Tomato, Tomahto

This past weekend I ran into a friend and her mother on my way out of Target (looking for my canning supplies which were not there). We got talking about canning and her mother gave me a great idea for tomatoes. Rather than can, just freeze them. With an abundance of tomatoes, some mealy and overripe, freezing is the perfect use for them. So, using her tips and a little online research, here's what I did:

Blanched the tomatoes cutting an "x" at the bottom so the skins are easy to peel.
Hand squeezed them over a strainer to preserve liquid and remove seeds.
Placed them about an 1" apart on a cookie sheet and froze overnight.
Then placed them in Ziploc bags, labeled them and put them back in the freezer.

Talk about easy!

I also made one batch of tomato sauce. This recipe is originally from Lidia Bastianich and over the years I have altered it nad now call it my own.

First I made the tomatoes (this I totally made up):
Blanch tomatoes and peel skins.
Squeeze over a strainer to preserve liquid and remove seeds.
Then I took half of the tomatoes and pulverized them in the Cuisinart - this recipe calls for both smooth and chunky tomatoes.

The sauce:
Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan over medium heat.
Add in 2 minced garlic cloves (more if you like garlic) and let garlic soften.
Add salt & pepper.
Add in smooth tomatoes.
Then add in chunky tomatoes (I usually hand squeeze them into the pan - they should be chunky, not whole)
Add in about 2 - 4 tablespoons of sugar depending on your tastes and some dried oregano. Stir.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce and let simmer for about 1 hour.
Taste to see if you need anything additional.
Just before using, add in torn or sliced fresh basil.

This sauce can be used for lasagna, parmesan, over pasta or can be pulverized further and used as a base for gazpacho or tomato soup.

Pickled Pink

I said I was going to do it and I did. I made 2 jars of pickles. This is not a process for the faint of heart. Along the lines of making your own dough and growing a garden, it has a lot of steps and takes a long time. It also had the added pressure of botulism, as my father helpfully pointed out. I used a recipe from Whole Living and tips from Martha. I didn't have all the professional tools and made what I had work. So, if you choose to attempt this, remember you don't need to buy all the professional canning tools, although shopping is fun. Right now, the jars are cooling and tomorrow I'll break one open and test it. If all goes well, I might attempt jam.

Canned

I'm taking up canning. I know. I know. But it spoke to me from the pages of a magazine. In fact, when I turned to CityCrab and announced my latest venture, he said he supported me but I could tell he was secretly suppressing his eye roll. The real inspiration came from the vivid images on the page of tomatoes and cucumbers. I've got an abundance of those, more than we can possibly eat. So, after a bit of research and with the help of Martha, I am off to Target to buy my supplies. I figure anything I can buy at Target can't be all that hard to do.

Three Wishes

A couple of weeks ago an article in The New York Times was to my attention regarding a topic that seems to be pervasive these days: aging women, fertility and sperm donors. The article told the story of 3 women. Here's the synopsis: 3 friends approaching 40 find themselves single and yearning for children. One woman decides to go it alone and purchases a few vials of sperm. Before she uses the sperm, she ends up in a relationship and pregnant and passes the sperm to the next friend. The next friend contemplates then finds herself in a relationship and pregnant. So, she passes it to the third friend...are you starting to see a pattern? They all find themselves in relationships & pregnant with no use for the sperm. Interesting, right? Well, lo and behold, they wrote a book about their journey called Three Wishes. I picked it up and am about halfway through. The book expounds on the emotions and details of the story but the NYT article is certainly sufficient to get the gist of it. The biggest takeaway for me is the bond these women share. It got me thinking about the bonds I share with important women in my life. Some related, some not. So, when I told CityCrab the story, he was initially grossed out by it. I had to explain to him that it play out like some bad B movie. The 3 women didn't kick it with each other or the same man. And, they never used the sperm so it's not like they crossed swords or anything. But I really tried to understand what his thoughts were rooted in. The scenes played out like a bad movie. Every time we got in the car, I would bring it up. Then we'd be eating dinner and I'd bring it up or we'd be getting ready for bed, brushing our teeth and I'd bring it up. He just didn't get it. Then it dawned on me. Men don't get female friendships. They don't understand our bond. They don't understand talking to a stranger about something intimate at the nail salon. Or why we go to the bathroom together at restaurants. And they definitely don't get the dressing room at Loehmann's. This made it so much easier to understand. It also made me happy to have my female friendships.

Livin' La Vida Locavore

Here's how it goes lately in my house: I check the garden throughout the day, monitor the growth and then decide what I can make for dinner with what I've got. Apparently, I've become a Locavore, someone who eats locally. I love the challenge of developing a meal around what I've grown. I love being able to just go out and pick dinner. And, most of all, I love being able to bypass the produce section at the grocery store knowing I've got my staples at home already. Here's a few things I've been cooking up:

Grilled yellow squash
Greek salad with cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes from my garden
Tuscan Tomato Salad
Pico de Gallo with cilantro and tomatoes from my garden

Now that it's mid-season and some of my crops haven't grown at all, to my great disappointment, I may yank those and start with something new. Like everything else in life, I am making it up as I go and figuring it out on the fly.

In other gardening news, I recommend a show on PlanetGreen called The Fabulous Beekman Boys. It's about 2 former NYC corporate execs who move to upstate NY and become farmers. Fascinating and hysterical. I also recommend their book The Bucolic Plague. Disclosure: I haven't read it yet but it's on my reading list.

Grilled Corn

This item has gained some popularity in recent years. I first tasted it at Cafe Habana in NYC circa 1999. It was delicious and I instantly became obsessed with it. Like many other things I have eaten, I tried to replicate but without real culinary knowledge, I was lost. Fortunately for me in 2002, The New York Times Magazine posted a recipe for it. Over the years, we have perfected our own version of it. We can't always find the right ingredients and regular sour cream can be substituted for Mexican sour crema, however, no other cheese can replace cotija. I wouldn't even attempt it with parmesan. But, I am grilled corn snob. And, if I can find cotija in South Carolina, then most of you should have no problem. Here is the recipe - it serves 4, but you can easily make this corn a meal, in my opinion.

Shuck 4 ears of corn.
Place on hot grill turning to be sure that all sides of corn get grilled. Remove when some kernels are black and others are bright yellow.
Let cool.

Once cool, lather with sour cream.
Then dust each cob with cotija.
Sprinkle cayenne pepper on one side and serve with limes. The key to the limes is to squeeze before biting into the corn to experience the taste explosion.

Kebabs 101

Last week, I heard two different radio segments about kebabs and I was instantly inspired to whip some leftovers into something fancy. So, I defrosted a piece of meat I had in my freezer and took out the grouper from the previous night. I diced both, seasoned them with salt and pepper and placed them on skewers. Both segments had dispelled the soaking skewers in water theory so I opted not to do it. They said that the water is supposed to soak up the heat before it gets to the wood but every time I had tried it didn't work. Now I feel justified.

Then I took a squash from the garden, an onion and a red pepper, diced them and alternated those on skewers. Always cook meats together and vegetables together - this is because everything cooks at different times. I drizzled olive oil on those. I heated up the grill and stuck the vegetables on. This is an important lesson I learned - vegetables take much longer than meats. Once the vegetables looked like they were getting crispy, I stuck on the meat. Then the grouper when everything else looked about done. The grouper literally took about 3 minutes. Very easy and tasty.

So, I was thinking that with this it might be nice to have an aromatic rice. What is an aromatic rice? It's a rice lightly flavored with an herb. I had some leftover cilantro that I thought would taste good, at least in my mind. I found a few recipes on online and after having read through them I decided I could concoct my own recipe. So, here it is:

Chop abt 1/2 cup cilantro.
Juice 1 lime then zest and set aside
Mince 1 clove garlic.
In a sauce pan, saute garlic and rice in olive oil about 5 minutes. Use any rice - I used white. Rice is roughly 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water.
Once the garlic is soft, add water/broth and lime juice. Let water boil, then reduce to simmer about 20 minutes. Essentially, make rice as you normally would.
When rice is done, mix in cilantro and lime zest and serve. You may need to salt & pepper to taste.


Dinner was delicious and CityBaby enjoyed it, too.

Summer Dining

Dinner takes on a whole new meaning in the summer. I am inspired by my garden and the warm weather and the concept of whole, fresh food. I find myself steering clear of prepared foods. Each week I am trying to create dinners that appeal to everyone (a toddler included) and are fairly easy. This dinner scored high in all areas. Roasted grouper with peach salsa. Grouper is a hearty fish with great natural flavor so it doesn't need a lot of seasoning. Peach salsa is the perfect partner: fresh, sweet and tangy all at once. Here are recipes:

Grouper:
Heat a pan on medium heat and sparsely cover with olive oil - approx. 1-2 tablespoons. As pans heats, swirl oil around pan.
Salt & pepper both sides of fish.
When oil becomes very loose, pan is hot enough. Place fish in pan and let it sit for about 5 minutes. The fish should be opaque about halfway through.
Flip and let fish sit another 5 minutes. Fish should be completely opaque and should feel firm.
Remove from pan and serve immediately.

Peach Salsa:
Peel & dice 4 peaches.
Dice about 3/4 of a red pepper.
Thinly slice 2 scallions.
Cop about 1/2 cup of cilantro.
Mince 1 clove of garlic.
Juice 1 lemon (use about 1/4 cup of lemon juice)
Mix all ingredients and slat & pepper to taste.
I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light.



This dish can be served with rice - jasmine, brown, basmati or white - it all works. Bon Appetit!

Tied in Knots

Since I had that extra pack of yeast hanging around I decided to undertake the challenge of pretzels. I decided on hard pretzels even though I love soft pretzels. The last thing I need in my house is 10 soft, warm pretzels that need to be eaten within 30 minutes. Competiton eating is not my thing. I figured I could get longevity out of hard pretzels since we eat a lot of pretzels in our house. I once again turned to my trusty, old friend Alton Brown. I was even more optimistic when I read that the white flour could be substituted with whole wheat. I read through the entire recipe before I decided I could handle it. Pretzels are suprisingly much easier than both challah and pizza dough. I used course sea salt and sesame seeds to garnish. I visited both Whole Foods and Earthfare in search of pretzel salt and came up empty.

Here's the recipe and pictures.