Recipe: Make cherry tomato focaccia with pizza dough
(Photos: Kathy Morrison) |
Cherry tomatoes usually are the rugged survivors of the summer vegetable-growing efforts, even when the rest of the plants have given up the ghost.
If like me you still have plenty of little tomatoes, you might want to make this herby focaccia. It uses pizza dough as the base, but don’t worry, there’s no messing around with yeast here. A 1-pound bag of premade dough is easy to find these days in the deli sections of supermarkets as well as at specialty food stores. The recipe works with whole wheat dough just as well as regular wheat; I haven’t baked it with other varieties, but if you’re on a gluten-free diet, give this a try with your favorite alternative.
The type of cherry tomato doesn’t matter, although the focaccia looks great with several colors and shapes. This recipe works even with grocery store cherry tomatoes, so grab a pint basket of them if you’re out of your own — something to try in the dead of winter when our 2018 gardens are mere memories. Use chopped fresh basil or thyme to taste if you’re not a fan of rosemary.
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
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