Fancy Pants Spaghetti

Sometimes I forget about the easiest dishes when it comes to deciding what's for dinner. Like spaghetti with marinara sauce.  I seriously almost ordered spaghetti with "veggie balls" from Pizza Luce last week when I already had all the ingredients to make my own at home.  Whoa.  Time to slow down and plan some meals, Liz.  

So tonight we sat down to some gluten free (Tinkyada brand) spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce.  The sauce included my usual recipe for canning, plus a giant handful of roasted & pickled red peppers, oil cured olives and spinach.

I wasn't planning on having tofu with the pasta, but I happened to find some tomato-y vinaigrette in the back of the fridge that told me it wanted to become tofu marinade.  [Want to know a secret?  That tomato vinaigrette happened because I accidentally poured twice as much vinegar into my salsa recipe when I was canning a couple weeks ago.  So I bailed out 1/2 the amount of tomato-y, onion-y vinegar and mixed it with olive oil to use as salad dressing.  A happy accident.]

I only had time to marinate the tofu for about 15 minutes, but I sprinkled it with nutritional yeast and salt while it was browning on my grill pan and that crusted up really nicely and helped seal in the bright, vinegary, tomato flavor.

We ate this by candlelight outside on the deck.  Faawwnnncy!

It's Tomato Day!

I don't do all my tomato canning in one day, but I do reserve one day a year for buying a 1/2 bushel of tomatoes and making sauce.  Given that every single other Saturday this month is filled with canning classes and demos*, this was the chosen day.  Here's a couple logistical tips for canning a lot of tomatoes by yourself:

1.  Bring a little cart on wheels for hefting those tomatoes through the farmer's market.  I use a luggage dolly thingie with a cardboard box strapped to it.  It looks ridiculous when it's empty, but it's no fun carrying 24 lbs. of tomatoes through the whole market. You'll be lifting plenty of jars and heavy pots later.

2.  Use your sink.  I don't know about you, but I don't have bowl big enough to hold this amount of tomatoes.  So make use of your (sparkling clean) sink!  Another option: turn your cake-holder tupperware thing upside down and use it as a bowl.

3.  Make sure you weigh or measure your tomatoes carefully.  Don't count on that 1/2 bushel to be exactly 24 lbs.- Following safe, tested recipes and the proportions they call for is really important in avoiding killing anyone with your canned goods.  On that same note: Please don't skip the lemon juice (or citric acid)  in your canned tomatoes.

4.  Make sure you have a pot that's big enough.  This one barely cuts it and it holds 8 quarts.  I often end up splitting my tomato sauce into two pans the same size and putting a half recipe in each.  Once the sauce has reduced, I can combine them so that all the jars taste consistent.

5.  If you must blanch tomatoes for your recipe, for goodness sake, don't use up all the ice in your freezer cooling the tomatoes down.  You're going to need that ice for your drinks while you can!  Use the sink again- Fill it with cold water and add a couple ice packs (the kind you use in coolers) to keep the water chilled even when you're adding boiling hot blanched tomatoes to the sink.

6.  If you can avoid it, skip blanching and peeling tomatoes.  I'm a little bit in love with my food mill for making sauce and juice. You just have to heat up your tomatoes quickly and completely, letting them all soften.  Then crank the food mill around a few million times and you have a lovely, smooth tomato sauce (or thick juice, depending on the size insert in your food mill).  Don't think you can skip a step and just smash raw tomatoes through this baby.  You'll end up with what's called a "cold break" in your tomato juice.  That's where the juice and the solids separate and there's no way you're going to win at the state fair with a jar like that.

*I have some fun canning events coming up!  
Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011 I'll be at Warners' Stellian in St. Paul teaching folks to can pickled green beans.  Just click the link to get registration info.  I'm really excited about teaching canning at a home appliance store, especially since this store is like a second home to me after my year of broken appliances.  Warners' Stellian saved me every time (and they're not paying me to say this).

I'll also be at the Minneapolis Farmers Market on October 1, demonstrating how to make pickled Indian-spiced carrots.  These carrots are sweet, spicy, tangy and crazy addictive.

Overgrown Green Beans?

My favorite way to eat green beans is to grill or saute them very briefly- so they're bright green and still snappy.  But when I've neglected to harvest the beans for over a week, I end up with overgrown pods that I'm tempted to toss in the compost.  These beans are way too tough to eat nearly raw- you'd get a serious jaw workout trying to get these down.

This is where Southern cuisine saves me.  While I typically shy away from long-simmered vegetables in favor of fresh flavors now, I have to admit there's a place in my kitchen for green beans boiled up until they nearly fall apart.  I just leave out the bacon grease.

I used to sit and eat cold green beans straight out of the can when I was a little girl.  I loved the tenderness of the pods, the way you could split them in half and eat the little beans from inside and, of course, the extreme saltiness of the canned beans.  Even better were canned green beans with little skinned new potatoes (also canned).

So now, when I have overgrown green beans, I just toss them into a pot with some little potatoes (skin on for me, now), a chopped onion, and water to cover and boil away until everything is tender as can be.  A vegetable bouillon cube, sea salt and pepper is all that is needed to flavor this dish.

This past week I served these up with an heirloom tomato salad dressed with olive oil, honey and red wine vinegar.  The bowl of purple hull peas on the side was a last minute addition to the menu- I just dropped the frozen peas into the crockpot with an onion and some water before I went to work.  When I came home, they were perfectly cooked and ready for dinner.

Second Only to Salsa

This time of year, I love salsa like it's a member of my family.  As soon as we start harvesting tomatoes, I start a routine of keeping a quart jar of salsa in the fridge at all times.  I just finished my daily bowl of chips and salsa a few minutes ago, in fact.

But my second favorite use for an abundance of fresh tomatoes is tomato soup.  I don't really care much for the stuff in the red and white can- never have.  It was okay to dip a grilled cheese in when I was a kid, I'm not interested in any canned tomato soup now.  I'm too snobby for that.

I much prefer a hot bowl of tomato soup made from my own garden tomatoes of all shapes, sizes and colors, pureed into the most flavorful tomato soup imaginable.  It's not flavorful because of exotic spices or anything- just pure tomato flavor!  I'm fairly certain that all I put in this soup is olive oil, a little onion, a little garlic, lots of skinned tomatoes, a pinch of allspice, sea salt and fresh basil on top.  It only needs to simmer until the tomatoes have given up their juices and the onions are tender.  Then you just buzz it in the blender until it's smooth.  If you have super fancy blender, like a Vitamix (hint, hint, family.  Christmas isn't that far away), you wouldn't even have to peel the tomatoes.

I still served it with some grilled cheese sandwiches, but we all agreed that the soup stole the show.

Tomatoes! Okay...Tomato (singular)

A full 2 weeks earlier than last year, I have my first garden tomato!  The plants are growing like crazy right now and I'm thinking about transplanting some baby tomato plants that sprang up in the kale and carrot beds into a more spacious area.  That means even more tomatoes!  I'm greedy when it comes to tomatoes.

I always devote 2 beds to tomatoes and basil.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't stop to take a photo of this first full sized tomato from the garden. I immediately ran inside, sliced it and made a tomato sandwich.  Layers of fresh bread, Veganaise, huge basil leaves, heirloom tomato, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Is anything better?

Gallery of meals

Shameful! No blog post in a week!

Here are my excuses, in no particular order:

• My stepsons are back in school, with all that entails.
• I taught 3 canning classes last week
• I haven't done much cooking really

So here's a few of the things I have eaten in the last week or two... I'll blog about salsa canning tomorrow!

Blackberries and borage flowers from the garden. The blackberries have been fat this year!

Tonight: polenta cakes with a quick ratatouille and baked tofu on top. Gotta use up that basil!

Tomato "au jous". I'm calling it that because I dipped my sandwich in it and it was freakin' amazing. Fake ham sandwich with lots of Veganaise on baguette, soaked in tomato/basil/garlic juices.

Baked seitan in the style of SusanV's "ribz" and smothered in a thrown together barbecue sauce. Served over a finely chopped garden kale salad with cherry tomatoes and homemade ranch. Hell yes.

Apple, kale, parsley, mint, ginger, lemon juice. Yum! So green and refreshing!

I'll Have the Vegetable Plate...

I had a really nice day today (so far).  

I went to a yoga class this morning and then went to work to teach a class about eating less meat and transitioning to vegetarianism.  It was a fun class with lots of samples- my favorite kind!

Then I picked up some fresh produce and headed home.  I was a little frustrated for a while because our house has been pretty messy lately.  But I sucked it up and just started cleaning.  I don't want to say how long it has been since I've mopped, so let's just say that it's a seasonal activity and winter was not the mopping season.  

As a reward for mopping (why not?), I made myself a super awesome vegetable-centric dinner right before I mopped the kitchen.  Then I took my food out on the deck when I was done and ate while watching the blue jays gather all the food the squirrels knocked out of the bird feeder.  The lilacs and the apple tree have buds on them!

Now I'm relaxing with some Late July Vanilla Bean and Green Tea sandwich cookies, some almond milk, and season 1 of House, MD from the library- I can't think of much that is more fun than that!

My dinner was inspired by some rockin' good food I tasted from the Mississippi Market deli today.  When you work at the same co-op for a long time, the deli food can get kind of boring sometimes.  But I ALWAYS look forward to the spicy cucumber and peanut salad. 

 And now I'm also in love with the Green Beans Pomodoro.  So I tried to replicate them at home.  Sure, I could probably ask our deli manager for the recipe...but that'd be cheating!  It's much more fun this way!

Green Beans Pomodoro

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 pound fresh green beans, tipped and tailed

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

3/4 cup drained canned tomatoes (I had fire roasted ones open)

sprinkle of salt and fresh ground black pepper

2 Tbsp. minced fresh basil

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat.  Add the olive oil and swirl around bottom of pan.  Add the green beans and cook, stirring a few times, until bright green with some browned sides.  Then turn off the flame and add  the garlic and tomatoes.  Let the residual heat from the pan lightly cook the green beans for a minute or two more.  Then sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and top with the fresh basil.  Serve hot or cold.  

I didn't really write down measurements for the Spicy Cucumber Salad, but here are my approximations:

Spicy Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick

1/2 cup roasted and salted peanuts

1/2 jalapeno, with seeds!

3 Tbsp. cilantro, minced

2 green onions, minced

Sprinkling of seasoned rice vinegar

Salt to taste

Combine everything and refrigerate until ready to eat.  Tastes best after marinating a bit.

Hello again

I seem to have been on an unplanned, unintentional blogging hiatus...
I swear I've still been cooking and eating, though! I've just been really busy. And when I've not been really busy, I've been really lazy. There's no in between for me, folks. It's all red light or green light.

Speaking of red and green, behold my first okra and tomatoes of the season:


The okra is from the farmer's market and the (massive) tomato is from the garden. I like my okra and tomatoes pretty simple- some salt, pepper, and garlic is really all it needs. But this time I threw in about 1/2 cup of some red wine I had left over from a tomato sauce and WOW! It was super good!

I'm a newcomer to the world of cooking with wine, probably because I'm not a wine drinker. They always say to choose a cooking wine of a good enough quality that you would drink it...But so far I haven't found that wine (I'm sure due to my taste buds rather than any fault of the wine). I've "settled" instead for using an organic red wine that was a gift years ago for fulfilling my newfound need for wine in sauces.

Have I mentioned the garden lately? We've got tomatoes galore, the broccoli is producing nice little side shoots now that the main heads have been harvested, and the pasilla peppers are going crazy! Here's what I hauled in yesterday: Those little tabasco peppers are floating in vinegar right now, making an amazing hot vinegar sauce for us to douse on our greens all winter.

I finally got around to canning some more jalapeños. These are actually part of the ridiculous jalapeño harvest of 2007. After making about 20 1/2 pints of escabeche last year, I still had a gallon bag of peppers in the freezer! They kept well, though, and are now becoming more escabeche (pickled jalapeños with carrots and onions).

Amid gardening, canning, and being lazy, I neglected to plan anything for dinner (Ironic, I know). So I succumbed to the lures of Pizza Luce and ordered a sun-dried tomato and green olive pizza while I started my next canning project.

Imagine the delivery guy's reaction as he opened the door to see a vicious black dog snarling and barking and a girl covered in blood-red spatter...
He did a double take and got the heck out of there.

Yeah, I was covered in dark sweet cherry juice after pitting 6 pounds of cherries. So was the kitchen wall. And my clothes.

But it was worth it! I have 2 quarts and 10 half-pints of cherries in a light maple & sugar syrup.
Now I'm enjoying my 1/2 day off work and getting things ready for the kids' first day of school tomorrow. I can't believe they're in 3rd grade!

PS- The state fair classes went really well! There were TONS of people there (of course) and we gave out plenty of fliers for future classes at the co-op. All that worrying for nothing...

The Sauce

So here's the sauce from last night:
The recipe said it would make 9 quarts, but I got 5 1/2. That's probably a blessing, though, because the pot was about to overflow before it reduced!
I really need a bigger stockpot.


Here's the goods:
Pickles, Tomato Sauce, Salsa, and whole tomatoes (not in the picture)
The whole house smelled so good like tomato sauce last night. Mike was kinda bummed that I had canned it all and not saved him any to eat right away- oops!

I love Hillbillies...

Tomatoes, that is.

When I saw a "Hillbilly" variety of heirloom tomatoes for sale at the co-op this year, I knew I had to get them. I mean, what a great tomato name! {You may recall that I frequently choose what variety of food to plant based solely on the name. I do the same for paint colors}

And now that I see these gorgeous tomatoes, I know I made a good choice. One of these babies is 5 1/2 inches in diameter! I'm tempted to go out and buy a scale, just so I can weigh them. The dollar in the picture is for size reference- these are not for sale.
So what to do with all these tomatoes? Some awesome Twin Cities chefs cooked at the MN Garlic Festival last weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed their tomato salad. So this is my attempt to replicate it. We sliced up one hillbilly and a few smaller yellow tomatoes for a simple salad- It fed 4 of us!
The salad was just sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, salt, pepper, and a garlic vinaigrette. Here's the super easy vinaigrette:

2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
2 Tbsp. umeboshi plum vinegar (or rice vinegar + salt to taste)
1 Tbsp. liquid sweetener (maple syrup, agave, or honey)
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Whisk it all together and enjoy the sweet/sour/salty/garlicky goodness.

Green Tamales

Tonight's meal was brought to you by the sweltering summer heat and an oven turned up to 400F.

I'm currently trying to avoid buying anything at the store, as I've already surpassed our grocery budget for the month. So everything in this meal was already in our garden, pantry, or fridge. Feel free to substitute things that are in YOUR house when you make this.

I was going to just make some collards, some beans, and some polenta...but decided to put it all together inside the collard leaves for a tamale-like dish. I love how it turned out!


Green Tamales (serves 6)

12 collard leaves

Filling
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 mild chile, finely chopped
2 cups polenta
4 cups water
1 tsp. salt

1 cup cooked kidney beans (I pressure cooked some)

Sauce
1 red pepper, seeds removed
2 medium tomatoes
1/2 sweet onion
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. salt

Start by preheating the oven to 400F. To prepare the filling, heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and mild chile, stirring as it cooks to prevent any burning. When the garlic is fragrant but not browned, add the polenta, water, and salt. Stir to completely combine. Continue stirring until you have a thick, pudding-like polenta- about 10 minutes should do it. Stir in the cooked kidney beans and remove from heat. Taste the mixture (careful- it's really hot!) and adjust salt to your liking.

Fill a wide, shallow skillet about 1/2 way up with water and heat until simmering. Then wash 12 collard leaves and remove the largest part of the stem- about 1/3-1/2 of the way up the leaf.

Then drop the leaves in the shallow pan of simmering water for, oh, maybe a minute. The leaves should still be bright green. Now it's time to assemble your rolls.

Place about 1/2 cup of filling closer to the stem end of the collard leaf.

Fold in the two lateral sides of the leaf.
The fold up the stem end and continue rolling up and over the filling. Roll them tightly for a nice looking finished dish.
Pack the rolls into a lightly greased 8x11 baking dish. Then prepare your sauce.
Puree red pepper, tomatoes, onion, smoked paprika, and salt in a food processor or blender until smooth. Spoon over the collard tamales and bake, uncovered, for about 20-25 minutes.
We had ours with some tasty sweet corn smothered in Miso-"Butter".
Here's an inside shot:
As you can see- the polenta firms up nicely to mimic a tamale. Except with these tamales you can eat the wrapper!

There's nothing for dinner...

Do you ever have those days when you've spent so much time working on a project in the kitchen (homemade bread, a cake, jam, etc.) that you're too tired to cook dinner? I've had a few of those lately. I've had some serious fun making jam, baking for other folks, and gardening, but sometime after all that I just want to order pizza. And since I'm still taking the Eat Local America challenge, I should really focus on making practical meals.

Yesterday I realized that we had a TON of cucumbers. I pick 2-3 per day and we only eat 1 every few days. So it was time to make pickles. This time I used this recipe and added some chili peppers and grape leaves (to keep the pickles crisp). I'm always on a hunt for the perfect pickle recipe. Today after weeding the garden, I found another quart's worth of cucumbers. Of course- AFTER- I make pickles I find the hiding cukes.
Amazingly enough, I still cooked some actual meals after making the pickles.

So here are some of the foods I've enjoyed in the last 2 days. Yesterday the kids and I went to the Farmer's Market and found some really awesome stuff. Perhaps our favorite thing to get is garlic bread from some folks that use local, organic flour. We sliced it up with some Veganaise, fresh local tomatoes, and basil from the garden to make some super good tomato sandwiches. I love that lettuce-leaf basil.


Last night I wanted soup for some reason (maybe because it was nearly 90 in our house and, like, 100% humidity). So here are the local veggies I rounded up for the soup:

Carrots from the farmer's market (hooray for local carrots!)
The first sweet corn of the season
local purple scallions from the co-op
Garlic from the backyard
local shell peas from the co-op
pasilla chilies from the garden

I just simmered this up in a soup pot with a vegan bouillon cube. It sure was tasty.
This morning I got to spend some quality time with the boys. We had tofu scramble with the aforementioned veggies, sesame semolina bread from the farmer's market, and "apple dippers" as mcdonald's would call it: Early crop tart apples dipped in wildwood plain yogurt with maple syrup and cinnamon. Plus some local raspberries.


So I didn't feel tempted to order pizza today- Mission accomplished.

Hey Ladies...

I've been battling aphids on my tomato plants since June. I've never noticed any aphids in my gardens before, but they started out on one tomato plant this year and spread to the others. It was my excitement to try this one particular tomato variety that kept me from plucking the infested plant before things got out of hand.

Every year I plant different varieties of heirloom tomatoes. I've tried the brandywines, green zebras, garden peach, yellow pear, Juan Flame, Black Krim, and countless others. I've enjoyed every one of them, but I rarely repeat them because there's something special about planting a new (old) variety. Sometimes I'll hear about a variety I want to try and seek it out. Other times (okay, most times) I just like the name of the tomato plant so I'll buy it. I mean, how can you resist a tomato called the "Hillbilly"? Such was also the case with the Italian Cream Sausage tomatoes.

I know, I know. Those tomatoes don't sound vegan, kosher, or even healthy. Maybe that's why they appealed to me so much... And when aphids appeared on my Italian Cream Sausage plant, I just couldn't bring myself to destroy the plant.

I've tried a few of the recommended treatments- I've inspected each leaf, squishing the aphids and their larvae. I've sprayed them with a high pressure hose to knock them off . I've misted them with soapy water to drown the suckers. Yet they still spread to my other tomatoes.

So now, with 6 tomato plants afflicted, I'm bringing in the big guns.

Ladybugs LOVE aphids. Me: not so much. So I'll let the ladies do the work on this one.
{By the way, I got them at Mother Earth Gardens in Minneapolis. They're awesome}

The boys helped me water the garden to encourage the thirsty ladybugs to stay a while, have a drink, and have a bite (of aphids) to eat. Then we spritzed them with some sugar water to make them a little sticky so they won't want to fly too soon. {Don't worry- it doesn't hurt them}
The boys helped me spread the ladies on the tomato plants. We only used about 1/2 the bag. The ladybugs went back in the fridge for a nap until our second spreading. I hope they're hungry!

Some good news from the garden is that the black hollyhocks I got for Mike a few years back are finally blooming. Mike's favorite color is black and when I asked him what flowers he'd like to plant he replied, "Black ones", probably trying to be difficult. So when I found black hollyhocks, I knew we had to plant them.
When I'm out in the garden, using a pitchfork and spreading straw, mucking around in compost, I like to pretend I'm a real farmer. This is how hardcore I feel.

The Perfect Sunday

Today was a delightful day. I woke up at around 9am and cooked some soup for breakfast (Christmas lima beans, carrots, and celery). Sundays are my day to clean up the house a bit, so I cleaned the bathroom and swept the floors and cleaned the baseboards. Then I snuggled with the animals on the couch and worked sudoku puzzles. It was so warm (maybe 50?) and the sun was streaming in the windows.
Then I whipped up some wheat-free chocolate chip cookies for desserts this week. At around noon a friend came over and we did yoga for a couple hours. Then I did a little grocery shopping and got started cooking. I took my time and decided to cook exactly what I wanted, even if they didn't really go together.
This is Tinkyada pasta with Tofu-Walnut Balls. I remember seeing a recipe for these balls that called for baking them first and then covering them in an apricot glaze and baking them again...but I can't find the recipe for the life of me. But these were really good, too.

Tofu-Walnut Balls
In the food processor, combine:
1 1/2 cups oats
1 package of firm tofu
4 Tbsp tamari
1 cup walnuts
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sage

Then scoop up balls/blobs of the mixture and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes.

I served these with a nice sweet & smoky tomato sauce- kind of a hybrid between a usual tomato sauce and barbecue sauce.

Sweet & Smoky Tomato Sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
6 drops liquid smoke
2 Tbsp. apricot preserves
a splash of tamari

Saute the onions in the olive oil until the onions begin to brown, then add remaining ingredients and simmer about 20 minutes.



I also really wanted sushi. This sushi has steamed tempeh marinated in tamari, carrots, chives, red pepper strips, and wasabi veganaise. Yum!

While everything was finishing cooking, I had time to work out on the elliptical machine. Then Mike and I ate dinner out on the deck (we had to wear jackets, but at least it was kind of warm). After dinner we played boggle- Mike won, but it was really close.

Then I took a long bath while working sudoku puzzles. And then Dirt was on TV. And throughout the day I got about 3 loads of laundry done.

Can a day get any better?

Birthday Week

I haven't posted this week, but it's not because I haven't been cooking. Here are some of the highlights:

Coconut Curry Tofu. On Sunday I taught a class on cooking leafy green vegetables and had 3/4 of a can of coconut milk and 1/2 can of diced tomatoes left over. So I mixed them together with some ginger, garlic, lime juice and red pepper flakes and marinated tofu in it overnight. The next day I baked the tofu until crispy, added the marinade to steamed potatoes, carrots, kale, and onions, and served it all over brown rice. I was so impressed that the kids liked this one. It was really rich from the coconut milk and very filling.
This is out of order, but these are the rockin' good pancakes we had on Saturday after our maple syrup tapping adventure. After seeing all that sap, we really needed some pancakes!
I baked these cupcakes for the Cupcake Hero contest. The cupcake batter contains brown rice crisp cereal and the topping is basically the marshmallowy goo that would hold together a rice crispy treat. I call them Rice Crispy TreatCakes. They're gluten-free, too! I used RiceMellow cream for the marshmallows.

And last but not least: My birthday cake.
I didn't decide what flavor I was making until half-way through my birthday. I was thinking about an Italian Cream Cake, but wanted some chocolate somewhere in the cake. Then I saw an apricot almond cake recipe that looked good. So this is kind of a combination of all three ideas.
Vanilla cake with chocolate-cream cheese filling, apricot jam filling, and vanilla-coconut cream cheese frosting.

It was everything I wanted in a birthday cake. And don't feel sorry for me because I baked my own birthday cake- Getting to bake the cake was like a birthday present.