Pork, Heirloom Tomatoes and Apples

I am going to combine recipes on this post because I have been making all of these things at the same time.  My cousin, Chris Douglas and her husband, Don, were in town this weekend and asked if I was going to the farmer's market this morning.  Of course I will go to the farmer's market for the chance to catch up with them!  While I was there, I found (well, she found) my favorite heirloom tomatoes.  This is the solid orange ones.  The seller said they were valencia, but when you look them up online, they come up amana.  Either way, I have discovered that I really like these for making slow-roasted tomato sauce.  So, I bought two quarts (at least, that's the size container they put them in). 

On Thursday, after mom and I went to pick up the CSA, she wanted to go get some meats at Jack's Market.  While there, I decided to get a pork shoulder.  I ended up with twice what I intended to get, but today was the day to braise it and make pulled pork. 

And finally, at the farmer's market near school, I picked up some Paula Red apples.  They are a bit tart, so I stopped at Bayne's Apple Farm and picked up some Gingergold (I think), which are a bit sweeter.  Today, I am making applesauce out of them in my crockpot.  So, without further ado, here are my recipes:

Oven-Roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce

• 10 medium valencia (or amana) heirloom tomatoes**
• Garlic cloves (I used 4)*
• Italian Seasoning
• Salt, as needed

Preheat oven to 250F.  Wash and dry the tomatoes.  Cut them in half and remove stem end.  Place cut side up on cookie sheet covered with foil.  Peel garlic cloves and intersperse them between the tomato halves.  Sprinkle all with Italian seasoning.  Roast in slow oven for 3 hours or until tomatoes are cooked through.  Remove from oven and transfer everything to blender bowl.  Puree until smooth.  Taste sauce and season, as needed, with salt.

*CSA Ingredients
**Farmers market ingredients


Braised Pork Shoulder
Adapted from: http://csafoodie.blogspot.com/2011/04/pork-shoulder.html

• 1 9-lb pork shoulder roast
• sea salt and pepper, to taste
• cayenne pepper
• 5-6 sprigs fresh lemon thyme
• 1 ancho chile, sliced*
• 1 med candy onion, thinly sliced*
• water

Season the roast with sea salt, pepper and cayenne.  Place in a large Dutch oven.  Add thyme, ancho pepper and onion slices.  Fill the Dutch oven halfway with water.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 4-5 hours or until thermometer inserted into the center reads 160-180F.  Remove roast to plate; cover and allow roast to sit at room tempurature for 10 minutes.  Drain onions and peppers and place in a large bowl. Skim fat off cooking liquid and save to use as pork stock.  Pull the pork, mix in the peppers and onions and then mix with BBQ sauce (I used my homemade sorgham bbq sauce).

 *CSA Ingredients


Slow-cooker Applesauce

• 4 Gingergold Apples
• 6 Paula Red Apples**
• 2 Tbs water
• Sugar (optional)

 Wash and dry the apples.  Peel the apples, remove the cores and then slice.  Place all apple slices into crockpot.  Sprinkle with water and mix until apples are all coated.  Cook covered, on LOW, for 4 hours, stirring periodically.  If needed, break up apples with potato masher.  If you prefer sweet applesauce, add sugar or sweetener.

   
 **Farmers market ingredients

Eggplant Squash Bake

Last week we received ingredients that were for ratatouille.  However, I had made ratatouille just the week before, so I looked for another recipe using mainly the same ingredients.  I stumbled across a recipe that also contained ricotta cheese and two other cheeses.  This was a great discovery for me because it is helpful to find recipes with protein.  While I had used my only white sweet onion yesterday in the fried cabbage, I did have a few small shallots, so I substituted them for the onion.  And now that I have tried the finished casserole, I may have to buy shallots more often.  They are a bit more work because they are best minced, but well worth it!

Eggplant Squash Bake
Adapted from: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/eggplant-squash-bake-a-recipe.htm

• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic*, minced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 16 oz part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup romano cheese, grated
• 2 tsp dried marjoram
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp fresh-ground pepper
• 1 medium eggplant*, thinly sliced
• 2 medium zucchini*, thinly sliced
• 2 medium crookneck squash*, thinly sliced
• 4 cups Slow-roasted heirloom tomato sauce*
• 1 1/2 cups part-skim mozzarella, finely shredded

Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare large baking pan with cooking spray.  Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat.  Cook shallots and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes. Mix in ricotta cheese, romano cheese, marjoram, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

In prepared pan, spread 1 cup of tomato sauce on bottom.  Layer 1/2 of eggplant, zucchini and squash.  Spread cheese mixture over vegetables; repeat eggplant and squash layers.  Spread remaining tomato sauce on top.  Cover and bake for 50 minutes.  Remove foil and sprinkle with mozzarella.  Cook an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.  Cool for 30 minutes before serving.

*CSA ingredients

Heirloom Tomatoes

We have, over the last couple weeks, gotten some interesting and beautiful heirloom tomatoes in our share.  I have been contemplating what to do with them since I got the first batch, but really needed to use them before they started going bad.  Somewhere in my searching, I saw an article about roasting tomatoes.  In the past, I have always treated tomatoes similar to other vegetables at 400F.  This article, however, suggested that it might be better to roast them at 250F for about 7 hours.  I am not the type to leave my gas oven running (even at 250F) when I am not here, so I decided to roast them while I slept.  From these roasted tomatoes, I made marinara sauce, which has a very unique flavor.

Slow-roasted Heirloom Tomato Sauce

• 5 small to large heirloom tomatoes*
• Olive oil
• Italian herbs
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 large clove garlic*
• 3 cups water 

Preheat oven to 250F.  Cut tomatoes in half (quarters if very large) and place on a cookie sheet covered with foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian herbs.  

Roast in slow oven for about 7 hours.

Once roasted, place tomatoes into blender along with about half of the crushed tomatoes and garlic.  Puree (adding more crushed tomatoes if necessary. Pour puree into large Dutch oven along with remaining crushed tomatoes and water.  Heat to boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes or until garlic is cooked.

Note: one of the things about cooking on the fly is that you learn lessons as you go.  Since a couple of my tomatoes were quite huge (5" diameter), I decided to cut the tomatoes into wedges.  I found out this morning that wasn't necessarily the best idea.  Some of the wedges were charred almost all the way through.  So, make sure your tomato pieces are fairly large and meaty if you are going to slow roast.  Also, if I had been thinking last night (this is what happens when you start cooking at midnight!), I would have taken 3-4 cloves of the garlic and added them to the tray.  Roasted garlic would have added a sweetness to the sauce.  Instead, I had to cook the sauce this morning to cook the garlic.  I will say, though, that the combination of heirloom tomatoes has given the sauce a unique flavor that will probably come out different every time I make this because of the combination of heirloom tomatoes.  I hope we get more in the next couple weeks!

*CSA ingredients