Tag Archives: ZaArlington

Preserving the Season- Tomatoes.

Once again, it’s that time of year; where did the summer go? It’s time to preserve the summer’s local bounty, starting with canning tomatoes.

Here is a pictorial of how I canned more than 2 cases, about 50 pounds of local tomatoes. 40 pounds came from Verrill Farm in Concord, MA; the remaining 10 pounds were from my backyard garden.

First, using a small sharp knife, I cut the core out and put a shallow X, just through the skin on the opposite side of each tomato.
I then blanched the tomatoes, in several batches, in simmering water for not more than 30 seconds, then I placed them in an ice bath before removing and discarding the skins.
A bucket full of peeled tomatoes.
I then cut all the tomatoes in half along the equatorial line.
I then gently squeezed out the seeds, reserving and straining them, pouring some of the strained liquid into the pot with the peeled and seeded tomatoes. I wanted to have some liquid in the pot for when I started to cook the tomatoes; this will cut down on the possibility of burning the tomatoes before they break down from the heat in the pan.
50 pounds is a lot of tomatoes! This 4-gallon pot is almost full and all set to be cooked.
The tomatoes are on the heat and are starting to break down.
After about 45 minutes on medium-high heat, the tomatoes were fully cooked and mostly mushy. At this point, I ran them through the coarse die of a food mill.
Hot milled tomatoes are ready to be placed in mason jars.
All jarred up, in a simmering water bath for 15 minutes.
50 pounds of tomatoes worked down to 13 quart jars.
Jars are dated only with the year. I won’t be doing more tomatoes this year, so the year is the only date that I need.
Put-up in the cellar for use throughout the following year.

Salted Caramel Cheesecake Recipe

At Za we have always made our own desserts. We almost always have some sort of cheesecake on our menu; our most recent version is this salted caramel one. Salted caramel seems to be everywhere these days- candies, cookies, sauce, coffee flavoring, I’ve even seen it as a whiskey flavor; there is a simple reason for that…It’s delicious.

Cheesecake is easy to make, it just takes a bit of time. You have to have the correct pan, a 9 or 10 inch springform pan. And you need to plan ahead, you can’t decide at 4pm that your going to make a cheesecake for that nights dinner party. This cheesecake recipe calls for you to bake it for an hour and a half and then it needs to set, preferably overnight, before it can be cut and enjoyed.

So, if you have a springform pan and the time to prepare this recipe, you wont be disappointed.

At Za we serve this cheesecake with some homemade chocolate sauce, freshly whipped cream and cashew – coconut crunch.

Don’t worry if you don’t have the time, or desire, to make it for yourself, we will be happy to make it for you.

Za Photos, Skirting Liberty

In April of 2015, Me, Colleen and our kids Shane,10 at the time and Caitlin then 7, did a family vacation during the kids school April break. We first drove to Washington D.C. where we did all the usual touristy things. We visited the Lincoln monument, walked through and discussed the Viet Nam War Memorial. We got up at some ungodly hour for the opportunity to go in and up the Washington Monument. We also went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, as well as the Museum of American History. We strolled by the White House and waved to “Uncle Barry and Auntie Shelly”. It was a great few days, as usual I took many photos, none of which made it to the heralded walls of Za.

From D. C. we drove to NYC, well Hoboken, NJ, where My sister had a condo and was kind enough to let us squat for a few days. The location was great, very convenient. To get into Manhattan, from the condo it was a 3 minute walk, followed by a 15 minute ferry ride and boom there you are right downtown. As with D.C. we did all of the touristy things. Strolled through Time Square, did the Empire State Building thing, walked the Hi-Line, Had dinner at Jonathan Waxman’s (one of my favorite chefs) restaurant, Barbuto, in the Meat Packing District.

The next day the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze and temps in the low 70’s, we took a ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty. The statue was open and we were able to climb the stairs up to the observation deck in Lady Liberty’s crown. We had a great day, as I mentioned the weather was perfect, I was with my family and I got to go on a boat ride; not much could be better.

With the perfect conditions I was able to get some great shots of the statue, including this one. I had the photo enlarged and placed on the wall when we did our most recent renovations in 2021. This photo gets a lot of comments, including, surprising to me, “what is it”?. Since I took the photo I know exactly what it is and with a quick glance I can almost understand the question. Most people do figure it out quickly though.

Skirting Liberty