Thursday 21 January 2010

more tomato harvests and a cat face

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/tabbouleh.JPGFirst off I wanted to post a picture of the yummy quinoa tabbouleh I made last week with the first crop of Tommy Toes.  Quinoa is a rather obscure grain but it's pretty tasty as a pilaf or side dish.  It's not as chewy as the wheat in normal tabbouleh and cooks faster (12 minutes boiling).  All I did was cook and drain the tabbouleh and add the halved cherry tomatoes, a handful of chopped parsley, a few chopped green onions, olive oil and a bit of lemon juice.  We ate it hot but the leftovers were great cold too.  Two thumbs up from me.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/rdmharvest.JPGDespite the fusarium wilt, the Tommy Toes continue to ripen like crazy; I'm now sitting on a small bowl full of them.  And the rouge de marmandes have finally started to ripen!  They're a decent size and I've now picked about a dozen (a few had rot though and I had to throw them out).

Some of them were a bit split at the top, I think I watered them too much and then we got all that rain.  Maybe it's because of the water but I've been a bit disappointed by the taste.  I had one from a farmer's market last year and they were amazing, incredibly rich in flavour.  These ones so far have been a bit bland.  I'm hoping it's just the early crop and that the flavour will improve.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/rdmfirst2.JPGAnd finally, the first of my RdMs was a "cat face".  I have no idea why, it can be caused by a range of things but it seems that sometimes it "just happens."  The misshapen ends supposedly look like a cat's face but you can still eat them.  The weird thing was, that fold of skin went all the way inside the fruit so it had skin in the middle.  Weird, huh?

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