Can you tell it's zucchini and tomato season?  I've wondered before why so many recipes combine those two vegetables.  I now suspect that it's partly because the plain zucchini excels at tasting like whatever you cook it with, and very few things can top a fresh garden tomato in the flavor department.  This recipe also uses any mellow white fish, probably for the same reason.  The other ingredients both perk up and round out the flavor.  This one's a keeper.

Baked Fish and Vegetables

4 Tbsp. butter, softened
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon zest or 2-3 drops lemon essential oil
1 lb. zucchini or summer squash,sliced 1/4" thick
1 lb. tomatoes (3 medium), sliced thin, OR cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 c. minced fresh basil or 1 drop basil oil
salt and pepper
1 1/2 lbs. mild white fish 
2 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar*

Preheat oven to 450 F and move an oven rack to the lowest position.  Mix together the butter, minced garlic, lemon juice, and zest.  If using basil oil, add it to this mixture.  Rub a little of the butter mixture on the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

Put the zucchini slices in the bottom of the 9x13 pan; add the tomatoes in a second layer.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and with half of the basil (unless you used basil oil).  Pat the fish dry with paper towels, then place the fish on top of the tomatoes.  Dot the butter over the top, add the rest of the basil, and drizzle with the vinegar*.  Cover tightly with foil; bake about 20 minutes, or until the fish flakes when you twist a fork in it.  Serve immediately.

Serve over rice to pasta to soak up the delicious sauce!

*The original recipe, from America's Test Kitchen, calls for 1/4 cup dry white wine.  I don't cook with wine, so the white balsamic is what I found in my pantry to add the savory flavor.  Since it's strong, I used only half as much (2 Tbsp. instead of 1/4 c.).  If you have neither, chicken broth and a splash of soy sauce would give a similar depth.

Barbecue Sauce on beef

(originally from 5/27/10)
Here’s a great idea from Meridian Magazine: 

 the “Emergency Preparedness Moment: 

What emergency preparedness activity would you like to do this week for your family? Make this a matter of prayer and you will be surprised at the promptings you can receive. These few minutes every seven days during Family Home Evening can help your children be ready for a variety of emergencies. Problem solving skills, first aid skills, putting together backpack 72-hour kits, or any other kind of creative endeavor shows your family you love them and teaches them how to take care of themselves in tough scenarios. What will you choose this week?” 

You could also find a minute or two while you're driving kids to school or activities. A little bit of time each week can help you cover a LOT of ground. If you need resources, some great ones online are http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/   http://ussc.utah.gov/publications/roots_earthquake_low.pdf    If you prefer a booklet you can HOLD, both of these are available, free of charge, at the city office building, from the city emergency planner.  Here in South Jordan that’s Dustin Lewis.  He’s happy to pass them out!

Maybe expand the “Emergency Preparedness Moment” into a “Self-Reliant Living Moment”?    See where the Spirit leads you in your quest… 

-Rhonda

 * * * * * * *
Mom's Barbeque Sauce       Makes about 3 cups

2   8-oz cans  tomato sauce (or 2/3 c. tomato powder and 1 1/3 c. water)   1   can/cup water (fill up one of the now-empty tomato sauce cans)   1 chopped onion (size is totally up to you)  or use a handful of dried
A couple sprinkles  of garlic   
pepper to taste   
3-4   shakes   of Worcestershire sauce   
1 Tbsp. vinegar, optional
Sugar, honey, or molasses to taste, anywhere from none to ½ cup

Simmer everything together until flavors combine, at least 10 minutes, or an hour if you have it, to let it thicken and become rich.  This will be even better the next day or later in the week.  Leftovers freeze well.  If using this with hamburger, you can cook the hamburger with the onion and then add the rest and simmer.

If you want to change the flavor a bit, add a spice or two. Some good ones for this are cloves (try 1/8-1/4 tsp.), oregano (about 1 tsp.), chili powder (1-3 tsp.), or Liquid Smoke (1/2-1 tsp.), mustard (1 tsp. dry, or up to ¼ c. of the stuff in a squeeze bottle), a dash of cayenne, a little Tabasco sauce. Basically any spice that you like!  Another idea is to use pineapple juice in place of the water.  With that one, try just a tablespoon or two of brown sugar.  Or use orange juice and honey with ½ tsp. ginger.

 

To make BBQ Beef, brown a roast in a couple tablespoons of hot oil.  Pork or chicken are also good.

Add all the Barbecue Sauce ingredients.  If you have a tight-fitting lid, or are using a crockpot, don't add the cup of water.   A little vinegar in the sauce will help tenderize the meat.  In this batch, I used 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar, and 1/4 c. honey. 

When the meat is cooked and tender, remove the lid and boil until the sauce thickens enough to coat. 

Shred or slice the meat, then stir together with the sauce.  Delicious!  Just the right amount of sweetness for me.  Store-bought sauce is always too sweet, in my opinion.  I still buy it when it's cheap, but mix it with some plain tomato sauce.

from photos8.com

(originally 7/08/10)

Here in the Salt Lake Valley, we still have a couple months of the growing season left; it’s not too late to plant some things.  Beans, beets, carrots, and turnips are good ones to put in right now.  You can even grow cool-season crops like peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, and cabbage, if you wait a couple more weeks for temperatures to drop a bit.

Here are a few quick tips for growing tomatoes- 

*fertilize with 1 Tbsp. nitrogen (34-0-0) at four and eight weeks after transplanting.  For me, that’s right about now. Put the fertilizer on the ground, to the side of the plant.  Gardeners call this “side dressing”.

*Give them 1-2 inches of water per week, water deeply and infrequently.  To know how often to water, dig a 4” deep hole, feel the soil at the bottom.  If it feels cool and moist, you don’t need water yet.  Wait until the top four inches dry out, then water again.  Mulch around them to keep moisture in and to reduce weeds.  *It will take about 25-35 days for a flower to become a ripe tomato.  It seems to speed up ripening if you break off a few little branches.  This tells the plant it had better hurry up and produce seeds before something happens to it.


for more info on tomatoes, including what causes blossom end rot: http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/HG_2004-05.pdf

info on planting beans:

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__7948214.htm

and information on growing about any fruit, vegetable, or herb: 

https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden/htm/vegetables-fruits-herbs    

Here are a couple great quotes I ran across recently:

"Self-reliance is a product of our work and under-girds all other welfare practices. It is an essential element in our spiritual as well as our temporal well-being. Regarding this principle, President Marion G. Romney has said: “Let us work for what we need. Let us be self-reliant and independent. Salvation can be obtained on no other principle. Salvation is an individual matter, and we must work out our own salvation in temporal as well as in spiritual things.” - (In Welfare Services Meeting Report, 2 Oct. 1976, p. 13.), quoted in “In the Lord’s Own Way” Elder Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 1986

"There is more salvation and security in wheat than in all the political schemes of the world". - Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, 2:207  Or in whatever food you end up storing.

Now for the recipes:

The two below are almost the same thing:  the first is stiff because of the large amount of milk powder and powdered sugar, the second starts with the same ratio of PB and honey, but thickens it up with cereal/oats and just a little milk powder.  Just goes to show you can do your own variations if you like.  On those days that we’re out of bread and don’t know what to do for lunch, we’ll whip up a batch of these Peanut Butter Fingers (though we usually shape them in balls) and eat those.  It’s our peanut-butter-sandwich, fun-sized.  If you go by what the PB jar says is a serving (2 Tbsp.), the PB Fingers recipes only feeds 3 people. 

 

 Edible Playdough  - makes about 2 cups’ worth, 1 ¼ lbs.

1   cup   peanut butter   
1   cup   dry milk powder   
1   cup   powdered sugar   
1/2   cup   honey   

Mix peanut butter and honey together until smooth.  Stir in milk powder, then add powdered sugar.  Stir as much as you can, then dump out on counter and knead with your hands until it all sticks together.

 
           Peanut Butter Fingers  (small batch)

Yield: about 20  (2”) "fingers"

1/3   cup   peanut butter   
3   Tbsp.   honey   
1/2   cup   corn flakes   
1/2   cup   quick-cooking rolled oats   
1/4   cup   dry milk powder   
1/4   cup   raisins or dried fruit bits    
Sesame seed, if you like   

In a medium mixing bowl stir together the peanut butter and honey until smooth.  Put corn flakes in a plastic sandwich bag.  Close the open end.  With your fist, crush the corn flakes into small pieces.  Add corn flakes, oats, milk powder, and raisins to the peanut butter mixture in the bowl.  With your hands, mix well.  If mixture is too dry to hold together, mix in a few drops of water. 

       Using a well-rounded teaspoonful for each, shape into logs 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide, or about the size of your finger.     Spread the sesame seed (if you're using it) in a pie plate.  Roll peanut butter fingers in the sesame seed.      Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.  If they don’t disappear first.

 

I love these powders!  Left to right: tomato powder, pumpkin powder, yellow summer squash powder, dried crumbled greens to put in soups in the winter.  (These greens are pigweed leaves- one of the wild edible weeds in my yard.)

Hot, fresh pancakes are simple to make. 

Cook pancakes on high heat, either on a greased or nonstick surface.  When the bubbles around the edges stay 'popped' and the edges are not runny, flip the pancake.

Cook until the other side is golden as well.  The pancake will puff up when you first flip it, and then it will stop rising.  If you're not sure if it's done, poke one in the center.  It shouldn't be runny.  If you flip the pancakes a second time, they will deflate and be more dense and flat.

 

Making tomato powder: start by partly-filling your blender or food processor with COMPLETELY dried tomatoes.

Run blender until ground to a powder.  I usually add a tablespoon of cornstarch to this, to help absorb moisture so they don't clump during- or after- storage.

Pour into a canning jar or some other airtight container. 

Label the jar with the year and what's in it.  My label reminds me that there's a little bit of cornstarch in it.  Store someplace cool and dark for the best shelf life.  It should retain most of the vitamins for a year, and the calories and minerals for longer than that.  If you add an oxygen packet, use a new canning lid, and screw the ring on tight, the oxygen absorbtion will create a seal.  I don't know how much longer the powder will store with the oxygen removed, but I figure it's got to be at least double or triple. 

One use for your tomato powder- this is going to be pizza sauce, as soon as the hot water is added.  For 8 ounces of sauce, use 1/4 cup tomato powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, a few sprinkles each of garlic powder, black pepper, basil, and oregano, and a few fennel seeds if you like.  Stir in 1/2 cup hot water, then let it sit for a few minutes.

Instead of canning tomatoes, I've started dehydrating them.  This was really handy when I first had too many tomatoes to eat, but not enough for a full canning batch.  Once they're REALLY dried, I run them through the blender or food processor to make powder.  My kids can do all the cutting, then load them on the trays.  I fill a quart jar, add an oxygen packet (from the Church cannery), put on a new lid, screw on a ring, and they seal within about twenty minutes.  Six quarts' worth of tomatoes fit in one quart jar, this way.

 
Use the powder in place of any tomato product- tomato paste, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, tomato juice, whatever you need.

 
It takes 1/4 c. powder, 1/2 c. hot water, and 1/8- 1/4 tsp. salt to yield one 8-oz can of tomato sauce.  Add spices to  turn it into pizza sauce.

 
More details on making the powder: if the tomatoes are small (cherry tomato size, I cut them in halves or quarters, otherwise I slice them about 1/4" thick.  Dry until they are completely dried. I fill the blender (food processor would work, but I don't have one) to about the 4-cup mark, add a tablespoon of cornstarch to act as a moisture absorber during storage (optional), and turn it on until well powdered.  To store, I've been putting them in canning jars, adding an oxygen packet, then topping with a new lid and a jar ring.  This way, they seal.  

It is not necessary to use the oxygen packet, and I don't have facts on how much it extends the shelf life.  Most dehydrating books say that you still have maximum vitamin content in dehydrated for for one year, and that's without the packet.  My line of reasoning is that taking out the oxygen should at least double or triple the shelf life, plus sealing the jar keeps humidity out.   Just make sure there is no moisture in your food before powdering it, or it will clump and maybe mold.  It often clumps after opening a jar, when I keep it in my cooking cupboard, but it's still completely usable, and the cornstarch can help prevent clumping.   When drying, though, the essentials are to get the food as dry as possible, and store it at least fairly airtight, dark and cool is ideal.

 To use tomato powder , I usually just toss in enough  to 'make it taste right" into whatever soup I'm making, but if you want conversions,  here's what I've figured out:

one 6-oz can of tomato paste: 1/4 c. tomato powder, 1/4 c. hot water, 1/4 tsp. salt
8-oz can of tomato sauce: 1/4 c. powder, 1/2 cup hot water, 1/4 tsp. salt
14-16-oz can crushed tomatoes: 1/4 c. powder, 3/4 c. hot water, 1/4-1/2 tsp. salt
8 oz. tomato juice: 2-4 Tbsp  powder, just under 1 cup hot water, 1/16-1/8 tsp. salt

So the tomato powder-to-water ratio for each one is:

Tomato paste: 1:1
Tomato Sauce 1:2
Crushed tomatoes: 1:3
Tomato juice: 1:4-8

And, of course, you may add any herbs or spices you like.