Friday, June 29, 2012

Wholesome Living Tips - Food Harvest

TOMATOES
Heirloom variety for slicing
For Sauces: Pick your 'plum variety' tomatoes when they are ripe. Keep them in a  shallow box at room temperature until you pick more in the days ahead for recipes, saucing, canning. Don't store them in a bowl where their own weight crushes them. Pints are a good size for small quantities. The sauce here is made from my own tomatoes, onions, and herbs: basil, oregano, and thyme.


ONIONS
Onions from the garden need to be cured before storing for future use to avoid getting mold. Here they are braided to allow excess water to dry ... and to look like pearls hanging in my kitchen.

CHERRIES
One picking of Surinam cherries shown here is from an ongoing harvest. 
This tree is native to Suinam, Guyana, and from French Guiana to Southern Brazil. It can be a tree or a bush. It loves sun and is very drought tolerant. There are baby Suinam cherry trees for sale here in the plant nursery. Call ahead or email to come by to see them. wholesomehomeandgarden@gmail.com
The Suinam cherry produces fruit it's second year and will give two crops in a single year. High in vitamin C, it is tart to the taste. It is the source of Acerola C you buy as a supplement. It has pretty, shiny cherry leaves and is a favorite hedge plant in Florida as it is so easy to shape.

    I made my first cherry pie last year from this tree. This year I made pudding  by adding mango juice to the pitted cherries in a blender, then added sugar and cornstarch to make a very tasty pudding.

Cherry Sauce: After pitting, cut open or crush cherries, sprinkle with your favorite sweetener, chill for 2 or 3 hours and use as a topping...
How about cherry short cake? Over vanilla ice cream? Que Rico!


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