The Dog Days Are Over & Notes from Nikki

The Dog Days of Summer are officially over today and mother nature seems to have gotten the notice; what a beautiful day. It has been a hot, dusty intense summer and Tuesday's rain has the garden looking bright and well watered; a rare occurrence as of late. It feels like a blessing. Hopefully this dip in temperature and humidity will inspire you to truly take advantage of the summer's bounty. I am sure you are fast approaching the "too many tomatoes" threshold in your summer diet, and now its time to think about preserving tomatoes for the future--click here for a great link to slow roasted tomatoes that can be frozen for use months later. I thought you would also appreciate Food52's little video about peeling tomatoes:

Peeling tomatos from Food52 on Vimeo.

Enjoy the great weather. Enjoy any adventures in food preservation. Finally I want to leave you with another great recipe from Nikki-a use for those tomatillos that have been a part of your share.

Baked Eggs in Tomatillo Sauce
I hope you have indulged in the tomatillos available to us in the Inverbrook Distribution Shed over the last couple of weeks. They are positively sweet, tangy, and complex all at the same time. I love fresh tomatillo salsa, but decided to roast the tomatillos I have collected over the last couple of weeks instead, along with a hot pepper or two, some garlic, and a big spanish onion in order to make the following sauce for baked eggs. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Ingredients

3-4 T extra virgin olive oil
3-4 dozen tomatillos
1-2 fresh hot peppers, whole
3-4 cloves of garlic, un-peeled
1 spanish onion, thick sliced
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Handful of fresh chopped cilantro

8 eggs
Generous handful of shredded Manchego cheese
Mexican crema, sour cream, or creme fraiche
Blue corn tortilla chips

1. Preheat the oven to 425.
2. Drizzle the olive oil in the bottom of a large baking dish and spread the tomatillos, hot peppers, garlic, and onion slices on top; roast until the tomatillos fall apart and everything else is roast-y (about 25-30 minutes).
3. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins, de-seed the peppers (unless you want tons of heat), transfer the lot to a large bowl, add the cilantro, sea salt, and pepper, and, using an immersion blender, puree everything until smooth.
4. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
5. Return the sauce to the same baking dish and crack 8 eggs, evenly spacing them, right on top of the sauce.
6. Bake in the oven until the eggs are just about set to your liking (my family likes them firm and cooked through, so ours took about 25-30 minutes).
7. Sprinkle the cheese on top of each egg, and return to the oven.
8. Bake until the cheese melts and begins to brown just a bit.
9. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool a bit.
10. Serve each egg with plenty of sauce, a dollop of Mexican crema, and blue corn chips.

Serves 6-8