Tomatoes and Beans
The tomatoes are starting to come in fast and furious. We're now harvesting daily.
With different varieties, there are different uses. In the grand scheme of things, they're all interchangeable, but they all have characteristics that make them better at some things than others. The San Marzanos are perfect for sauce. The Principe Borghese are perfect for sun-drying. The Black Krim, Yellow, and Green Stripe are perfect for salads and sandwiches.
And they all combine well.
Tonight, we made a bean salad using a homemade sauce from the San Marzanos, mixed with beans, served over Black Krims, and topped with sun-dried Principe Borghese.
What a treat!
The concept for the bean recipe came from Bon Appetit.
Tomato and Bean Salad
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 can beans, drained and rinsed
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- salt & pepper, to taste
- thick sliced heirloom tomatoes
- sun-dried tomatoes
- grated parmigiano
Mix tomato sauce, beans, green onions, garlic, oregano, and red wine vinegar. Taste and add salt and pepper, as needed.
Arrange thick-sliced heirloom tomatoes on plate. Top with bean mixture. Sprinkle with parmigiano and top with sun-dried tomatoes.
For the sun-dried tomatoes...
Dried Tomatoes
Slice tomatoes in half and lay out cut-side up on a lined baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle with salt.
Place in a 225°F oven for 2 1/2 hours.
After 2 1/2 hours, remove from oven and flatten with a small spatula.
Return to oven for an addition 2 1/2 hours or until dried to your preference.
You can turn off the oven and leave them in overnight.
Store in refrigerator.
If you're growing some smaller tomatoes, this is a great way to preserve them when they start coming in faster than you can eat them. The tomato flavor just explodes in your mouth.
Perfection.
Thugs and Ainsley
I'm sitting here with the Summer Cold From Hell.
Since I actually don't remember the last time I had a cold - it's been a few years, at least - I suppose I shouldn't complain, too much.
On the other hand, it really sucks. We missed out on a Phillies/Giants game, today, but since the Phillies beat my Giants 10-2, I suppose that wasn't such a bad thing...
Colds tend to dull the taste buds, so I was looking for something fairly bold and spicy - and I had two new sources - so I went with one from each.
The first was my Thug Kitchen Cookbook. It is a hoot - and it has some outstanding recipes! I started off with 5-Spice Fried Rice with Sweet Potatoes. I more or less followed the recipe, but they call for adding bitter greens in and I didn't have any, so I just ignored that part. I used Carolina Gold Rice Grits from Anson Mills for the short-grain rice.
5-Spice Fried Rice with Sweet Potatoes
adapted from Thug Kitchen
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and sliced into small cubes
- 2 tsp neutral oil
- 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 1/4 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp chili paste or sriracha
- 4 cups cooked short grain rice
- 1/2 cup sliced green onions
- 1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
Directions:
Heat 1 tsp of oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the sweet potato and two tbsp of water and stir fry, stirring often, for about 5-8 minutes until the potato is tender and starting to brown. Add more water if the potato starts to stick.
Add the onion and carrot and continue to stir fry for another 3 minutes, or until the onions are translucent.
Add the 5-spice powder and garlic and stir fry for 1-2 more minutes. Remove all vegetables from the pan, cover and set aside.
Mix soy sauce, rice vinegar and Sriracha in a small bowl.
Heat the remaining oil in the wok over medium heat. Add the cooked rice and stir fry until warm, approximately 5 minutes. Add the sauce mix and the vegetables, plus the peas to the rice and mix well.
Stir fry for another 1-3 minutes. Fold in green onions.
Next up was a Caribbean Chicken from Ainsley Harriott's Street Food. It's a show on Netflix where this guy travels around the world eating street food. A job I should have...
He used bone-in chicken breasts. I used a single boneless breast I cut into strips before marinating. I also adjusted the marinade ingredients - it's simply equal parts lime, rum, and soy sauce - and used demerara sugar in place of palm.
Rum-Drunk Barbecued Chicken
adapted from Ainsley Harriott's Street Food
- 6 bone-in chicken breasts
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) lime juice
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) dark rum
- 125 ml (1/2 cup) dark soy sauce
- 1 small bunch thyme, leaves picked and coarsely chopped
- 1 long red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
- 3 tsp grated palm sugar
Instructions
To make the marinade, place all the ingredients in a large airtight container and shake to combine well.
Using a sharp knife, make 2-3 deep incisions through the skin side of the chicken, to help the marinade permeate the flesh. Add the chicken to the marinade, stir to coat well, then cover and stand for 30 minutes, or refrigerate overnight if time permits.
Meanwhile, preheat the grill to medium heat.
Remove the chicken from the marinade and cook, basting with the marinade and turning regularly, for 15 minutes or until just cooked through. Rest for 5 minutes and serve.
Surprisingly good! There was definitely that rum flavor, but not overpowering. It really was balanced with the lime and the soy sauce.
And both the rice and the chicken had some heat. They balanced one another, as well.
I'm sure we'll be seeing more fun recipes from both as time goes on.
The Last of the Eggplant
We have eggplants coming in out back - time to use up the last of last years' harvest.
At the end of the season, I took the last few eggplants and sliced them into cutlets, breaded them, and froze them. They were perfect for quick meals.
There was one package left.
Victor decided he was going to do an eggplant dish with gnocchi, but found some ricotta he had made and frozen, so he ended up making an eggplant lasagne - the gnocchi will wait for another day.
He took a bit of his homemade sauce and placed it in the dish. Then went a couple of eggplant cutlets and ricotta. On top of that went Italian long hot peppers we had cooked in the 'fridge, a bit of cheese, more eggplant, ricotta, sauce, cheese.
Into a 350°F oven for 35 minutes.
It was the perfect dinner - full of flavor, filling, and juuuuust spicy enough. the Italian Long Hot peppers from Gentile's have been really inconsistent in their heat. This mixture proved to be perfect as a filling.
I really wanted to lick my plate, but I didn't eat it all. Tomorrow is our weigh-in and year-end assessment.
I need to look svelte.
Grilled Vegetable Salad
Ahhh... the joys of Summer on the east coast... oppressive heat and humidity, thunderstorms, power and cable outages... Just another day in paradise.
The storms have been interesting. High winds and torrential rains for two or three minutes followed by blue skies, followed by more wind and rain. It's actually neat to sit out back and watch it all come down - until the wind starts blowing sideways, that is... Then it's time to head back inside and hope the power stays on. It's amazing how fast muggy can penetrate an otherwise well-insulated home.
Our grill is covered, so we can cook outdoors in any weather - and that definitely came in handy, today - starting early with a clean-out-the-'fridge-salad.
Corn, broccoli, green onions, yellow zucchini, carrots, mini peppers, and mushrooms...
This was about as simple and basic as anything can be. I doused everything with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and tossed them on the grill. From there, they got chopped and mixed with some fresh herbs from the garden, olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar.
I sprinkled on a bit more salt and pepper, and it was done. Really easy and really really good!
I mixed some burger with canned diced green chiles and a bit of hot pepper sauce, grilled 'em, and placed them on thick slices of tomato.
Yesterday, I had roasted the first of our beets from the garden, so they went onto the plate, as well.
The perfect stormy weather summer dinner!
Cucumber and Bean Salad
The garden is starting to produce! Beans and cucumbers abound, beets are almost ready, eggplants and tomatillos are starting to poke their heads out, peppers are coming in, and in a few weeks we're going to be inundated with tomatoes. We may even see a few leeks!
I love it!
Produce fresh from your own garden is so rewarding - and so good. The factory-farmed-picked-before-it-is-ripe produce of the grocery stores just can't compare.
After bringing in our haul, Victor jumped in and made a really good salad with the beans and cucumber.
He started by blanching the beans - those purple beans turn green the minute they hit the water - and then peeled and sliced the cuke. From there, he added thinly sliced radishes and thinly sliced onion. The dressing was lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. We had started a new batch of Limoncello earlier in the day, so we have lots of lemon juice! A sprinkling of feta finished it off.
Very simple and very refreshing!
I sliced up a pork tenderloin and marinated it in Pistachio Liqueur. I pan-fried it and added some mixed mushrooms and pine nuts along with another splash of pistachio liqueur. I would have added pistachios, but we were out. On the shopping list for tomorrow.
Really simple and really refreshing.
Spicy!
A few days ago I made a hot pepper sauce from a bunch of dried peppers I've been collecting - anaheim. guajillo, chiles de árbol, ancho - and bottled it up. It's fiery-hot but with lots of flavor.
I used it as a BBQ sauce last night, and tonight it was mixed into ground beef with bell peppers and onions. I made patties and stuffed them with monterey jack cheese, and onto the grill, they went.
As man does not live by burger alone, I grabbed some vegetables out of the vegetable bin and went to work.
I started with half of a small bulb of fennel, several radishes, a couple of white mushrooms, and a zucchini. I love how fennel goes from licorice to sweet when cooked and radishes go from peppery to the same. Mushrooms and zucchini just absorb flavor.
With a fairly spicy burger, I wanted the veggies to compliment it, but wasn't sure what to do. I opened the cupboard for inspiration and found a bottle of Trader Joe's Jalapeño Sauce I had picked up last week as an impulse buy. I don't often buy sauces like this, but... every now and again, they're not bad to have around.
Tonight was one of those times. I cooked off the veggies and added a hefty splash of jalapeño sauce at the last minute to pull everything together. It worked well!
It tied the veggies together while allowing each to retain their own unique flavor., and it was just spicy enough to be interesting without being overpowering.
The burgers were fun, as well. Lots of spice but they were mellowed by the monterey jack cheese. The veggies picked up the flavors of the burger while being stand-alone great without them.
All-in-all, a very successful meal!
I can see the sauce being stirred into an avocado for a 10-second guacamole... or even as a dipping sauce for quesadillas.
I'll figure out something. Waste not, want not...
Pickled Onions
A few months ago I made something that called for pickled onions to be served with it. I have no idea what that particular recipe was, mainly, because the recipe made quite a bit and we've used them on so many different things, everything just blends together in the recipe box that is my mind.
It's interesting how the mind works... I can recall a recipe or a flavor or a taste or a concept - but not always recall the source. I think it's sensory overload. Or the drugs I took in my youth...
Whatever the reason, we've been keeping a jar of the onions in the 'fridge, since they really are good on anything - like on a grilled chicken breast, tonight.
I've made it with apple cider vinegar and white balsamic, thus far. I think just about any vinegar would work.
Play with it!
Pickled Onions
- 1 red onion, very thinly sliced
- 2 radishes, very thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Mix vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pepper together. Place thinly sliced vegetables in a mason jar and cover with the vinegar solution. Cover and refrigerate. It will keep indefinitely - although you'll use it up in no time!
Fresh Eggs - South of the Wall Style
When you have fresh eggs, you need to highlight them - and what better way than atop your dinner? Victor saw a recipe for a Costa Rican rice and beans dish that we didn't have the ingredients for, but the concept was solid - we went with the concept and ingredients in the house.
One of the more fun things about cooking is seeing a recipe and creating something else out of it. It's pretty much why - with a few exceptions - we seldom have the same meal twice.
The published recipe was for rice and beans and a very specific Costa Rican condiment - that we definitely didn't have. But we did have rice and beans and fresh tomatoes and zucchini and red onions and flour tortillas - and lots of spices.
I started by cooking some white rice with garlic, onion, and a pinch of chili powder. Meanwhile, in a skillet, I sautéed a bit of red onion with a chopped zucchini and some cumin and cayenne pepper. When it was properly wilted, I added a diced tomato, the cooked rice and a can of drained and rinsed black beans.
I stirred it all together and cooked it until the tomatoes started breaking down a bit and everything was hot all the way through.
Onto the plate went a flour tortilla and atop that went the rice and beans and atop that went two fried eggs.
I ate the majority of the goodness and then took the remaining bits and rolled them up in the tortilla and finished everything off like a burrito.
It was really good.
More Salads
It's 80°F right now... that's around 27°C for the rest of the world... It's been really nice all day long.
After our gym workout, we did our produce run to Gentile's, I took a truckload of yard garbage to the dump, and Victor went off to an eye doctor appointment.
In between all of that, we roasted beets, fried peppers, hard-boiled eggs, and made a couple of salads. Multi-tasking.
Our secret to our lunch salads is having stuff readily available. We can have a salad on a plate in mere minutes. It just takes a bit of advance planning - something from those years of restaurants and hotels that is finally paying off.
First thing is hard-cooked eggs. These are breakfast and salad items, so we always have a lot of them.
It took me years and years, but I finally figured out how to cook them so they will peel. I steam them for 20 minutes. I do not boil them in water. It's working.
And roasted beets... Both red and golden - they look just spectacular - and taste even better. Victor always hated beets. He's the one who picked them out at the produce store and roasted them. Never say never.
And then a couple of salads...
I soaked a pound of cannellini beans last night and made a really simple salad - carrots, celery, radishes, leeks, a bit of garlic... lots of crunchy things to go with the soft beans.
Oregano, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Simple, and really yummy.
Next is a rice and grain salad. Red rice, farro, and barley, with more leeks, watermelon radishes, artichoke hearts, broccoli, and zucchini, with a dressing of tomatillo salsa and south of the wall-type spices.
Besides a great dinner, tonight, these will get us through about 3 or 4 days - and then we'll start on another batch.
Tonight's dinner included all of the above and avocado, tomato, lots of greens, a NY steak, and Spicy French Dressing.
The perfect end to an industrious day.
Asparagus Risotto
For more years than I care to remember, risotto has just been something I make. There is no recipe - it just is. It's one of those dishes that is more technique than anything else - and once you know the technique... well... it's pretty quick and easy to do.
That being said, we were watching an episode of Moveable Feast - the cooking show attached to Fine Cooking Magazine - and saw the Costardi Brothers - Christian and Manuel - create a tomato risotto at their restaurant near Milano that looked stunning. While it appeared fairly basic, I wanted to see exactly what they had done. No matter how much I try, the recipe is elusive. I cannot find it, online.
I am reasonably certain I can make a pretty good interpretation based on what I saw on TV, but what Victor found in his searching was a recipe for their Asparagus Risotto. And we just happened to have a bunch of asparagus in the 'fridge and a brand new box of carnaroli rice.
Carnaroli rice is one of the three main risotto rices of Italy - and the most preferred in Italy. It is regularly hailed as the king or the caviar of Italian rices. It's also the most forgiving in cooking. I can buy it locally for the same price as the better-known and more readily-available arborio, so I go for the gusto.
The dish came out as one of the top risottos we have ever cooked. Really! The flavors were pure - no onion and garlic. No wine. No extraneous herbs or seasonings. Just the pure flavor of the asparagus and rice, complimented by the various toppings. Each one added its own bit of flavor - a burst of lemon, a bit of olivey salt, a crunch of pine nut, the sweetness of the tomato.
It really was perfection on a plate - and I learned a new technique - toasting the rice in a dry skillet. And by not using a lot of extraneous herbs, spices, and ingredients, it allowed for the main base flavor to shine.
Asparagus Risotto
Asparagus
- 1 bunch of asparagus, cut into pieces
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Tomato Confit
- 1 tomato
- 1 tbsp of dark muscavado sugar
- flaky sea salt
- extra virgin olive oil
Risotto
- 320g of carnaroli risotto rice
- 1 qt of vegetable stock, hot
- 4 asparagus spears, each sliced into 4
- 50g of butter
- 50g of Parmesan, grated
- salt
- pepper
Garnish
- asparagus tips
- 10g of pine nuts
- 4 black olives, chopped
- zest of 1 lemon
Method
1. Place the asparagus in a small saucepan and just cover with water. Add the bicarbonate of soda and cook for 5–6 minutes, until tender. Drain, reserving the cooking water
2. Blitz with a hand-blender until you obtain a smooth cream, adding some of the cooking water if necessary
3. Preheat the oven to 140°C/285°F
4. Cut a small cross on the bottom of the tomato and blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds. Cool immediately in iced water
5. Remove the skin, quarter, and put on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Sprinkle with sugar, salt and a drizzle of oil. Bake for 30 minutes
6. To cook the risotto, add the rice and toast it for a couple of minutes. Season with salt and pepper and gradually add the vegetable stock
7. When half cooked, add the asparagus cream and finish cooking
8. Add the the butter and Parmesan. Stir until creamy
9. To serve, place the rice on a plate and add the confit tomato, asparagus, pine nuts and chopped olives. Grate over some lemon zest and enjoy
The goal, now, is to make the tomato risotto and see if it can compare.
I have a sneaking feeling it's going to!
Sweet Potatoes
Last night there was a cooking show on TV - in the background while we were searching for a recorded program - that was audio but not visual. The only thing I heard was something along the lines of "slice the sweet potatoes about 3/4" thick and cover in cornmeal, fry in a minimum of oil, the potato caramelizes..." We went on to watch our recorded show, but that little blurb stayed with me.
Tonight, I decided to create what I think it was I heard.
One sweet potato, peeled, and cut into six slices. I drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and then dredged them in cornmeal. Fried in just a tad of olive oil over medium heat.
They were delicious!
I grilled two of our Martin's Sausages - hot pepper and onion, this time around - and served with a side of mushrooms and asparagus. The leftover asparagus will become part of tomorrow's lunch.
A really simple meal - and it took no time to make.
Sprouted Lentils
Several days ago, an ad for a stainless steel mesh mason jar screen popped up on my Facebook page. The screen, said the ad, was for making lentil sprouts. While the majority of the ads I see on Facebook have no connection to my life or any sort of reality, this one intrigued me. At any given moment we have pounds of lentils in the house.
I clicked on the ad - I'll be sure to get a bazillion ads for mason jar accessories, now, although they will be better than incontinence pads and hearing aids - and up popped a recipe for making the sprouts with their hand little gadget.
My first thought was I have tons of cheesecloth - I don't need a stainless steel mesh cover. My second thought was to make some. I used to make alfalfa sprouts back in the pot-smoking '70s but had relied on the grocery store variety until salmonella pretty much removed them from sale around here.
I really, really like sprouts - and with salad season upon us, I couldn't think of an easier project or tastier addition to out salads.
This is one of those things that if you have kids, you can get them involved and maybe even eat something different!
Sprouted Lentils
- 1 1qt mason jar with ring
- square of doubled cheese cloth
- 1/2 cup lentils - I used French green lentils, but brown lentils will work quite well
Rinse lentils well. Place in jar and add three cups of cool water. Cover with cheese cloth, place ring on to hold tight. Let sit overnight.
The following morning, drain the lentils, and rinse them very well, and drain. Place jar on its side on a plate or shallow bowl to allow water to completely drain so lentils are not sitting in water.
Do this twice a day.
Continue doing this until sprouts are about a half-inch or so long - maybe three days. At this point, rinse and drain one final time and place in a covered container in the 'fridge.
They should keep about a week.
They are just slightly crunchy with that perfect sprout flavor. We put them on our lunch salads, today - a perfect addition.
And speaking of perfect, lentils are a nutritional powerhouse - and sprouted lentils, even more so.
Check them out at Nutritional Values.
And then make some.