Tasty Tomatoes

Oh my goodness, the hard work and netting has paid off! We have had a great harvest of tomatoes, and are still picking them every couple of days. We've had enough to eat them fresh whenever we want, and I was able to roast a tray of them, with garlic cloves to make a wonderful Spanish rice for dinner a couple of days ago.

I started by frying a chopped red onion, along with a small red capsicum and green capsicum(also chopped).I also added a teaspoon of sweet paprika and chopped basil. Then I added 2 cups of long grain rice, stirred that in to coat with oil. Then I put the beautiful roasted tomatoes in (or you can use 2 cups of pasta sauce or tinned tomatoes), I also added the roasted garlic (I roasted a whole head of garlic, in the skin, then squeezed out the lovely soft flesh into the rice). Add 2 cups of hot chicken stock and stir. Let it cook on the stove, stirring occasionally, and adding more stock if necessary. I did this til the rice was cooked, then I added some cooked chicken (but chorizo,prawns or other meat would be fine) and the corn kernels from 2 cobs. Heat through and "ta-dah", yummy dinner. The whole family loved it, even the wee one.

I think those fresh roasted tomatoes made all the difference.

We also had an amazing crop of beans, picked them daily, but they are finished now and I have collected seed for next year.

The little self sown broccoli plants have come up, but I am not sure if they'll survive. We are having dry day after dry day, and I'm still not very good at regular watering! Hopefully some will survive.