Summer's End Lasagna

Even though last Monday, Labor Day, marked the end of summer (to most people), I am firmly in the camp of those who refuse to concede that summer is over until the first frost arrives- or at least until the early morning temperatures are in the 40s. As I write this, I'm sitting in my Adirondack chair in the backyard, listening to my fountains gurgling water and watching the sparrows flocking to my bird feeders. The sprinkler is on in my garden, watering my tomato and pepper plants which are still producing profusely every day. And I'm also sweating - even though it's only 11 am. So for me, summer is definitely still here.
To celebrate the "end of summer" last Monday, I put together a summer lasagna, full of veggies from the garden. My friend Anna had given me her recipe a while back and I took that and modified it until I ended up with my own version. Sadly, I have no photograph to show you how wonderful it looked when it was finished. I don't know what happened to my photo, I'm sure I took one but I can't find it, so you'll just have to make the recipe yourself to see the end result.
This is one of those recipes that falls firmly into the category of weekend cooking, because it's very time intensive to get ingredients chopped and the lasagna assembled.
So celebrate the passing of summer with this great lasagna recipe. You'll be wishing summer would never end.
Summer's End Lasagna 
Ingredients
1 container of store-bought pesto
1 bag of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
6 cooked lasagna noodles.
Tomato/Sausage sauce
1 lb of sweet Italian sausage

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup diced eggplant

1 cup diced zucchini

½ small red pepper seeded and diced
½ small yellow pepper seeded and diced
½ red onion, diced
2 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
2 clove garlic, finely minced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
28 fl. oz.can whole tomatoes
5 oz can of tomato paste

1 teaspoon of sugar

1. Heat olive oil on medium-high in a large skillet . Add sausage meat and cook until just browned, about 7 minutes. Remove cooked sausage from the pan and set aside, leaving the oil in the pan.
2. Add eggplant, zucchini, peppers and onion to the pan and cook until just beginning to soften, then add the garlic, chopped basil and red pepper flakes. Cook for two minutes.
3. Add can of whole tomatoes and break tomatoes up with with a wooden spoon. Add tomato paste and stir until combined. Simmer tomato sauce for about 10 minutes. Season sauce with sugar and salt and pepper to taste.

To assemble the Lasagna
Place a thin layer of pesto on the bottom of a 8x11 glass baking dish (2 quarts). Add a layer of the tomato/sausage sauce, top with some of the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese and top with 3 lasagna noodles. Repeat layer, (pesto, tomato sausage, cheeses, noodles). Top layer should end with tomato/sausage sauce and  remaining cheeses.
Bake at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Let lasagna sit for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Homemade Tomato Juice

So I'm at that point with my garden where I'm harvesting a bunch of tomatoes on a daily basis, but just not enough to do something really big with (like canning). I've made 4 different variations of salsa, homemade spaghetti sauce and I slap a tomato on just about everything else that I make. Still,  I have a big mound of tomatoes on the counter that never seems to go down, no matter how hard I try. What could I make that takes a lot of tomatoes but not a bunch of them? The answer- surprisingly - is homemade tomato juice. I had never thought about making my own tomato juice. After all, V-8 is just fine. But now that I've had a taste of my own juice, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the other stuff. And the best part of it all is - it's EASY to make. Honestly, you just chop up your ingredients, throw them into a big pot and let them cook for about 40 minutes then blend it all up with either a blender or a Foley food mill (boy, that's a blast from the Home Ec past). Now that I've made it, I just wish I'd started making it earlier in the summer. Oh well, there's always next year.
I adapted this recipe from one that I found on "Simply Recipes" and I've renamed it "Tami's Terrific Tomato Juice" (I'm a big fan of alliteration).


Foley Food Mill



If you want a smoother juice, just use either a blender or a hand held (immersion) blender to process the juice and then run it through the food mill. If you prefer a bit of a chunkier juice, just skip the blending and go right to the food mill.

Tami's Terrific Tomato Juice
Ingredients
6 pounds of tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 cups of white onion
2 1/2 cups chopped celery (including the leaves)
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin powder
6 drops of Tabasco sauce

4 splashes of Worcestershire sauce

Freshly ground pepper to taste



Raw Ingredients



Put all ingredients into a large stainless steel pot. Bring it to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. If you're a canner, I'm sure you'd know how to can this so that you'd have it to enjoy year round.





Too Many Tomatoes

Right now in my garden I have an abundance of tomatoes - actually an overabundance if I'm to be truthful. Earlier this summer when I looked at my tomato plants loaded with green tomatoes I found myself sending up a prayer to the tomato gods to please, please ripen my tomatoes. My prayers were answered two weeks ago when it seems that every tomato in the garden ripened on the same day.

Eating that first tomato of the season is always a thrill for me. A ripe tomato just screams "summer" like nothing else can. Now, with an evergrowing pile of tomatoes in my kitchen, I'm still screaming- but it's a different scream now. It's "please tell me what to do with all these tomatoes."

Yes, I've made salsa. I've slapped tomatoes on every sandwich that I make. I've even stooped to having an "LT" sandwich (lettuce and tomato) and even a "T" sandwich (just tomatoes). I've eaten tomatoes with my fried eggs for breakfast (a favorite of my mother's).
I know I should bring some of them to work to give away, but since everyone else with a garden has the same idea I probably can't even give them away. So I keep looking for easy, inventive ways to use my tomato bounty.
This recipe is one that I'd file under "Super Quick, Super Easy and Super Tasty" (if I had a recipe box). It's a nice side dish for burgers, steaks or chicken. I even eat it as a meal with a nice slice of crusty bread.
Tomato Cucumber Salad
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 small cucumber, chopped
1/4 C chopped red onion
1/4 C Italian salad dressing (sure, I could make my own, but this is easier and cheaper in the long run)
1/4 C shaved Parmesan cheese (I used a paring knife to just shave off small slices)

Mix tomatoes, cucumbers, onion and cheese in a bowl. Pour salad dressing over the vegetables and mix thoroughly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you're patient, you can let this salad sit for 15 minutes or so to let the flavors marry, but I can never wait that long and it still tastes great.