Oven-dried Tomatoes, Frog Jam, and assorted Bentos

Rose Rounds asked how I made the oven-roasted tomatoes. I found the idea on The Local Beet, one of my favorite localvore blogs. They used juliet tomatoes, which are long like Romas but smaller in size. I couldn't find any of those, and the Roma's were too expensive. Tony's had a sale on "cocktail" for 79 cents a package, so I grabbed one of those to experiment with.



Local Beet said to set the temperature to 200 degrees, then stick them in for 8-12 hours, unattended. The problem was I took that "unattended" thing too literally, and I let them stay in the whole 12 hours. (In my defense, I was out for the afternoon during the key end time, so I didn't check on them at all.)

They ended up way too dry. A few crumbled to powder in my hand.



So I was out 79 cents. Lesson learned!

The next batch I used the cherry tomatoes from my Dad's garden. I really did not want to ruin these, and they were even smaller than the cocktails, so at about the 6 hour mark I checked on them. They had shrunken quite a bit, but all of them still had pockets of moisture on their bottoms. Every hour after that I checked again. At hour 8, many of the smaller tomatoes were ready (dried but still soft and chewy looking), so I pulled those out and let the rest keep drying. An hour later, they were all done.



Looking forward to using them in frittatas, salads, and maybe a sauce. 

Another lovely treat I've been enjoying this summer has been frog jam.

Yes, you read that right.



I picked up a jar in New Buffalo this summer, and I am IN LOVE. Way better than plum butter, and even the blackberry jam I got at the farmer's market earlier in the summer.

It isn't made of frogs, thank goodness. But can you guess the ingredients?



Figs - raspberries - orange peel - ginger. F-R-O-G, teehee.

It is F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C. It's raspberry, but with richer, sharper notes from the figs and ginger, and a nice burst from the orange peel at the end. I am definitely going to be looking for this again next year. (Or my next visit to the New Buffalo area.)

Despite all the lovely food photos I have taken this summer, I actually haven't been that good at maintaining the foodstyle; I've skipped more than a couple of Sunday Cooking sessions, especially as the summer waned, and I was pretty bad about bringing in lunches on a daily basis. That said, when I did do it, I ate really well. My goal this fall is just to do it more often.


PB&frog jam sandwich, yogurt, blackberries, and Mom's bread and butter pickles. Easiest lunch ever!


Drier's ham salad sandwich, deviled egg salad, black bean and corn salad, blacberries, and a handful of snack mix. This was leftovers from the vacation. :)


Kale frittata, blue cheese coleslaw, yogurt and watermelon.


One of my favorite grilled meals of the summer: portabello swiss sausages, pineapple, and onions. We ate this and our turkey-bacon wrapped chicken thighs most often on the grill this year.


Pretty table set during my parent's visit. Hmm, maybe we should eat at the table more this fall...

What was your favorite foodstuff this summer?