Last spring, I planted a couple of San Marzano tomato plants in order to have tomatoes for sauce and preserving. As a result, for the past month — and my husband, Brian, will attest to this — I’ve been canning small batches of tomatoes about twice a week. My cupboards are quickly turning red with jar after jar of tomatoes in all forms, crushed, sauced and salsa-ed.

Unfortunately, being up to my elbows in tomatoes means that I’ve also avoided eating them raw, a delightful form if you have the right tomato. Those San Marzanos are not the right kind of tomato — they’re all dry and icky if you try to eat them raw — but a few pink brandywines that have finally matured on my vines are spot on for eating fresh.

The other day, as I looked at my vegetable basket I noticed that I’d been saving my nice slicing tomatoes since they’re not quite right for sauce. However, since I’ve seen pounds and pounds of tomatoes lately, I’ve been feeling a bit tomatoed-out and pretty soon my gorgeous tomatoes would be rotten tomatoes. It was time to eat them.

It took that guilt of impending waste and rot for me to slice into one of my gorgeous big tomatoes last night. In years past I’ve eaten raw tomatoes and tomato sandwiches until I swear I’m about 1/2 tomato. This year, though, I grew fewer slicers and just haven’t been partaking like normal.

After making a simple salad — I’ll call it tomato-guilt salad — I’m pretty sure I’ll be eating more of my nice, big honking tomatoes.

I sliced a couple of tomatoes really thinly, sprinkled them with a bit of sea salt, and drizzled them lightly with my best extra virgin olive oil and a few drips of some sweet balsamic vinegar. A couple of kalamata olives finished out the salad quite nicely.
On a warm afternoon, the salad really hit the spot. It’s September and that means it’s time to savor the ephemeral beauty of these fresh tomatoes.

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This time of year it seems like I never have enough jars. Part of the problem is that I’ve been using lots and lots of pint jars to can tomatoes and make pickles and other goodies to save for the winter. It’s now when I realize just how often I use canning jars for things other than preserving too.

The jars come in quite handy for transporting liquids to and from the office. Today I placed a morning smoothie in one of my jars. With a solid ring and lid, there was no chance of it spilling even if it had somehow managed to flip over in my bag. Maybe the best thing about a good Mason jar is how many times the things can be reused. If, for some reason, they break, the jars are also fully recyclable (unless you’re in Cashmere).

Last year, I collected 150 pint-sized canning jars at Goodwill and yard sales (OK, and a few from grocery stores) to use as lemonade and sangria glasses at the wedding of my sister and her husband. Since I was starting in June, instead of August, before people started canning in earnest, I was lucky enough to find plenty of jars all over. The best part was that they cost just pennies — maybe a few nickels, dimes and quarters too.

After the wedding — which was beautiful — my family had 130 leftover pint-sized Mason jars (most of them were actually Ball jars, but why split hairs?). We wondered how we would ever use them. Someone suggested giving them away or dropping them off at Goodwill again. Instead, they sat there, boxed up in the dining room, for months. Every so often, when all of the dinner glasses were dirty or we had lots of company, someone would open one of the boxes and pull out a couple of jars. Eventually, just about everyone in the family admitted that they liked drinking from the canning jars more than the fancier dinner glasses.

Fast forward a year. The boxes that held the jars are gone. Over a few months, one box emptied out. We used those glasses for different things, a bit of canning here, vases for flowers there. At some point, when real company came, someone moved the one leftover full box of jars from the dining room. None of us can figure out where it went. Any way around it we’re missing the box and believe it or not, we’re to the point where we need more jars.

I’m not asking for more jars. The box will show up sooner or later, or someone in the family will admit to “adopting” it for their home. Yeah, people in my family like jars. Maybe it’s because they remind us of childhood. They certainly come in handy.

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I’ve been meaning to make homemade miso soup for quite a while now. I’ve had all of the ingredients — bonito, konbu and miso — for months now, but it wasn’t until a visit to Iwa Sushi Grill (the new sushi place downtown) that I decided I needed to get busy and make the miso soup myself.

Originally, I’d planned on making the soup to accompany a simple meal of rice, salmon and seaweed. But, the day got away from me and I didn’t have enough time to eat it after preparing the dashi last night. Huh? You ask. Dashi? Yep, dashi is the base of miso soup. It’s a broth flavored with konbu (thick kelp) and bonito (smoked, dried, shaved tuna.)

So instead of eating it last night, I brought it as my lunch today. With some dried mushrooms and wakame (seaweed) I’m set for a nice light accompaniment to some more salmon and rice.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but my college roommate was Korean, but from Japan, and her mother would send her huge boxes full of food, candy, notebooks, gum and pens from Japan. When the boxes arrived, she’d roll her eyes — albeit with a big smile on her face — and immediately rifle through the contents. Often she’d say something to the effect of “My mom must think I don’t eat.” That was the last thing anyone who knew her would say about Maddie. I think that’s why we got along so well, we really loved to eat. And we loved her mom’s care packages. I credit Maddie’s mom with introducing me to lots of Japanese and Korean food that I now love.

One of the coolest things Maddie’s mom sent was precooked packages of rice that just needed no refrigeration and took only one minute in the microwave to cook. The Japanese were so ahead of the times when it came to convenience foods. I didn’t see equivalents until about two years ago here in the US. Maddie said it was because everyone has tiny kitchens and mothers don’t have enough time to cook traditional foods that everyone loves to eat.

Anyway, to accompany it the rice, she’d send furikake and mini sheets of thin seaweed. Maddie taught me how to pick up the furikake-seasoned rice with the seaweed and chopsticks. It didn’t take me long to learn to love seaweed with rice. And since the furikake Maddie’s mom sent was salmon-flavored, I took to it quickly as well. In fact, the seaweed with furikake over rice might be one of my favorite meals. Once the rice is finished cooking, it pretty much makes itself. Easy as toast and easier than pie.

Last night, I added some canned salmon to the rice and furikake which made for a fantastic light meal. If only I had started the miso earlier …

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My husband Brian and I visited some friends in Bellingham this weekend. That meant that we had to squeeze in many eating adventures into one too-short weekend. The good part is that, since much of the weekend involved timing our activities around food, we got to do lots of chatting.

Our first stop on the food tour was Boundary Bay Brewery. They make pan fried, cornmeal crusted oysters that are the best non-raw oysters I’ve eaten.

Later on that evening, we headed to Fairhaven to take a walk along the boardwalk/pier thing and finish the night out with gelato at Sirena. People were crabbing along the pier. I was jealous. I wanted to get myself a crab pot and some raw meat and eat my catch, but alas, I’ve never done it before and don’t have the equipment or a license or anything else necessary for crabbing. Oh well.

In the morning, my friend, Sara, and I headed out for coffee and pastries and gathered up some bagels at The Bagelry for me to take home. Then we headed up to Trader Joe’s for treats.

Our last stop was LaFeen’s for awesome doughnuts. I ate my buttermilk bar on the drive home — delicious.

All in all, the weekend could hardly have seen better food. Good times.

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So, a couple of weeks ago I read a story about eating healthy breakfasts. I’ll be the first to admit that my healthy breakfast eating is sporadic at best. Often, I’ll only drink a mocha. If I’m really hungry, I’ll buy some sort of unhealthy pastry too. And on rare, rare occasions, I’ll have an egg or a piece of fruit or something decent to start out my day.

Thus, I was quite intrigued by the story and its suggestions on how to fit a healthier breakfast into your day. One of the most appealing suggestions (to me at least) was to make a peanut butter and banana smoothie. So, I went to the store and bought a couple of bananas and some peanut butter. I whirred a banana and a couple of scoops of peanut butter together with some plain yogurt and cocoa powder yesterday morning. Then I poured the smoothie into a leftover iced tea cup and stuffed it in our freezer. I placed it in the refrigerator last night to thaw a bit.

This morning, the smoothie’s consistency was perfect. The flavor was fantastic, but it was incredibly rich. In the future, and this will definitely have a place in my breakfast future, I’ll use fat-free plain yogurt. The banana and peanut butter make the smoothie thick enough without the full-fat yogurt.

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One of my favorite desserts of all time is coconut cream pie. Sadly, I don’t come by custard-pie making naturally and I must follow recipes.

I’ve had a recipe for coconut cream pie bookmarked in my “Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen” cookbook for more than a year now. It took serious cajoling from my mother and nephew, though, for me to finally hunker down and make the pie. It’s not like the ingredients for it are hard to come by — everything is readily available at the grocery store — but cream pies take a bit more babying than your run-of-the-mill fruit pie.

After making Douglas’ Triple Coconut Cream Pie last night, I’m pretty sure I’ll make it again. Though the recipe is quite long and includes lots of steps, it’s quite easy to make. The custard may be the hardest part, but honestly, all it takes is a little whisking to come out perfectly.

Because the pie wasn’t totally finished and assembled until about 10:45 last night, I still haven’t tasted the finished product. However, I do things right and taste as I cook. The filling is perfect, full of vanilla and coconut flavor.

Still, coconut cream pie will probably be saved for special occasions or special requests. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’d end up eating it all by myself.

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I love to explore mycological society web sites. The Puget Sound Mycological Society’s site is fantastic. It’s full of mushroom-related fun. One of the better features is the society’s page on mushroom recipes. Several are by renowned Northwest chef, Kathy Casey.

As I was perusing recipes last spring (or maybe it was fall, it was mushroom time, no matter), I bookmarked this recipe for Savory Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding. It’s been on my mind ever since and finally, on Monday night, I made it. Even though I didn’t use wild mushrooms (I bought some criminis at the grocery store) it was worth every minute of effort.

The first step was to saute the mushrooms and onions. When I added the celery the recipe calls for, all of the sudden my face lit up and I knew this would be good. It smelled just like the beginnings of Mom’s Thanksgiving turkey stuffing. While it was baking in the oven it perfumed the house with the homiest scent. I took the first nibble and knew this was a recipe I’d make again. When Brian got home and tasted it, he said it reminded him of turkey stuffing too. After this foray into savory bread puddings, I decided I should make stuffing more often. It might just be a tad healthier believe it or not.

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I didn’t take a photo of dinner last night. We started eating and well, I didn’t want to stop to snap a photo. No, these stuffed peppers were way too good.

My sister is a big fan of my grandma’s recipe for stuffed bell peppers with rice, beef and spices. These were nothing like grandma’s. When I originally bought the stubby yellow banana peppers, my idea was to stuff them with goat cheese and garlic. Then, I found some bulk chorizo on sale at the grocery store. The peppers’ fate was sealed.

The preparation for my stuffed peppers really couldn’t be easier. Trim the stems from about 10 peppers (you’ll need 10 peppers for each pound of meat) and remove veins and seeds. Fill the peppers with chorizo and cheddar cheese if you wish. Grill for about 5 minutes on each side. If pepper skins turn black, that’s ok, the black part is easy to peel off.

That’s it, so easy. And the flavor is delicious. Brian and I ate them for dinner with some corn on the cob and shrimp. Though we had them as the main part of the meal, they make great party appetizers. Simple, quick and delicious. A crowd-pleaser for sure.

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When thinking of breakfast food, invariably, my mind moves straight to the fried egg. What could be better than a runny yolked fried egg, sprinkled with salt and pepper over a slice of buttered toast? In my mind, nothing.

When I was growing up, my mom would occasionally make me a fried egg on toast for breakfast. Being a self-sacrificing mother, if a yolk broke while frying, she’d eat that egg for herself and make a new one, yolk intact, for me.

It didn’t take too long for me to learn to fry an egg (with a nice pat of butter) for myself. Throughout much of college, I’d wake up, get ready for the day, fry an egg, watch the morning news and head off to the bus stop to head to class. It seems like it’s been eons since I’ve had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and guess what, I don’t miss it at all.

How about you? What do you eat for breakfast? Why?

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When I was in high school and college, during the time I worked at the family fruit stand, I ate peach after peach, oodles of apricots and nectarines, chomped on cherries and nibbled at apples. For some reason, the Italian prune plums (we called them Italian prunes, but I later discovered that in English, they’re called plums or prune plums even though they’re not like normal, juicy plums that cling to their pits) didn’t tempt me, until, that is, the year I didn’t work at the stand.

When I worked on a botany crew at the Forest Service one summer, a coworker shared a delicious Italian prune plum-topped dessert she had made. The batter was similar to a very dense pound cake. I tried to recreate it myself a few times, but it never really turned out quite right since I was usually just topping pound cake with pitted, halved Italian prune plums. However, it was still delicious, froze well and I found it perfect for a quick breakfast. In fact, the pastry gave me a new appreciation for those oft-overlooked Italian prune plums. They taste fine when fresh, but they truly shine when baked.

The first summer after I started working here at The World, the subject of this cake came up with one of my friends and coworkers, Carmen Hoffmann. Her family is from Germany (technically, she is too, but she’s also a proud U.S. citizen) and apparently, it’s a traditional German treat. Excitedly, she told me how the cake, called “Pflaumenkuchen” (that’s German for “plum cake”) is one of her family’s favorite late summer desserts. She generously shared the family recipe with me. A few months later, she returned from a visit to Germany with two plum pitters, one for her and one for me. Yep, you can find plum pitters in Germany, that’s how popular the fruits are there.

The first of the season’s Italian prune plums are ripening now. Harvest should continue for another month or so in the Wenatchee area. Look for them at local fruit stands, farmers markets and neighbor’s yards. (Asking for permission before harvesting neighbors’ trees is probably a good way to prevent icy encounters in the future.)

With permission, here’s her family’s recipe.

Pflaumenkuchen (Plum Cake)

Adapted from the Hoffmann family’s recipe

1 to 2 pounds Italian plums (or apple wedges)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup sugar, plus more for dusting
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
3 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
Cinnamon for dusting (optional)

In a large bowl, mix butter until fluffy, then add sugar gradually, mixing well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing for one minute after each egg. Add vanilla extract if using.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Gradually add to batter and mix well.
Form a ball with the dough, cover and let cool in a refrigerator for one hour.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Spread onto greased baking sheet with a small rolling pin or by hand, creating a higher rim around the edges to keep fruit liquids from spilling over the sides. With a fork, poke holes all over the dough. Then cover the dough with fresh or frozen pitted plums or apple wedges.
Bake at 325 degrees for 25 to 40 minutes until edges turn golden brown. Baking time will vary depending on whether fresh or frozen fruit is used.
Immediately after removing cake from oven, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon (optional) over top.
Best served with fresh whipped cream.
Yield: About 12 servings

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