Dragon’s Tongue and Heirlooms a-go-go

Picked up a bag of these beautiful shelling beans at the Pedal, Pick and Grin Tomato Picking Event at Suzie’s Farm CSA last weekend.  They are so delicious, raw right out of the pod, and in season right now.

We are drying out bean pods the next couple of weeks with the intent of planting some of these awesome legumes in our growing year here in the garden.  The flavor is just a little bit spicy and I am excited to steam and salt some to eat up like edamame!  Here is another fun recipe we might try another time, Pickled Dragon Chutney.

As for the tomatoes… Blue roasted up a flat of them yesterday and made into wonderful tomato soup and pasta sauce.  Our home smells DELICIOUS right now! 

After reading up a bit on canning, specifically with tomatoes, I’m a little nervous to embark without more research.  Seems that tomatoes can be a pretty dangerous experiment if not done properly in the preservation process, but here is a deceptively simple explanation of how it is done.  Maybe when there is more time, more money for purchasing all the needed supplies, and not a mountain of tomatoes threatening to bury us in the kitchen by Saturday.

The tomato seeding process is coming along nicely however

… and by nicely I mean the things *outside* or our kitchen smell like a sewer grate on a 110° day in Calcutta.  Blech!  It will all be worth it when we have some of these beautiful varieties of heirlooms growing in our patch though.  For those interested, tomatoes are an interesting fruit to seed.  Did you know that a tomato will not grow from seed unless the fruit has fermented and dissolved a certain enzyme from the seed casing?  Truth!  Here are some instructions for you to seed your own tomatoes, if you find that one beautiful variety you simply *must* have growing at home.  The one that I am desperately seeking is Black Prince.