Whew! Who turned up the heat? I guess I should be careful what I wish for. Temperatures soared this weekend into the high 80’s and with the humidity of 99% to 100% it felt more like the 90’s! Our good friend Carolyn was down visiting us from Rhode Island this weekend.

Even with the predicted heat we dressed up in our medieval garb and went to the Renaissance Faire. As you already know, I love dressing up for the Faire! Just a wench at heart I guess.

I don’t know how they wore the clothing they did back then and not keel over from heat prostration! We managed to catch a few shows, have some libations and lunch and walk around a bit, but four hours was about all any of us could take of the sun and heat.

I’m not sure why this guy they pulled out of the audience to assist Dextre was smiling. I don’t think I’d be smiling with a guy tossing fire brands over my head while squatting on my shoulders, would you?

Then we came home and went to a resort where the three of us bowled; Rick and I played nine holes of golf and a game of table tennis; Rick went wake boarding on a ski-doo, participated in a bike race and played frisbee with a dog; and Carolyn flew an airplane around the island. Pretty cool, huh?

On Sunday we went to the Warwick farmer’s market. It was the most crowded I have ever seen it! What was strange was to see the varieties of apples and even a few pears showing up already. The summer-less summer has everything confused. We bought everything we needed for our pear salad for lunch right at the market. These plums looked yummy but we didn’t buy any. I just liked the way they looked.

The rest of Sunday was spent floating around the pool. Heaven.

And, oh, in case you’re wondering about that great resort we went to on Saturday, you can check it out here:

We never had to leave our comfortable air-conditioned home!

Had you going, didn’t I?

Whether you’ve heard of them or not, New Jersey is famous for its tomatoes. So what’s not to love about tomato season? This year however, tomato crops all over the Northeast are being threatened by the dreaded late blight fungus. Already Pedro (our CSA provider) has had to pull 80 otherwise healthy tomato plants from his crop of 240. Not good! I opted to buy my tomatoes from the farm stand where I buy them every year. However they grow them they did not seem to have a problem since their table was full of big, juicy specimens.

Here are the ingredients of our dinner last night. Fresh Jersey tomatoes, a few grape tomatoes that I picked from my own plants yesterday afternoon, fresh local sweet corn from the farm stand, and a handful of basil leaves also picked from my own basil plant.

The sweet corn just got boiled and buttered, eaten just like it is. The tomatoes went into a tart easy enough for even you no-cooks out there.

First I salted and peppered the tomatoes so they would release some of their juices before going into the tart so they wouldn’t get the crust too watery.

Then I took a sheet of thawed puff pastry and rolled it out to an appropriate size. Next, Dijon mustard got slathered on the pastry but not too thickly. The mustard was then covered up with a layer of sliced Swiss (I like to use Emmenthaler) cheese. The basil leaves (left whole) came next because if you put them on top they would just get crispy. Just sprinkle a good handful around. Finally, the last layer are the tomatoes. Bake in a 400 degree oven until the crust is browning and the cheese is melted. Here is the result:

Easy and delicious! I can’t promise yours will be as good as ours was since you’ll be lacking the secret ingredient (Jersey grown tomatoes), but I bet you can find some equally delicious in-season tomatoes near you. Don’t use tomatoes when they are out of season or you’ll really be disappointed with the results.

I love tomato tart!

(P.S. For those of you wondering, I’ve kind of given up on my CSA blog entries for now. We are not getting very much right now and it’s not the kinds of things that make for good recipes. Poor Pedro, this year has been a challenge so far.)

We have a miniature garden happening on our deck. I tried planting tomatoes out in one of the beds in the yard but I found that the squirrels would pick the green fruit, take one bite, then discard it. It was very frustrating to watch the tomatoes coming along and then all of a sudden be ruined by rodents. So now we just have them in pots on the deck and it seems to work fairly well. This year it’s been a little too wet for them, but they are not doing too badly.

The other morning after it had rained overnight I took these photos. Some were taken with the Lens Baby. I particularly liked the way the drops of water clung to their skins.

We also have our herb garden planted in an old wash tub. We are used to using our sage, oregano, rosemary, and thyme whenever we are cooking with fresh herbs. It’s great to just step out the back door to get a quick snip of whatever we need. I was amazed that the thyme came back this year! Everything else did not winter and we planted new this spring. We have a pot of basil too but since it grows so large it is in a pot of its own.

We have grape tomatoes too.

This little guy is on a branch that broke off from the main plant. I figured what the heck? and plunked it down in a pot with the tarragon plant (which is struggling because Bella pulled it up and carried it around the yard early on) and lo and behold the silly thing is still alive! That just goes to show you how wet it’s been that it could take root with no help from me! It’s even putting out new leaves!

Our bay “tree” was struggling with some kind of sticky bugs when we had it in our sun room. I was about to give up on it and throw it out, which would have been a shame since we’ve had it for so long. (It made the trip from Colorado with us and we had it a few years before we moved.) Rick decided to put it outside and it is now thriving. In fact, it’s gotten so big I am going to have to put it in a tree-sized pot.

I think it actually likes being wet. And here all this time I was thinking bay trees liked it warm and dry!

P.S. All perfect water drops were supplied by Mother Nature.

Edited on 7/25 to add that we ate the nice ripe tomato at the top of the entry last night and it was dee-licious!

Last week we found beets (again) in our distribution, lovely baby salad greens, and for the first time—green beans.

I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed we are not getting more each week. I know the weather and the woodchucks have been challenging, but still, we hoped for more. However, I must say that everything we get is top quality. I was really hoping for more chard as we had planned to make the Leek and Swiss Chard Tart for our upcoming dinner party. So on Wednesday I headed off to the farmer’s market and bought some there. They only had a curlier leafed chard with white stems and I didn’t think the flavor was as nice as the red.

The peas just didn’t make it. They got some kind of disease and were not looking good because of all the moisture and Pedro said he never wants to give us anything that is not up to his standards. I don’t blame him!

The green beans were just enough for Rick and I to have as a side vegetable. The greens we used several times as a green salad, and once as a bed for the beets which I oven roasted. So, no new grandiose recipes this week, just eaten plainly. Delicious though!

Now my blog posts about the produce we get from our CSA (Bear Swamp Farm) will be named CSA and whatever week we happen to be in for our distribution. If you want to read just those entries all you have to do is enter CSA in the search box and all those entries will be ready to view. The first two entries have different names, so you can find them by clicking on “CSA 2009” under the categories listed on the right side of the blog.

Last week’s included what you see pictured above: Swiss chard, beets, fresh garlic, and two kinds of lettuce. The lettuce was young and tender and was eaten just in salads and on sandwiches. The freckled lettuce was kind of funny. When I reached in my box to pull it out my first thought was gosh, this has lots of dirt on it. I’m going to have to wash all that off when I get home. Was I surprised to find that it wasn’t dirt—just spotted lettuce. It had a wonderful peppery kind of taste. Absolutely delicious!

Pedro seems to be struggling with the weather and different kinds of creatures in his garden. Here are a few excerpts from his weekly newsletter:

I love his sense of humor about all of his trials. But really, what would Bear Swamp Farm be without at least one bear?

It’s interesting to try and use what we get in a new recipe. I hate to just braise/cook/wilt/whatever and have it as a side vegetable dish. Too boring! I scan the recipes online at either allrecipes.com or epicurious.com. Epicurious has mostly recipes from Bon Appetít, but it does have other recipes as well. Food & Wine’s web site also is a good source. As always, the recipe can be found by clicking on the link which will take you directly to our personal recipe book. This way I don’t have to take up space with the actual recipe in the post, plus if you want you can just print it out directly from the recipe archive.

We made a delicious Swiss Chard and Leek Tart with the chard. It was ever so creamy! The puff pastry tart shell made making this a breeze!

We have several good beet recipes but I wanted to try something new. I had picked up some golden beets at our local farmer’s market with the idea of mixing the two together. When I found Golden and Crimson Beet Salad with Oranges, Fennel, and Feta I knew it was meant to be tried! The flavors were fresh and all the ingredients worked perfectly together. The feta cheese added just the right amount of saltiness to the citrus. The beets, especially the red ones from the CSA, were wonderfully sweet and oh so good! Yum!

We used to eat beets only occasionally, but they are fast becoming one of my favorite vegetables when in season. If you think you don’t really like them, try tossing them with some olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, then roast them in the oven (400 F; cover the pan with foil) until they are just tender. When cool, the skins will slip right off. I dare you—go ahead and try them!

Update: When I picked up our distribution for this week (nope, not telling you yet; next week!) I told Pedro about the “freckly” lettuce and how good it was and that also I had thought it had dirt clinging to its leaves. He told me that strangely enough the lettuce is called Freckled Amish Bibb!