Episode AH0323: Hello and happy harvest to you today. I hope that your garden has been growing nicely. Although the weather in the different parts of the country has not been favorable but hopefully we have some bounty coming forth from all the planting you did this few months ago, remember? Well, for the next four weeks, we’re gonna help you with the problem of too many tomatoes, too much cabbage, too many zucchini, and too many apples. We’re gonna give you hints for the next four programs on what to do with all of them. And as you can see, this is just a variety of the bounty that’s coming forth now in fruit markets, from your own backyard, from neighbors and friends saying, “Hey, would you like a few zucchini? They’re this big now, they’re this big around, they’re like torpedoes, could you take one off my hands?” You could do a lot of food preparation with a zucchini that big. Well, we wanna give you some ideas today on tomatoes. You say tomato, I say tomato. No, really, there’s such a variety of tomatoes. The big beef steaks, the ones that have a lot of pulp and less juice, some are more juicy. They’re almost like apples, you have to decide which one is right for which job. Which is a salad tomato? Which would be good for making sauces? Which would be good for just slicing on a piece of bread with a little mayonnaise? Oh boy! To me, that’s September. When you have a tomato that tastes like a tomato on a slice of bread with a little bit of mayonnaise, you know, hey, this is it, this is the best, you don’t need anything else on that sandwich. Well, today we’re gonna give you some real big ideas on that. But let me just remind you who the king of the harvest is. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And He makes all of this, all of this, possible. Think about the sun not shining or the rain not coming down, where would the crops be? Without the Lord, we’d be nowhere. So let’s keep in mind, the bounty comes from a bountiful God who loves you and cares about you, cares about all of us. We’ll be right back. But first, here’s today’s At Home Hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Tomato sauces tend to stain in plastic ware. So spray the inside of the container with vegetable oil and it won’t stain. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we wanna hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Number one in our recipe ideas for you today, what to do with all those extra tomatoes, is something called tomato basil squares. And this is great, this would be great for an appetizer, you could use this with a salad for lunch and whatever. You take one tube of this, it’s called pizza crust, and it’s in the refrigerated area of your store. And you just spread it out like so, spreads out real nice, in like a 12 by 15 inch pan, okay? Then we’re gonna have, this is two cups of mozzarella, and we’re just gonna sprinkle one cup of it on here now. Just one cup, not all of it, because we’re gonna save some for later. Just try to get a nice covering over that crust evenly. What a wonderful time of the year when all this stuff’s coming in and you just think, what else can I do with a tomato? Well, we’re gonna give you some ideas today. ‘Cause today what we’re using is a plum tomato. See the difference between these tomatoes? This is a plum tomato, a lot of people use these to make sauces. This is great because this has very little juice. It has more of the meat of the tomato and very little seeds, and you can see that by the slices. So that’s a good one. These are all good. You could use this to make the sauce too, doesn’t matter. We’re gonna take the rest of this cheese. You move this out of the way. And I’m gonna make a topping, and this is gonna be the other cup of mozzarella, some Parmesan. This is about a fourth of a cup freshly grated Parmesan. Fresh snipped basil. Oh, I hope you have it in your garden. A couple of tablespoons of that, that would be great. We’re gonna drop that in there too. That is so fragrant, so wonderful. You know you can freeze it very easily too. Just take it from the bush and clean it really well and put it in some Ziploc bags, it works really good. And you can put in the freezer and bring it out as you need it. It really is still very effective. All right, and then we’re gonna use some mayonnaise. We have about two thirds of a cup of mayonnaise. Like so. This is easy to do, this is gonna be a mixture that’s gonna go on the top of the tomatoes that we’re gonna put on top of the cheese. Then the last ingredient is one clove of garlic minced. Very small, fine. Like so. Okay? And we just wanna mix this together. Remember there’s cheese, mayonnaise, some wonderful basil, fragrant basil and some Parmesan cheese, clove of garlic, that’s all. And we mix this up. Give it a good turn like so. Yeah. Okay, now I’m gonna take my tomato slices. This out of the way. And just a single layer, put them right over the top of the cheese that we’ve already placed on the crust. But I’ll tell you what, this will bring them in ’cause this is gonna be fragrant and delicious and you’re gonna like it, I know. It’s a good to do with tomato slices. If you don’t have little plum ones, use the other kind, it’ll be okay. Just use up whatever you can, because come January, we’ll be all saying, where is those good tomatoes? Oh, if I just had another tomato. If I could just taste this tomatoes, September tomatoes is what I call them because they taste so good. You wanna make sure you get a cover, I mean, you have to spread these out a little more. Okay? Here we go. We’ll rob Peter to pay Paul. Here we go. There. What we’re gonna do now is take this and we’re gonna spread. Actually we’re gonna spoon it because I don’t think we can spread it so thick. We’re just gonna spoon this over top of these tomatoes. Just like so. Make sure you do it evenly over all the tomatoes. There’s cheese in there. Think how good that’s gonna be with that basil and stuff. Oh boy. Delicious. Yum, yum. This is gonna go into a 375 degree oven and it’s gonna bake for about 15, 20 minutes. Actually, all you’re gonna do is bake the crust because the rest of it, that’s just warming up the tomatoes. So that will be very good. You can see how this would be a great appetizer. Some friends are dropping over, mix up a batch of this, sit out on the deck and talk, enjoy the evenings that are not gonna be so warm. Of course, this area of the country, we haven’t had the warm evenings that you sit out there and talk about, you know? But it’s okay, the times and the seasons are God’s and He knows. Okay, we’re almost there. I’m gonna finish this up and we’re gonna take a break. And when we come back, more ideas for your harvest of tomatoes. Stay with us now. Okay, the tomato basil squares are in the oven. 15, 20 minutes, you’re ready to go with them, okay? The second one I wanna show you is you take five cups of chopped tomatoes. Put them in a nice, deep, large vessel like this skillet is, and five cups of sugar. And you let that cook for 15 minutes until it’s like this. They’re broken down pretty good, the pieces are soft, all right? We’re going to make, hold on, we’re making strawberry jelly out of tomatoes. No, I have not lost my mind, it actually works. And I love this recipe. In 15 minutes, you have strawberry preserves ’cause there’s fruit pulp, and it’s really a jam. And this comes to a boil. And after it boils, you wanna have a pot ’cause we’re gonna can here. You have a pot with boiling water, we have these cute little jelly jars. You can use any kind of a jar you want. Through the years, I saved some of the jelly jars, ’cause we use jelly a lot, Paul likes jelly. So I just save them if they’re decorative and they’re nice. You’re gonna take this, in boiling water you’re gonna submerge it like so, and you’re also gonna need a cap and a ring, brand new, don’t reuse the rings. You certainly can’t reuse the caps. And you just slide that in the water like that. Now, this is boiling, this is boiling. You have to sterilize everything you’re gonna use when you do this because bacteria forms and you don’t want that to happen, that’ll spoil your jelly. We have this going, that’s good. To finish this, we’re gonna take strawberry Jell-O. We needed a large one, we didn’t have large ones so we used one small and a half of a small one. And you just pour that into tomatoes, turn off the heat. Pour the other half into the tomatoes, like that. And you’re just gonna stir. Stir just like that. Look at the beautiful color. Can you see where it starts to look like strawberry? And if you were here and you could smell this, you would say that it absolutely looks like strawberry. The best part is, it tastes like strawberry. This on waffles in the morning, this on scoop of ice cream, this on your English muffins. Oh, this is incredible, you won’t believe it. And if people think, oh, I don’t like tomatoes… One of the guys that work here, I said, “Hey, Matt, taste this.” “Oh, that’s good, I hate tomatoes,” but he loved this. After we get to that point, now what we’re gonna do, again, as I said, you have to sterilize everything you’re gonna use. This is the equipment that you need. You need a pan like this because you’re gonna take your jar out, carefully let the water, now it’s sterilized. Put it in here. Now what we need is a funnel. This is a great funnel with a big hole, that’s just for canning. And you want to make sure that the water covers it all over to sterilize it, and you place that on top, right in the top. Your dipper needs to be sterilized. Now, all you do is start to ladle right into your jar like that. You don’t wanna go clear to the top, you wanna come up to just the rim. You set this down. Be careful that when you pull this off, that none of the juice gets on the edge of the jar because it won’t get a good seal. You take it off, put it to the side. Now you’re gonna go in, get your top and your ring that’s been sterilized. You place that on there just like so. Now, some people say, Arlene, I do that and guess what? Mine never seal. Well, if you have that problem, you just wanna put it on. Don’t do it tight ’cause it’s too hot to hold, okay? If you have that problem, that’s where paraffin… And you get this kind of wax, this is called Gulf wax for canning, candle making, and other uses, and you just melt it in a little sauce pan. And because I made a batch early, and these are all sealed. You can tell when that little bobble goes down, the heat pulls it in. This one is sealed. But this one did not. So we melted the paraffin, we poured it in, make sure it’s sealed the whole way around, then you put your lid on, sit it in your pantry in a cool place. You have a wonderful little jar to give as a gift or to sit on your pantry shelf, and you can make as much of that as you want. I would probably put them in the fridge just to gel them up and then sit them on the pantry shelf. But that’s all there is to it. Simple, easy to do, okay? That’s the next idea. I’m gonna move some stuff around here because we want to use… I wanna make one more recipe for you. I think you’ll enjoy this one. This one is called Ruth Fox’s fried tomato gravy. And I got this recipe from a fella and his wife. Said his mother-in-law always made this. First of all, you gotta have one of these skillets. You know what this is? Inexpensive, cheap, cast iron skillet. One of the best investments that you’ll ever make. You really need to have one if you don’t. And we’re gonna do this in vegetable oil. And you need it about a quarter of an inch thick ’cause we’re gonna fry tomatoes, all right? And again, what kind of tomatoes do you want to use? Well, we’ve sliced these beauties. Ripe tomatoes is important. See, we have them all here just like that. Recipe calls for six to eight, medium to large tomatoes, and that would give you quite a bit. If you don’t need that much, cut it in half. All right, so we have half a cup of flour, and we’re gonna put some pepper to your liking, and some salt. Remember, tomatoes really need salt, so you might wanna go a little heavier on that. Just mix it up a little bit. We’re gonna add to this half a cup of sugar or more to taste, this is a half cup, right in with the flour, which is an interesting concept because usually you don’t do that. Seldom do you add if you’re gonna batter or bread anything, do you add sugar to it, but this is one of those, you’re gonna enjoy it. Now we’re gonna dip each tomato into this mixture. I’m gonna give it a good covering. And then you’re gonna knock off the excess. And I’m gonna drop them now, every one right into that oil. It’s hopefully getting nice and hot. You say, now what are we gonna do with them, Arlene, ’cause this looks like fried green tomatoes? No, these are fried red tomatoes. We’re gonna brown, it’s really essential that this browns, so you can’t hurry it up. Brown them all very well. And don’t crowd the skillet ’cause it takes longer. So as they brown and you bring them on, put them on a platter. And when they’re all browned, you’re gonna put them all into this pan. And then you’re gonna pour milk slowly over the top of them. And that makes your fried tomato gravy. Don’t knock it till you try it. Once you try it, you’ll make it again, and again, and again. Because it’s so unusual. You say, then what do you do with it? Well, you serve it with mashed potatoes. Where do you put gravy? Over mashed potatoes. So that’s what we’re gonna be doing. Today I just love this. I love when you guys send me recipes ’cause it helps me to know that you’re thinking, and we’re planning, and you’re a part of this program, and it’s necessary. We like it when you tell us what you like to do, and give us some ideas. Ruth Fox, thank you so much for your recipe, and your husband for sending it. And we’re gonna continue to brown these up and when we come back, we’re gonna show you everything we prepared today. We’ll be right back. Here’s the wrap up for our tomato show today. And I hope that you’ve been taking some notes and also taking down the recipes. But of course they’re always available to you either via the internet or through snail mail, as you’ve just heard. Here’s our tomato basil squares. This is like a tomato pizza. I know your kids are gonna eat this because it’s got tomatoes, it’s got basil, that’s good for them, but that crust, wonderful. You cut it in smaller pieces if you wanna use it as an appetizer. Then we have our jelly that we’ve made. Put some on our waffles down there. That on waffles, strawberry tomato jelly, I guess that’s what we can call it. Put it in a side dish here like this when you have a breakfast sometime and you’re just serving jelly, that’s a great way to do it. How about canning in some jars like this and putting them on your pantry shelf and then come Christmas time, put that together with a loaf of fresh bread, maybe a couple of sticks of butter or a couple of coffee mugs and a little packet of coffee, give it to as a small little hostess gift or Christmas gift. Easy, quick. Now’s the time to do it because now they’ll take some of that pressure off at the end of the year to come up with an idea for the holidays. You can also serve it on some English muffins, great. And then of course, this is always good on ice cream. And I just happened to have some warm here that we’ve just made and I’m gonna spoon it over. Oh my! Oh me, oh my. There’s our tomato strawberry jelly. I’m telling you, you have to try it, you’re really gonna like it. Then we come to mashed potatoes that we have added because we’re gonna show you our tomato gravy. I’m gonna reach my hand here. Here’s the way you serve it, you just take some potatoes, make them creamy, and this is Ruth Fox’s red tomato gravy. And all you do is spoon that right over top. She said she uses this as a main course, that all you have to add with this is like a salad or something. I’ll tell you what, Ruth, thank you so much. Doesn’t that look incredible? Oh boy. Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. Remember, this whole month we’re talking about the harvest, and we’re talking about how everything is so plentiful now and what to do with it. So you want to join us every week because we’re gonna show you some really unique ideas on what to do with all the good vegetables, this fresh stuff coming in now. Cakes and pies and quiches and breads and apple sauce. A lot of good things, I know you’re gonna enjoy. We always enjoy it when you come to visit us because you’re a big part of our family. And I hope that if you have the access to a computer, that you’ll think about getting a subscription to our Enjoying newsletter via the internet. Just go to www.ctvn.org, and it will help you show you the way through the subscription process. It’s not hard, it’s not difficult. You do need a credit card though. So please be sure to include all the information that’s necessary. And every month, that comes to your email address without you asking or requesting it, automatically. And sometimes even a special recipe for those that do that shows up on your door and you don’t even expect it. We’d like to keep you guessing. Well, I don’t think you have to guess about tomatoes. I think we found out that this is something that we can all like and enjoy from a pizza to a jelly, to potatoes with a tomato gravy. I think that this is something you’re gonna want to add, at least one of these to your collection of recipes. It’s always wonderful when you come, so be sure to join us the next time, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here “At Home,” we’ll see you then.
[Narrator] Food provided by McGinnis Sisters Special Food Stores in Brentwood and Monroeville. Tastes the world.
[Narrator] Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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