Summertime...and the Eating is Easy in Lancaster County

You just can’t beat the fresh taste of summer foods...tomatoes that are still warm from the sun, corn that crunches on the cob and vegetables that look like they are posing for the latest gourmet magazine.

Lancaster County is all about food – after all, we provide it for over six million people a year and grow countless acres of feed for animals too.

There’s a procession of different fruits that parade through the season, each one sweeter than the last...

I thought about all that tonight as I ran out for some tomatoes at the farm stand around the corner - how lucky we are to live in a climate with ample rainfall, and the richest non-irrigated soil in the country.

One time I stopped at this stand and the farmer had run out of lettuce...when I inquired if he had any, he produced a knife and went out to the field to cut a small head of lettuce, for which he charged me only half price. Now THAT is fresh!

We really delight in showcasing these local foods at The Artist’s Inn. The breakfast tomorrow will feature zucchini bread, cantaloupe with lavender syrup, roasted potatoes, asparagus and swiss frittata, dutch apple sausage and double chocolate brownies. Everything is from Lancaster County: the flour, eggs, milk, cheese (from a certified organic old-order Mennonite cheese farmer not a mile from our inn), cocoa and chocolate from Wilbur (in Lititz) and the sausage is made at Shady Maple Farm Market – just three miles up the road. Even the lavender and the herbs are from the inn garden.

The best part is that when you visit, you can take home much of the home-grown goodness of Lancaster County. Just ask us where our favorite farm stands are located.

Here’s a very simple side dish that we live on in the summer: Fresh tomatoes, sprinkled with baby basil leaves, balsamic vinegar and sea salt. Add a little Lancaster County goat cheese and I’m in heaven....or maybe just in Lancaster County.

Boasting About Roasting

It was just before Thanksgiving...and I could hardly believe that beautiful red Lancaster tomatoes were still for sale at some of the farm stands. They called to me each time I drove by. I had already made my sauce (or gravy as they would say in Jersey), and bags of it were waiting in my freezer for winter meals.

I really had no plans to stop – no reason to stop. But how many November days will ever come again when I could still buy farm fresh tomatoes?  Tomatoes so red that you know the sun personally kissed each one of them.

And so I loaded the box into the back of the car.

I had planned to write this blog then, but the hustle and bustle of the holidays came...
So I’ll post it now, and as I look out my window at the fresh fallen snow, I’m so glad that I took the extra time to pick up those tomatoes. I made a lot of sauce and some soup – and froze what we couldn’t eat for cold winter days.

One of my favorite ways to make soups, vegetables and appetizers is to roast them. It fills the inn with wonderful aromas, warms up the kitchen and brings out the best in flavor.

This recipe is so solid that you can even use winter tomatoes – distant cousins of those summer beauties.

So, from one kitchen to another, I hope you enjoy this simple recipe. Add some crusty warm bread, a hearty red wine, a good cheese...ah, sounds like dinner to me!

Roasted Tomato Soup

3 lbs. of your favorite kinds of tomatoes (I have used all kinds)
6 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
1 large sweet onion (Vidalia or Walla Walla), cut in chunks
1/4 cup olive oil – maybe a little more
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 quart chicken stock (I like to use the low-sodium powdered mix that you can buy in bulk in most smaller grocery stores and Amish bulk stores in Lancaster County)
2 bay leaves (if you’ve never tried bay leaf powder this is great because you don’t have to remember to take the leaves out – just use ¼ teaspoon
4 tablespooon butter
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
3/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 450.

Wash, cut and get rid of as many seeds from the tomatoes as you can.

Place tomatoes, garlic and onion in ceramic roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pour olive oil back and forth over entire pan (I’m guessing about ¼ of a cup).

Roast for about 40 minutes, until onions are browned and tips are starting to blacken a little.

Remove pan from oven. In a large stock pot, boil chicken stock and bay leaves. Add butter and tomato mixture. Turn down the heat to a simmer for about 30 minutes, or until liquid is reduced by a third.

Add basil and puree the soup with an immersion blender. Add cream, adjust salt and pepper and serve.

Serves 7.

The summer of Two Tomatoes in Lancaster County

Bruce thought we should plant tomatoes. I looked at him, and said “why?” Our bed and breakfast is in a great little town in Lancaster County, surrounded by the richest non-irrigated farmland in the country. These farms produce a bounty of the best foods - just outside our door - at unbelievably fair prices. Why on earth would Bruce, an artist and big fan of staying indoors on hot summer days, want to grow tomatoes? The answer was as good as any, “I just want to”.

And so off I went to the nurseries. I looked at all the different kinds of plants, mostly heirloom. This is shear torture in April - as you begin to salivate just reading the description…your mind wanders back to summers past and the bright red meat of perfect tomatoes. I picked out five tomato plants, knowing that this would produce way too many tomatoes for the inn, but thinking that I would make sauce out of the rest, as I have done for the past ten years.

After a rainy spring, I got behind on planting and so the tomato plants went in late.

Then there was the issue of watering them. It seems both of us forgot – even when reminded – and after a week away, I returned to find them gasping. A little digging by Bruce produced the old tomato baskets that I had used long ago when I had a real garden – now we just hoped the plants would someday grow into the cages.

But I’m afraid we just got too busy to pay much attention to these plants. And, let’s face it – tomato plants are not the prettiest sight in the garden. So I didn’t want them in my flower gardens where guests would see them. Their location in the herb garden by the side of the inn tends to get overgrown but hopefully most guests don’t ever see it. It doesn’t get all-day sun but I had hoped that it would get enough to make them happy. I put them next to the basil, thinking that they should get to know each other as they most surely would meet again.

I have fond memories of my dad in his garden, tending to the plants, pinching off the suckers, training the branches, tying white cloth to help bear the weight of the fruit,. His garden was planted in straight rows, basked in plenty of sunshine and watered consistently. Weeds didn’t have a prayer of surviving. Our tomato plants could only dream of such care.

And so it is now the end of summer and time to harvest our bounty.

Both of them.

There is hope that there will be a third, but it is pretty small and still green.

But I’m grateful to be a neighbor to these farmers and support them. They produce crop after crop, one as delicious as the next. As I look at the box of tomatoes in the kitchen, I know that the sauce (or gravy as they say in New Jersey) they will produce will be so much better than anything I could buy in a jar.
Lancaster County farmers are safe for another summer - there’s no competition here!

Here is how I roast my tomatoes.

Sundried Tomatoes:

Cut thin slices of fresh tomatoes, remove excess seeds and place on a silpat (or parchment paper) on cookie trays. You can place them close together, they will shrink a little.
Sprinkle with a little of your best olive oil and a small amount of kosher salt.
Bake for about 2 hours in a cool oven – about 175 or 200. You don’t want them to completely dry out but this will really concentrate their flavor.
You can freeze them, store them in the fridge for a week, or serve – I like to top them with a nice Parmesan cheese and serve them at the inn with an egg dish. Bruce has been known to eat an entire tray while standing at the kitchen sink…..hey, maybe that’s why he wanted to grow tomatoes!

Enjoy!