This Saturday morning, there will be a modified farmstand! Let’s do 10:00 to Noon. On the porch, if it’s raining, but the forecast keeps changing. There will be a good amount of baked goods, a smattering of vegetables, jams, chai latte mix, seasoned salts, instant potato soup mix, and more!
Wait! What?? Yes, there are still some veggies but I promise you that this is the “last call” unless you want peppers on some random day next week. Frost will probably hit our area in a couple of weeks, so now is the time to pick all the tomatoes (red, green and in between), oodles of peppers, and the last of the beets. Next week, the gardens will be emptied. Maybe I’ll leave the salad tomatoes and peppers just a little longer, but everything else must go. It’s time. For their sake, because they’re tired. For my sake, because there is so much to do before snow flies. I’ll take next week off to keep the momentum going and tackle some small projects. But, after that, we’ll try to do some pop-ups with sugar scrubs, lotion bars, and that sort of thing and more baked goods.
There are lots of green tomatoes! Oooohhh, the things you can do with them! You can make salsa, soup, chutney, pickled green tomatoes with onions and peppers (hot or not) as a homemade sandwich or nacho topping, or you can shred them into cake! Yes – cake! It’s very much like zucchini bread. The tomatoes help bind the cake together, give it plenty of moisture, and make it healthy! Click here for a bread recipe (please add some nutmeg) or here for a 9×13 cake recipe. Consider adding a little bit of ground cloves to either of these for a bit more fall spice.
If you just want those green tomatoes to turn red, place them in a flat or box and cover with a layer of newspaper or tissue paper. Keep them around 70 degrees, and you should check them every couple of days. They will ripen! And, they will do it slowly so you’re not stuck with a flat of red tomatoes all at once. Saturday morning, there will be slicers (red, green and in between) for .50 each and lots of 1# baskets of smaller green ones for $1. I think you’ll need about a pound for the bread and two pounds for the 9×13 cake recipe links above.
As for baking, there will be cranberry oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, and mini loaves of pumpkin bread and lemon blueberry bread. Hopefully, I’ll also be able to use up the last of my pears and turn them into some pear muffins with a crumb topping. For now, I’m off to measure out all my dry ingredients to be prepped and ready to bake after picking is finished tomorrow morning.
Here’s what I know we’ll have on the Menu:
2 Broccoli $2 per half pound
1 Beets $3 per bundle
1 Roasting kit $5 (beets, carrots, yellow squash, some beans, fresh herbs, and recipe)
Peppers: Bell, Carmen, Banana .50 each
Peppers: jalapeno or Serrano .25 each
Swiss chard $4 per bag
Yellow squash .75 each
Tomatoes:
Slicers .50 each (there are some nice sized ones)
Small tomatoes (red or green) $1 per 1# basket
Salad tomatoes $4 per 1# basket
1 San Marzano $2 per 1# basket
Bread: Lemon blueberry and Pumpkin $4 per mini loaf
Cookies: Cranberry oatmeal and Peanut butter $3 per bag
Pear muffins $2 each
Chai latte mix $5 per refill bag
Instant potato soup mix $5 per jar (six servings)
Seasoned salt (regular or spicy) $4 per jar
Jams or fruit butter $5 per half pint jar
I hope to see you Saturday morning, and be sure to give me your suggestions for the next bake sale day!