As y’all know, I love making dishes with as much fresh fruits and vegetables as I can.  I picked up some nice vine ripe tomatoes at the farmers market and decided they were perfect for a nice sauce.  So I also grabbed some of the beautiful green peppers close by and had my main ingredients.  

I have to use the tomato sauce that mom and I put up for the winter until I get fresh vine ripe tomatoes. Not that this sauce isn’t awesome, it is!  It is canned within an hour of being picked fresh from our gardens and it gets us through the fall and winter months.

It’s just that I can not bring myself to buy those tomatoes on the grocery store shelf that was ripened in a hot house or just in the box they were packed in on the way to market.  There is just a lack of flavor and sweetness in those tomatoes and you can truly taste the difference and lack of freshness.

So I started my sauce with some fresh ground sausage and put the tomatoes and peppers in the broiler to roast.

Now my kitchen started smelling so good with the tomatoes roasting with some olive oil and seasonings cooking away and the sausage browning.  Then out to the garden for some fresh basil and oregano.

My beautiful tomatoes and peppers roasted and ready to become sauce.

Now to add them to the browned sausage and start the magic.

I ran the peppers through the food processor and add them to the sauce after breaking down the tomatoes, followed by the vodka and fresh shaved PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO.

then the finished product……

Ingredients:

• 6 fresh vine ripe tomatoes
• 2 green peppers
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lb. ground sausage (optional)
• olive oil for coating tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped basil chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped oregano chopped
• 1/2 cup PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO.
• 1/2 cup vodka
• pasta of your choice 

Cut your peppers and tomatoes and place on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with good amount of olive oil and sprinkle with half of your fresh herbs and salt and pepper.  Broil for about 10 minutes or until just starting to char.

While these roast, brown your sausage in sauté pan large enough to hold the roasted tomatoes as well.   Dice your oregano now as well.

Remove the tomatoes and peppers from the oven and place tomatoes in sauté pan with sausage, and run the peppers through a food processor or dice , then add to your sauté pan along with the diced garlic. Cook over medium heat while mashing the tomatoes with a wooden spoon to release the meat and juices.  Add the other half of the fresh herbs, stir and cook an additional 5 minutes.

Spoon over your cooked pasta and shave a little more PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO and enjoy.

Y’all, I don’t know about you, but I have a Saturday tradition I look forward too.  It’s the farmers market.  I literally look forward to getting up early, making my coffee in a to go cup and heading out to the farmers market.  My favorite one is about 30 minutes from where I live in Tampa.  It is an easy drive on the highway or back roads.  It’s especially fun when I take the Mustang convertible and shoot down the highway.  I have to laugh sometimes as I go through down town Tampa and I have my satellite radio jamming to country music.  I always get the strangest looks.  I do hope it’s the music….LOL.

I love to find all the fresh treasures from local farmers and a few brought in from further away.  Today there were tomatoes stacked on carts all over the place.  I love vine ripe tomatoes.  I hate going to the store in the winter months and seeing those hot house tomatoes that just taste like wet cardboard.  I guess I was spoiled growing up.  We had gardens every year and I can definitely taste the difference in tomatoes that were left to ripen in a warehouse stacked mile high in boxes.

I ended up with apples, onions, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, avocados, squash,  watermelon, bananas and grapes.  6 large bags and I paid about $23.00 for it all.  I checked the prices at the grocery store this afternoon and figured it would have been about $39 if I’d gotten this all there.  Besides being less money, it’s fresh and has a lot less of the pesticides and such on them.  Now, if my garden would just get in gear and start producing.  I love spring and summer for all the fresh fruits and veggies.

Vinegar was always a mainstay of  old folk recipes for cleaning, and with good reason. Vinegar can kill bacteria, germs and mold.

Vinegar kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs (viruses).  However, it seems to be common knowledge in many households that vinegar is powerfully antibacterial.

So you should keep a spray bottle filled with straight 5 percent vinegar (what you can buy in your grocery store) in your kitchen near your cutting board, and in your bathroom, and use them for cleaning.  Spray your cutting boards, and even them dry overnight without rinsing.  The vinegar smell will dissipate within a couple hours.  Vinegar is great for cleaning your toilet rim as well.

*information from Heinz and tests from The Good Housekeeping Institute

Last summer  I spent last week at my moms house helping her prepare for my nephews wedding.  One night, late after we finished working on flowers for the wedding, mom decided to make us a snack.  She pulled a bag of something from the freezer that looked a lot like  potato cakes.   She said she had gotten this recipe from her cousin Gladys.   Of course, she changed the recipe some, and when I got home I did the same.  Adding and replacing a few things.  I hope you enjoy this new recipe idea.

I made them with Green Tomatoes that mom had canned for me, check this out too.

I used My Chipotle Dipping Sauce for dipping.

 Ingredients:

3-4  green tomatoes, diced
1 large onions, diced 
¾  cup cornmeal
1 egg
¼ cup buttermilk
½ tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp garlic powder
½ to ¾ cup light olive oil

Directions:
With the exception of the oil, combine together all ingredients . Heat oil in a heavy skillet ( I prefer to use cast iron of course) until medium hot. Shape a small amount of the mix into a 3-4 inch patty and place into pan. Cook at medium high for until browned around the edges. Turn and cook and cook the same amount of time on the other side.

I like to make a chipotle dipping sauce for these tasty treats, but they are just as good lightly salted and eaten alone.

Drain on paper towels and serve hot.  By the way, you can make these patties up ahead of time as mom did and freeze them so you can enjoy them year round when you don’t have access to fresh green tomatoes.