My tomato plants haven’t done very well this year, and what few tomatoes they have produced a sneaky momma bunny has managed to steal to feed her family. I wouldn’t mind sharing so much except for the fact that those rascally rabbits pick the tomatoes when they are just beginning to show the least bit of color, take a couple of bites, and leave the then useless fruit on the ground. No barrier has stopped them! How far do Nerf guns shoot?
Anyway, out of desperation, I went to the farmer’s market and bought a $20.00 box of tomatoes. I’m happy with that purchase. Not all of these tomatoes are in the same stage of ripening. None are at all green, and none are overly ripe, and I haven’t been forced to stay up until three AM to keep up with them! So far, I’ve gotten a good supply of Simple Plain Tomato Sauce in the freezer along with my years’ quota of Eggplant Marinara. A few of these tomatoes were gratefully harvested before Momma Bunny discovered the buffet, but not many!
I did manage to make a batch of Hearty Tomato Sauce and from that a pan of Roasted Vegetable Lasagna which also uses Fresh Ricotta Cheese. You don’t get much more homemade than all that!

One of the dinners we particularly enjoyed this week was Chicken Divan over Porcini Rice . Unfortunately, Lily, our adopted abandoned cat did too. I left the casserole on the counter to cool before putting the leftovers away and Lily took advantage of the opportunity. I could have strangled her, but it was my own fault, too, so I didn’t.
I have always taken great personal pride in the fact that I buy very few convenience foods. In this house, convenience foods are jarred mayonnaise and store bought sandwich bread. I just like knowing where our food comes from and what’s in it.  I do appreciate the luxury of having the time it takes to do all that prep work that goes into clean eating.  Along that line, I have always spent countless hours making broth. Too many, really, but why throw away all those good vegetable trimmings and bones and then turn around and buy canned broth. What’s in that canned broth and where did it come from? Well, anyway, I splurged a bit this week on a real time saver. I bought an electric pressure cooker. Wow! It takes me longer to prep a recipe than it does to cook it. Talk about a learning curve! This old dog’s got some learning to do!

A while back, I promise a remake of the recipe for Blueberry Upside Down Cake. Well, here it is, Blueberry Upside-Down Cake II. I think it’s much better than the original, more moist and better balanced. Try the recipe for yourself and see what you think.
While we’re on the subject of desserts, I recently took a trip into the land of “What in the world were you thinking?”. Or maybe it would more appropriately be “not thinking”.  As I often do, I was trying to think of ways to use peaches, and dreamed up a recipe for peach tartlets.  I thought it would be fun to make them kind of free-form, and off I went. Well, see the results for yourself!

The second attempt was better, but the recipe is not quite ready to share.  Michael says they look like fried eggs.  Sometimes my dreams turn out to be nightmares!
Be thankful for what like gives you.