It is no exaggeration to say that what we’ve got growing behind the garage is Audrey II, and my weekend farmer has become Seymour.
You will remember those two characters from the play Little Shop of Horrors. Audrey II was the giant, blood-craving Venus flytrappy sort of plant with the rapacious appetite, and Seymour Krelborn was the accommodating florist-shop employee who made sure Audrey II had a steady diet of human flesh.
One of the musical numbers from Little Shop of Horrors (sung by Audrey II prior to attacking and trying to eat Seymour) was the shockingly revelatory “(I’m a) Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.”
Once that moment came in the play, and the monster revealed itself as extraterrestrial, gardeners all over Planet Earth relaxed. “There’s no such vegetation in this world’s plant kingdom!” cried the botanists, convinced that some crazy writer had simply dreamed up the cannibalistic flytrap to sell theatre tickets and make a zillion dollars. (Writers are constantly making a zillion dollars.)
But, no matter what the naysayers say, I am here to give testament that out behind our garage inside our Little Compost Bin of Horrors there grows an unearthly looking plant-life monster that is eerily odd in its proportions and composition. Stretching 16 feet in diameter, and soaring eight feet high, the green Gargantua that rose unexpectedly from our compost bin has gone plum wild.
Initially we were skeptical and wondered if what appeared to be an Eden of fruit could possibly be a devilish anomaly that might poison us. Finally, seduced by the abundance of fiery red love apples, we began plucking all types – from roma to heirloom, from grape-sized to softball-sized – off vines that wound around each other like the entangled snakes that gave panache to Medusa’s hair-do.
And what does my husband, aka Mr. Tomato Head, think of his non-blood sucking Audrey II?
Well, as it kept throwing tomatoes at us as fast as an automatic tennis ball launcher, Mr. Tomato Head wanted an expert’s eye on the growth, so he brought his brother over to see it. His brother, being in the landscape business and being a man of few words, said, “Big ’un, idn’t it?” Upon reflection, it was his brother’s considered opinion that we not feed it. “Fertilizer will just encourage more outrageous behavior,” said Brother.
And what do I think of our compost bin bounty? Well, this out-of-control tomato production has presented a problem in my kitchen.
My counter space is cluttered with bottles and tins and other types of containers filled with condiments and liquids and herbs and spices and sauces and dried beans and old wine, all of which are necessary in the creation of recipes and all of which I like to eyeball when I’m cooking.
Now I have been forced into giving my counter space to tomatoes, forced to remove all my ingredient friends from their easy-to-reach positions and store them away in the dark recesses of closed cabinets.
Tomatoes have taken over la cocina. Tomatoes are everywhere. They’re lined up on the window ledge, stacked in baskets, huddled together where my vinegar bottles used to be, crowded inside the unused microwave, they’ve even taken over the coffee-making area, making it necessary for Mr. Tomato Head to move Mr. Coffee into the dining room.
We’ve given away bushels of the things to family, friends and business associates, but like flood, hurricane, wild fire, tornado and telemarketers, they just keep coming. So what’s a person to do? If she happens to be a person who has some ability with turning raw produce into dishes that are congenial to the palate, she starts cooking.
After a few weeks we got pretty fed up with plates of salted sliced tomatoes. And I had made enough pico de gallo to feed a horde of fiesta debutantes. Gazing at my orc army of tomatoes, it struck me that I needed to sit down and roll alternative recipes through my head.
Decision made, I went to work. The most obvious choice was to make a fresh tomato sauce, an Italian salsa di pomodoro that could be stirred into pasta or ladled over veal parmigiana. And since I would be using the freshest of fresh tomatoes, it would be a slow-cooking sauce, one that would bubble along for four hours or so.
To skin or not to skin? If the sauce were to be put through a food mill at the end of cooking, I’d say it’s not necessary to skin the tomatoes; if not, skin by all means. Fill a big pot with water, bring it to a boil, toss in the tomatoes for a minute or so, remove, cool and skin away.
Once that labor is done, making a delicious tomato sauce is easy. Pour a thin layer of olive oil in a large, high-sided pan. Bring to medium-low and add four to six sliced garlic cloves. Quarter the tomatoes and throw them in the pan. For my sauce, I used around 35 tomatoes of all sizes and varieties. Add salt and pepper, one or two tablespoons of sugar and start the simmer.
About an hour into it I usually add a little white wine, then more wine as needed. At the three-hour mark, I put dried oregano, dried parsley and dried rosemary between the palms of my hands and rubbed the herbs over the sauce. When almost done, about five minutes before the four-hour mark, I add chopped fresh basil.
Here’s the fun part. Salsa di pomodoro is freezable, and will keep its flavorful vigor up to a year. Ladle the cooled sauce into plastic containers and stack inside the freezer. When you want the sauce for a recipe, remove containers the day before and let defrost in the fridge.
Given our monster’s fecundity, I am sure the 10 containers in my freezer will soon be joined by more sauce-filled plastic. Additionally, I have baked ratatouille (tomato, garlic, bell pepper, zucchini, onions and eggplant concoction traditional to France’s Provence region); dried thin tomato slices out in the sun; made something called “tomato pudding” that saw my lovely fresh tomato sauce poured over cubed pieces of rosemary bread and baked 40 minutes in the oven; and, squeezing the juice out of a bunch of over-ripe fruit, presented Mr. Tomato Head with the freshest sort of ambrosia to add to his famous bloody Mary mixture.
Truth is, the tomato mishmash hanging around behind the garage has seduced us with its delectable fragrance. We’re captivated by its myriad globes of red hidden amongst the vines. And we are not opposed to believing the ancient tale that pommes d’amour (love apples) have the power to inspire romance. Thanks to the monster, Mr. Tomato Head and I feel quite inspired all the time.