{"id":4666,"date":"2011-08-12T06:55:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T10:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4666"},"modified":"2011-08-12T16:05:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-12T20:05:30","slug":"buckets-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4666","title":{"rendered":"Buckets o&#8217; Bounty Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I picked my third bucket of tomatoes the other night.\u00a0 I really can&#8217;t tell you just how pleased I am about it.\u00a0 My first two years gardening at Smith, the tomatoes were only o.k., one year even anemic, six plants producing hardly what any one of this year&#8217;s twelve plants has.\u00a0 We enjoyed what we harvested, but it was not near enough for me to consider the tomato venture a success.\u00a0 Certainly not abundant.\u00a0 This year, that&#8217;s all changed.\u00a0 Every time I visit Smith (the largest of my three gardens), I leave with a bucket of red treasure, pounds of juicy, red joy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4667\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0802.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4667\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4667\" title=\"Too many tomatoes for the bucket\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0802-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0802-225x300.jpg 225w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0802-768x1024.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0802.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4667\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gospel measure<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We have been making sauce, eating them raw and sliced, freezing some for later use, and giving those splendid red orbs away.\u00a0 Last night for supper we had slow-baked tomato slices (with homegrown basil and oregano sprinkled on top) over pasta, a rich tomatoey treat almost as sweet and nice as some luscious\u00a0 dessert.\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>My favorite way to use tomatoes so far this year is in fresh, raw salsa and Bloody Marys.\u00a0 The salsa,\u00a0an August treat in our home for several years now, we make with chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, and jalapeno from the garden, with only lime, salt and cilantro from the store.\u00a0 The Bloody Mary&#8217;s are my wife&#8217;s clever brainchild.\u00a0 Fresh salsa produced in a food processor creates a lot of juice, too much for easy chip dipping.\u00a0 So she strains most of it off, adds Worcestershire sauce, ice and vodka, and voila, a refreshing summer drink.\u00a0 I have never liked canned tomato juice, but the fresh strained variety is sweet and clear, very different from what you buy at the store.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4671\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0836.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4671\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4671\" title=\"Giving the lime a squeeze\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0836-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0836-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0836-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0836.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4671\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Is it salsa yet?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I love that we are now inundated with tomatoes.\u00a0 I can still hardly believe my eyes every time I go back to Smith after four or five days and retrieve another bucket full. \u00a0 More tomato treats are in our future such as Caprese salad (if only we made fresh mozarella), a BLT or two,\u00a0 and maybe a few dozen pints of chutney.\u00a0 I know it won&#8217;t last forever, but while it does, we&#8217;re going to enjoy wallowing in our own little tomato heaven.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4668\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0808.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4668\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4668\" title=\"Still filled with loads of green tomatoes and blossoms\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0808-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0808-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0808-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0808.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4668\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tomatoes: Tall as me<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I picked my third bucket of tomatoes the other night.\u00a0 I really can&#8217;t tell you just how pleased I am about it.\u00a0 My first two years gardening at Smith, the tomatoes were only o.k., one year even anemic, six plants &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4666\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69],"tags":[70,71,696,697,434],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4666"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4680,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4666\/revisions\/4680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}