Wonderful tomatoes

Here is just a snapshot of the tomato harvest from the garden this year. The "early girl" variety have been producing a few weeks and was the first to ripen. Those are the tiny ones at the top of the picture. The "Black Krim" is one of the most interesting tomatoes I've tried yet. Also featured here are some unusual roma heirloom variety and "golden jubilee" which is just now ripening. I wonder what will be the best use of "golden jubilee". Maybe salads with feta cheese? And of course there is zucchini, we have so many! Anyone want any?

Cooler weather is welcome

Good news, much cooler air is here. It feels more like Santa Cruz than Sacramento after the heatwave the whole state suffered through last week. Today it was in the low 80s and breezy (28c) with sunshine, no pollution or humidity, just gorgeous.

The high temperatures were 110, 111, 108, 105 and 100 on the 22 - 26th of July. This nearly drove us batty. 111 degrees fahrenheit is 44 degrees celsius. And it was humid as well. Today we took a bike ride and it was gorgeous. People were outside everywhere in all the parks, barbecuing and having festivals, everywhere a good time.

Cherry Pie, Anyone?

I'm back from a short break in creating new posts, caused by getting a new picturephone that didn't work properly. I just wanted to show another example of solar canning that I did this year, these are sour pie cherries which were packed with sugar. The sugar has since dissolved into the pints of cherries. The season was so brief this year that I'm glad that I could can these so easily. Solar canning rules.

Solar Powered Boat

This solar powered boat is a great idea. I wonder where else this kind of boat would work? It seems like a quiet ride and really low impact.

Summer salads with Black Krim Tomatoes = Good

Just a picture of today's bounty from the farmers market and the garden. This was an unbelievable salad made from some of the first Black Krim tomatoes of the season, and a sliced, peeled Japanese Cucumber from the garden. Slices of red onion, herbs, and feta cheese were mixed in. Just olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressed the fresh ingredients, and this made a wonderful dressing also for a hunk of fresh sweet french bread. As you can imagine, this was mindblowingly good.

The olive oil and balsamic vinegar actually come from this county. It's made by the Bariani family and it's just delicious.

Sacramento public utility SMUD installs eight 3MW wind turbines

Each of the eight turbines are 100 feet taller than the statue of liberty. They went online June 1, 2006.

These new turbines increase SMUD's wind energy capability from 16 MW to 39 MW.

There are some really beautiful pictures here taken by some UC Davis students of the new turbines.

If you live in the SMUD service area you might like to join their green energy program. The service costs less than they charge to read your meter, and you can buy 100% renewable power much more cheaply than becoming 100% renewable by installing solar panels on your house.

E-Z roasting in the solar oven

Just another delicious thing to cook in the solar oven. These are beets that were roasted in the oven for a few hours, they're sweet like candy and the skin pulls right off. Again, no hot oven in the summer to deal with.

I have to tell you they are a treat. They were really good in this salad with maytag blue cheese and onion.

The Last Vacuum Tube

Many people no longer have tube radios in their living room, but still use vacuum tubes in their homes for lighting. This article in the Minnesota Star Tribune says that often Edison light bulbs are the last vacuum tubes left in people's homes. I thought that was interesting.

There's been a few breakthroughs since Edison bulbs were invented. Lighting by cheap compact fluorescent bulbs are usually more efficient by 4:1. And now they come in all kinds of interesting shapes, including the bulb at left that is the same shape as an old light bulb. This is useful if you have a lampshade that clips on top of an old school bulb.

And now the new LED lighting is much more efficient still than that. It's still expensive, but the price is dropping by 20% a year.

The LED bulb on the left is interesting because it constantly changes color. Try that with an incandescent bulb. It consumes only 3 watts and puts out a good amount of light for the energy used. One of the most interesting applications of LEDs will be turning the walls of a building into a large video screen. Bridges are being illuminated with colored lights in Philadelphia and New York that change colors and consume the same energy as a toaster and a hair dryer.

Post-carbon food preservation II

The solar canning was a success! I held the temperature of the solar oven at > 250F/120c for over an hour and took them out and the jars sealed. No liquid was added to this jar, it's preserved in its own juice. I pushed quartered roma tomatoes into each jar filling them up to the neck, but I should have crammed them in there. There's a lot of headspace in each jar.

The only things I added were 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid and 1 teaspoon of sea salt to each jar.

The 100% passive process took about 4 hours but it could have taken less time. I was expecting the liquid to bubble out and so it probably sat out there over 250F/120c for 2+ hours. I want to make sure and kill everything that moves and I don't mind the little sun-scorch on the top of the tomatoes.

This is a significant advance in my home. If you're wondering what the big deal is about solar canning I'll try to explain the multiple benefits of it. We live in Sacramento where it's crazy to not grow tomatoes. It's also crazy not to use the sun because it is very intense in the summertime. Air conditioning is expensive, and canning indoors fills the house with hot steam. You sweat like a dog, and it's easy to burn yourself with the hot water. Using a "water bath" canner is inconvenient and too much work. Plus it uses a lot of natural gas. There's lifting and bulky equipment. You can't just can one or two jars here or there, to make it worth your while you really need to get a whole batch together for such a big job.

We are growing 5 varieties of tomatoes this year* and as a group of each variety vine-ripen, they can be picked, washed, cut and canned on-the-spot in the sun to be used all year. It takes only five minutes to prepare two jars and then you peek at it now and then while watching the ball game, that's all.

Microwave 500ml of water to boiling, pour it over jar lids to scald them, rinse and quarter tomatoes and force into washed jars, close tightly, process in solar oven, remove to cool, eat tasty meals in February.

*Early Girl Hybrid, Costoluto Genovese, Boxcar Willie, Black Krim, and Golden Jubilee

Post-carbon food preservation

The solar box cooker "SOS sport" is preheated to 250F/120c and is ready to can fruit. I just placed some tomatoes in here to see how well they seal up. It should take about 2 hours to bring the fruit to boiling inside the jars. I cored and quartered these and didn't bother with the skins.

You can make a solar cooker yourself or buy one, they're fun to use. Because I'm not boiling any water indoors, it stays nice and cool in the house.

This process is all detailed in Eleanor Shimeall's book "Eleanor's Solar Cookbook" details it all. Her book can be ordered by writing her at PO Box 1022, Borrego Springs, CA 92004 USA.