I planted my tomatoes a little late. I am picking lots of cherry and plum tomatoes, but my canning (SALSA) tomatoes are still very green. The vines are still looking healthy though. We should have a great crop if the weather and the bugs cooperate. I don't use pesticides on my garden, so bugs are all hand picked ~ yay! :-) Meanwhile I will make my fresh salsa with the plum and cherry tomatoes. We love salsa at my house and try to can as much as we are able to ~ usually 50 - 100 pints. I have a FANTASTIC recipe for salsa/peanut chicken that is the family favorite, so we use tons of salsa.
If you like oriental food, you will love this recipe. This is the basic recipe which we double and triple to feed our family of four to six (depending on who is home).
2 chicken breasts cut into 1" pieces
4 tsp. soy sauce
1 clove garlic minced
1 tsp. ginger
1 TBL veg. oil
1 bell pepper cut into 3/4" pieces
3 green onion cut diagonally into 1/2" pieces
1/2 C. salsa
2 TBL chunky peanut butter
Combine the chicken, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Let this marinate for at least 10 minutes. Heat oil and cook chicken (with the soy and spices too) until white all the way through. Add peppers, salsa and peanut butter. Cook until peppers are tender. Add green onions. Heat through. Serve over rice. YUM!!
And speaking of rice ~ you will be doing yourself a GREAT BIG FAVOR if you go get yourself a bag of Jasmine rice. You will never go back to plain old grocery store white rice! It can be very expensive in some stores, but I find mine (25 pound bag) at Walmart for around $10. I know the commissary at Tinker carries it even cheaper, but I am not able to buy there since I am not military. Anyway, if your family likes rice, this is a great bargain. And if they did not like rice before, they will after you get this rice. I keep mine in a metal can and it stays great.
And while I am on the subject of rice...how to cook rice perfectly...Rinse the rice before you use it. Run cool water over it and dump it off until the water runs clear. Put the amount of rice you like for your family in a
heavy bottom kettle (you can rinse it in the same kettle). Add cold water until it comes up to the first (tip) joint of your little finger while your finger is sitting on top of the rice. Bring the water and rice to a boil, then turn the burner to low, put the cover on and don't take the cover off until it is done in 14 minutes. If you take the cover off when you are cooking rice, you lose the steam that is cooking the rice.Okay, after talking about rice, I am hungry! Off I go to make some...
