4 Great Summer Recipes!

Makes 12 muffins or 1-2 loafs

• 3 Cups Flour
• 1 ½ Cups Sugar
• 1 t Salt
• 1 T Baking Powder
• 2/3 Cup Canola oil
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 2/3 Cup buttermilk
• 2 t Vanilla
• 2 Cups Blueberries
• ½ Cup Black Walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Line and grease muffin tin or grease 2 loaf pans. Combine dry ingredients. Toss 2 T of dry ingredients with berries. Add Wet ingredients to dry, mixing slowly. Fold in berries and nuts.

For muffins

Fill lined and greased muffin tin to the top with batter. Bake for 5 mins, then lower temp to 375 F. Bake for 15 mins. Enjoy with warm butter.

For loaf

Fill both greased loaf pans evenly. Bake 15 mins, then lower the temp to 375 F. Bake for 45 mins or until tooth pick comes out clean. (If you’re doing 1 big loaf, bake for an additional 20 mins or until toothpick comes out clean.) Let cool in pan before removing. Enjoy with butter or cream cheese!

There is a lot of flexibility with this recipe. You can turn this into a roasted version, spicy, smooth or chunky. There are many other combinations, but here are three that are good to try.

Makes about 1 ½ pints

• 5-6  Ripe tomatoes, peeled (2 large and rest small)
• ½ Onion
• 2-3 Peppers (any combo of bell/banana/sweet/hot that adds up to 1 med bell and 1 banana)
• 2 Cloves garlic (¼ t if using garlic powder)
• Handful of fresh cilantro
• ½ handful fresh parsley
• Salt to taste
• Juice of ½ to 1 lime (1-3 t if using concentrate)

Instructions

This is always better the second day as the flavors have time to develop.

To peel tomatoes, bring a large pot, filled ½ full of water, to a boil. Wash tomatoes and cut off any bad spots. Cut the tops off and place in boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove tomatoes from pot and place in an ice bath or on a plate to cool.

While tomatoes are cooling, dice onion, peppers and garlic and place in a food processor. Tear cilantro and parsley and add rest of ingredients to mixture. Once tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove skins. Cut into large chunks.

Using a food processor or hand blender, puree all ingredients together. Taste to see if the balance is right and adjust anything to taste.

To make it chunky

Dice the tomatoes, onion and peppers. For firmer tomatoes, don’t blanch, just skin the tomatoes and dice the flesh. Finely chop the herbs and garlic. Add rest of ingredients. Mix.

To Roast Peppers for a roasted version

1. Preheat your oven’s broiler. Cut peppers in half and remove ribs and seeds.
2. Arrange the peppers on a baking sheet skin side up and place the baking sheet on the highest rack in your oven.
3. Keep a watchful eye on the peppers. When dark splotches begin to appear on the peppers, remove them from the oven and place them in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, making sure that it is sealed air-tight all the way around. The steam from the trapped hot peppers will loosen the skins.
4. Once the peppers are cool enough to handle (probably about 15 to 20 minutes), hold one end of the pepper down on a flat surface and gently peel the skin off of each pepper. The skin should slide off fairly easily.

• 5-6 Garlic bulbs
• 3 T Olive oil
• 4 Medium, peppers of any color, roughly chopped and seeded
• 1 Onion roughly chopped
• 12 LB Ripe tomatoes, peeled (about 25)
• 3 T Packed brown sugar
• 4 t Salt
• 1 T Balsamic vinegar (or whatever vinegar you have on hand)
• 1 t Ground black pepper
• 2 Cups lightly packed fresh basil, chopped
• 1 Cup light packed assorted fresh herbs (such as oregano, thyme, and parsley), chopped
• 100% Lemon juice (only if canning)
• 6 Pint jars with lids and rings (only if canning)

1. See the salsa recipe for how to peel tomatoes. Preheat oven to 400 F. Peel away the dry outer layers of skin from garlic bulbs, leaving skins and cloves intact. Cut off the pointed top portions (about 1/2 inch), leaving the bulbs intact but exposing the individual cloves. Place the garlic bulbs, cut sides up, in a 1 – 1 ½ quart casserole dish. drizzle with about 1 T of olive oil. Cover the casserole dish. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the cloves of garlic are soft. Cool garlic on a wire rack until cool enough to handle.

2. Remove garlic cloves from paper by squeezing the bottoms of the bulbs.

Instructions for using a food processor

Place garlic cloves, onion, peppers, and herbs in a food processor. Cut peeled tomatoes into chunks and add some of the chunks to the food processor. Cover and process until chopped. Transfer chopped garlic, peppers, and tomatoes to a 7-8 quart heavy pot. Repeat chopping the remaining tomatoes, in batches, in the food processor. Add all tomatoes to the pot.

Instructions for hand blender 

Add about 2 T of olive oil to a 7-8 quart heavy pot. Heat on medium. Once the oil is hot, add garlic, ruff chopped peppers, and onions to a heavy pot. Cook vegetables until tender, about 4-8 minutes. Cut tomatoes into chunks and add to the pan. Take a hand blender and blend just enough to release the juices from the tomatoes. Add chopped herbs and blend until smooth.

3. Add brown sugar, salt, vinegar, and black pepper to the tomato mixture. Bring to a boil. Boil steadily, uncovered, for 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce to about 11 cups or the desired consistency.

4. You can preserve it through canning or freezing. For canning, add 1 T of 100% lemon juice to each sterilized pint jar. Ladle sauce into jars with lemon juice, leaving 1/2 inch of head space for expansion. Wipe the jar rims clean, and add lids and rings. Process filled jars in a boiling-water canner for 35 minutes for an elevation of 0-1000 feet. For more detailed instructions on canning things with tomatoes and for altitude adjustments see Canning Tomato How To Basics. Remove jars and cool on wooden cutting boards or wire racks. Freeze or use within a week any sauce that didn’t fit in the pint jars.

• ½ Cup cornmeal
• ½ Cup flour
• 1 ½ t Salt, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 t Baking powder
• ½ t Black pepper
• ¼ t Garlic powder
• ¼ t Smoked paprika
• 1 Large egg
• ½ Cup buttermilk
• ½ Cup finely chopped sweet onion
• 2 Cups thinly sliced okra
• Vegetable oil for deep frying

Place the spices, cornmeal, flower, baking power and 1 t of the salt in a large bowl and mix well. In a separate bowl whisk the egg and buttermilk. Then add the dry ingredients to the mixture and stir until combined.

Fold okra and onion into batter. Pour 1 inch of vegetable oil into a heavy-bottomed skillet. Heat until it’s hot but not smoking. (340 F) Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons into the oil, being careful to not overcrowd. Fry until gold on one side, about 4 minutes. Then Turn and repeat on the other side.

Remove fritters from the skillet, drain on paper towels, and sprinkle with salt. You may keep them warn in a 200 F oven until the whole batch is done.