Fall Cooking

Summer is definately over now and it is time to move on from salads and fresh veggies onto soups, stews and baked goods.

Today was an extremely productive day in the kitchen!  I did tomato butter, granola, potato soup, ribs, breaded chicken breasts and apple crisp. 

The tomato butter will be frozen in small portions to be used with pork roasts or pork chops through out the winter. 

Granola is for breakfast, served with yogurt and a touch of honey. 

Potato soup is for lunches this week. 

Ribs are for supper and maybe one lunch this week.  (Not enough for lunches, Nick found the ones that were left over while I was typing and ate them as an after dinner snack.)

The chicken breast will be made into Chicken Parmesean Monday night for supper.  All I will have to do is warm them in the oven and add my home made pasta sauce and some cheese.

My kitchen smells awesome.

Here are a few of the recipes that I used today.

Tomato Butter
5 lbs of roma tomatos, skinned and chopped
3 cups of sugar
1 cup of vinegar
1 red onion finely chopped
a shake of ground cloves
a few shakes of ground cinnamon

Wash and de-stem the tomatoes.  Score an X in the skin at the bottom of the tomato.  Put on a large pot of water so that you can blanch the tomatoes.

While you are waiting for the water too boil put the vinegar, sugar, oil and spices in a large pot.  Stir to combine.

In batches put the tomatoes in the boiling water and leave them there for about a minute.  You will be able to see when the skin loosens on them and that is when you have to get them out of the water.

Take the skins off the tomatoes and roughly chop them. Add them into the pot with the other ingredients.  Put it on the stove and let it summer until it reduces by at least half.  It took about an hour and a half to two hours for that to happen today.

It was hard to get a good picture but you are looking for a thick pudding like texture.

I then put it in jars, labeled it and let it cool.  When it was cool I froze them.  (I could have canned them and made it shelf stable but really didn't feel like it.)