Ham Sandwich Indicted!

So, we've already discussed the fact that the Ham Sandwich loves risotto as a vehicle for whatever random ingredients you have lying around your kitchen (see prior Green Risotto recipe). In keeping with the tomato theme of the past few days, my sister and I decided to throw together a dinner that would utilize said bountiful tomatoes. Since we also had a couple of ears of corn on hand, as well as some risotto, the decision was practically made for us. To drink, we cracked open a bottle of what's probably the best dry Riesling I've ever had: 2008 Fireblock Riesling Watervale. I'm not what you'd call a "pro" at pairing wines with foods, but the crispness of the wine really balanced out the richness of the risotto. If you're into wine (or wanting to get into wine), I really, really, really recommend checking out Gary Vaynerchuk at Wine Library . His store, and especially his wine tasting show, Wine Library TV, are some of the best things to come out...

The other day, I picked three--THREE--pounds of small Roma tomatoes off of one plant. I took a picture for evidentiary proof. We're just about to get into no-holds-barred tomato season here in Ohio--the time of year when tomatoes are falling off the tables at farmer's markets and weighing down the branches of your home plants. (Hopefully, anyway.) It's that time when almost every meal has tomatoes in someway or another, and while we're not tired of them yet, we start to wonder what in the hell are we going to do with all these tomatoes? Fear not, because aside from canning and freezing, there is one easy, breezy way to utilize the bounty that you over-bought or over-grew--the gazpacho. If you have a food processor (or a blender), you can throw a gazpacho together in about 15 minutes. Seriously--I made some for lunch before I left for work the other morning. You can tweak the ingredients as you wish--more tomato, more or less hot pepper, maybe some corn kernels...

I've been dying to get this post up all week, but this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write anything--it's amazing how much time a day job takes up! Last weekend, a friend, her daughter, and the H.S. drove up to Petoskey, Michigan to visit another friend and her husband. Petoskey, for those of you unfamiliar with the upper reaches of Michigan, is almost to the point of the middle finger of the "mitten" of Michigan. It's an absolutely charming resort town, overlooking Little Traverse Bay, and chock full of little, independent cafes, ice cream shops, bakeries, bookstores--and did I mention how charming it is? Anyway, it's cherry season in Michigan right now, and the plan was to hit up some of the orchards for bulk fruit to bring home. Lucky for us, my friend in Michigan had also discovered a wild raspberry patch in the forest not far from her house. Thus, the first order of business was a trip to the woods for some sweet-tart deliciousness: ...

"The Heart of Darkness." aka, my tomato plants. All that rain we had seems to have treated them well, as it's just now July and they're as tall as the fence. The Romas are fruiting nicely, as are the Early Girls, but the heirloom Willis Plum I picked up in Clintonville is the slow kid of the bunch. Maybe he's just a late bloomer... The cukes produced their first batch of veggies, allowing me to make a batch of sweet & spicy pickles: I used this recipe, and since I didn't have 24 dried Cayenne peppers on hand, I used some of the peppers from the jungle: We'll give them a couple of weeks to marinate and see how they turn out. Finally, the onion and garlic seem to be lying down on the job: My garlics never produced any scapes (oh, the horror!), got about a foot tall and not all that thick, then decided to give up the ghost. I dug up a test garlic the other day, the bulb was about the size of bounce-ball--definitely not the nice, plump head I was h...