Mid Summer Garden Pasta Salad

It's the middle of summer and the garden is full of things that need to be picked and eaten. It's also hot out so something cool sounds nice. So, I decided to make my basic pasta salad, leave out the store bought olives and such and instead put in as many things out of the garden I could think of. I had lots of ripe cherry tomatoes, plenty of large sweet onions, the Corno di Toro peppers were starting to turn red, and the broccoli needed picking.  I put it all together and it turned out quite well!

This recipe makes enough for about 6 people.

1 13 oz box of shell pasta (Barilla Whole Wheat)
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish (home made)
1  cup mayonase
30 cherry tomatoes whole or cut in half
1/4 sweet onion minced
1 small or 1/2 large head of broccoli cut into small pieces
2 sweet peppers cut into small chunks
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta until tender and drain. Let cool. Mix everything together. Put in the refrigerator for a few hours to get nice and cold.

Dried Tomatoes

Here it is the middle of October, weeks after a hard freeze, and I'm still drying tomatoes. The tomato crop was large again this year, with a good crop from about 16 tomato plants. Since I have so many tomatoes ripe at the same time, I have to find a way to store them for use later, and having already so many jars of canned tomatoes, I now dry them.

We use a lot of dried tomatoes - they are great on salads, thrown into stews, or just eaten right out of the bag. Since I don't use any preservatives, I freeze them once I dry them, just to be sure they don't go bad from any residual moisture left in them.




This year we grew Better boys, Amish Paste, Sun Golds, Jet Sonic, Sweet 100's, and two varieties from Bulgaria.


The Bulgarian Tomatoes were from seeds brought back by a relative. They germinated well and grew vigorously. The fruit from these were huge, one being a pinkish red and the other a true tomato red. Both were gorgeous tomatoes, but we thought they were rather bland compared to the Better Boys. I probably won't grow them again, although I may save some seeds.




The Sungolds and Sweet 100s are cherry tomatoes that taste great, produce well and dry fantastic. These are on my "always grow" list, along with Better Boys and Amish Paste.

The Jet Sonic tomatoes were great producers of perfect looking fruit, but I found them rather bland. I won't be growing them again.

Drying Tomatoes in the Dehydrator

Every year I get a large surplus of tomatoes and a lot ripen around the same time. Often I can them, but this year I still have many jars of canned tomatoes, chili, tomato mince meat, etc. Another way to store excess tomatoes is to dry them. This reduces the volume greatly and the result can be stored in the freezer taking up much less space than undried tomatoes would. I might even be able to store them in the pantry, but since there are no preservatives, I prefer to play it safe and freeze them. Once dried, they keep for a very long time. When I want to use them, I try to remember to put a bag of them in the refrigerator ahead of time to thaw. They're really good in salads, in stews, or straight out of the bag.

Here's my last crop of tomatoes from the garden.


Here they are cut up and put in the dehydrator. It takes at least 10 hours, to dry them.


And here they are, ready for the freezer, or to eat like chips. The cherry tomatoes are incredibly sweet.