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Grate some tomatoes into a great side dish

Recipe: Healthy grains are the base for flexible pilaf recipe

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED AUG 9, 2020

tomato half on a grater — Grate tomato halves for the cooking sauce for multigrain pilaf. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Three tomatoes — The rich flavor of these Cherokee Carbon tomatoes was perfect

for the pilaf.

August is when I start looking for other ways to use my tomato bounty. I've had several BLTs and caprese salads, made cobbler, and I've doused grilled salmon in tomato-basil vinaigrette. I'll get to my usual tomato canning later this month.

In between, I've found a great way to use tomatoes in an easy side dish. This multigrain combo can easily be adapted to whatever flavor profile you want, to accompany tacos, chicken tikka or beef kabobs. A large-hole cheese grater is the only fancy equipment you need, and you don't have to strain out the seeds -- they become part of the texture of the dish.

Note that the grains can be varied, but I would keep basmati or jasmine rice as the main one. The others are up to you and your pantry contents.

Four-Grain and Tomato Pilaf
Adapted from "You Say Tomato" by Joanne Weir
Serves 6

four grains — Basmati rice, top, and from left, millet, freekah and quinoa

blend went into my version of this pilaf.

Ingredients:

3 medium ripe red tomatoes

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil

3/4 cup basmati or jasmine rice

1/4 cup quinoa or quinoa blend

1/4 cup millet or bulgur wheat

1/4 cup freekah or amaranth

1/2 teaspoon or more fresh thyme, plus more for garnish, or 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 or 2 shallots, minced

Optional addition: 4-ounce can chopped chilies, drained

1 cup vegetable or chicken stock

Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bowl with pilaf — The finished dish, here garnished with thyme.

Instructions:

Cut the tomatoes in half. Cup each tomato half in your hand, cut side out, and, using the large holes of a grater, grate the tomato into a bowl. Discard or compost the skins.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the rice and your selection of other grains (the four together should total 1 1/2 cups), and the thyme or cumin and shallots. Stir until the grains are coated and hot, 1 to 2 minutes.

Increase the heat to high and add the stock, 1 1/2 cups water, the tomato juice and pulp, the chilies if using, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, covered, until the grains are tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 25 minutes.

Fluff with a fork. Correct the seasonings. Serve, garnished with more thyme or garnish of your choice.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes fresh produce tomatoes gardening Sacramento vegetables backyard gardens summer vegetables backyard produce produce management vegetable gardening

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Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

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