Here’s the last of my 2012 tomato crop.  The line-up of jars reminds me of bookending things.

A few Bookends:

• Monday, April 22nd  Friday, May 26th
• Earth Day  Earth Year Mindframe
• Seedlings  Jars of Stewed Tomatoes

As Monday was Earth Day, it’s exciting to take some of the practices you did to honour the day & incorporate these practices into our day-to-day.

One practice was to enjoy meals built around the offerings from the earth.

Here’s a recipe which was passed down orally (no written record of this one).  Be prepared to try a recipe that has no ingredient amounts.  My fam calls this “German Spaghetti.”  In no way am I saying that this is “Germany’s Spaghetti.”  The way my fam knew which recipe was from my mom’s side and which was from my dad’s side, was to add the Prefix:  German to the name of the food/meal that came from my dad’s mom. We would start our day with “German Pancakes & bookend it with German Spaghetti.”

Writer’s Note:  Feel free to make a healthier version of this one!  A lot can be done to ‘healthify’ this one.  To make it authentic to a farming community in the 1950s, this is what was done:)

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• spaghetti noodles
• canned tomatoes (1 large jar)
• Velveeta cheese (globs)
• butter (globs)
• salt & pepper
• wieners (cut into small pieces)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cook spaghetti according to package
3. Drain spaghetti
4. Put 1 layer of spaghetti on bottom of roaster
5. Pour 1/3 of stewed tomatoes over spaghetti
6. Add globs of Velveeta & butter
7. Place another layer of spaghetti
8. Pour 1/3 of stewed tomatoes over spaghetti
9. Add globs of Velveeta & butter
10. Add rest of spaghetti
11. Pour remaining stewed tomatoes on
12. Top with wieners
13. Sprinkle with salt and pepper
14. Bake covered for about 45 min.
15. Uncover and bake another 15 min. to brown the tomatoes and weiners

Next post will greet you with a heart healthy recipe using stewed/canned tomatoes.