point…
It sounds like you’ve kept busy on your vacation I wish I had spent more time in the garden and kitchen this summer!
There seems to be a lot of pressure to spend time in the kitchen in the summer when you have a big garden like we do. Fortunately, we are happy with brief periods of intense activity followed by a lot of tapering off..
I tried your oven roasted tomatoes and they turned out great. I was wondering at the time how it would work to pack them in olive oil. Great idea. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
You’re welcome! I’m not sure how long they would last in the oil, but they are cooked, so shouldn’t really grow anything too harmful. That, and I intend to use them quickly.
Dried tomatoes are such a lovely treat to have on hand. They go so well on so many things like homemade pizzas, tossed through pasta or on salads.
These look delicious! I love dried tomatoes.
Uh, DELISH! We are making our homemade pizza right now – could you bring me a jar??
Sure, I’ll be right over. We had some on pizza tonight too. Actually, I made some into a pesto to use as pizza sauce on one of the pizzas.
[…] night we wanted pizzas and I had been thinking of using the oven dried tomatoes in olive oil on them, but instead I decided to make a pesto and use it instead of the pizza sauce. It was great […]
i really am so jealous of all your tomatoes right now!! packing them in oil is a great idea – especially for pizza 🙂 i use oil packed dried tomatoes in my mac and cheese – they’re a fabulous flavor punch.
thank you for taking the time to share with us at The Wednesday Fresh Foods Blog Hop – we hope to see you again this week with more incredible posts! xo, kristy