Tag Archives: Tomatoes

Pizza for Breakfast?

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I don’t think I’m the only one who loves a slice of leftover pizza for breakfast. What about a fresh, grilled pizza for breakfast? The thick meaty tomatoes from Wolfe Spring Farm prompted us to give it a try. Our weekend guest had brought a few cheeses. A buratta which we used on our bruschetta and a nice fresh mozzarella from Murray’s in Grand Central Terminal. Tomatoes, mozzarella? Fresh basil in the garden? Caprese salad? No, PIZZA! We had two crusts from Berkshire Mountain Bakery in the freezer and did this: Sliced the tomatoes, pushed out most of the seeds, salted them and let them drain for an hour or so in the sun. They got nice and tender and dried out a bit. Fortunately, I had roasted some garlic this week so we smeared a few cloves of roasted garlic on each crust, then rubbed some olive oil on them too. Sliced and layered on the mozzarella. ;aye red on the cheese, added a little salt and lots of freshly found black pepper, and grilled the whole thing for about 15 minutes. Then, we sprinkled one of them with fresh basil from the garden, and the other one with basil, fresh chopped oregano and some nasturtium flowers. I have to admit, the nasturtium flowers were for looks. Even though they are edible and have a delicate peppery taste, it was unnecessary and, frankly, weird. The pizza had a delicious blackened crust and a simple earthy taste from the garlic, tomatoes and cheese. Tonight, we’ll have leftover breakfast pizza for dinner!


PS – Deb, blogging is hard! I don’t know how you keep up!

Nearly Rained-Out Bruschetta Bar

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It was so hot and humid Saturday night. It drizzled and cleared up so many times we didn’t know whether to stay outside or not. Just in time for some wine and snacks, the weather stabilized. Low heavy fog, sunny up on the top of the hill, wine and bruschetta. What’s not to like?

So, back to the point of all this. With the lovely cherry tomatoes from Wolfe Spring Farm we made a classic, simple bruschetta. We quartered a quart of the tomatoes, tossed them with some salt and drained out the liquid for an hour or so. Then, we tossed them with a little bit of chopped fresh garlic (one or two cloves) black pepper and a bit more salt, let them sit and drain for another half hour then tossed in some fresh chopped basil from our garden and, presto! It was summer on a piece of grilled toast (Berkshire Mountain Bakery sourdough baguette, sliced, drizzled with olive oil and grilled until crispy). We also served some buratta (courtesy of our weekend guest) and some homemade hummus (nothing local or fresh except the parsley……nobody is perfect.) this was supposed to be the first course but we were so satisfied we stopped and went straight to the banana black pepper ice cream.ImageImageImageImageImageImage

Bayside Dinner in Bristol

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Had a delicious meal last night at cousins Kara and David Milner’s beautiful bayfront home in Bristol, Rhode Island. Is nothing better than a lovingly prepared home-cooked, market-driven meal prepared by someone else?? Add a to-die for view and easy-going companionship and you’ve got a recipe for a perfect evening. Kara prepared Campfire Salmon, Israeli couscous and a crunchy seasonal salad.

Kara’s Camfire Salmon

The Campfire Salmon is a variation on a recipe from a handy cookbook called Simply in Season. Kara kindly walked me through the recipe briefly. Good thing about it is that you can prepare it in advance, wrap it up in tin foil, and pop it in the fridge until you are ready to grill (or bake in oven). Kara sliced up onion, placed a large filet of wild salmon on top, sliced up lemons and local zucchini to go on top, sprinked with some fresh dill, a dash of olive oil and a splash of white wine. Fold up the tin foil and cook immediately on a heated grill or 450 degree F oven, or store in fridge until ready to do so. This versatile recipe is a great way to feed a large group and you can add/subtract veggies based on what’s in season. Like it.

On the side, I loved Kara’s crunchy salad featuring heirloom cherry tomatoes and yellow cucumbers from a local CSA, crunchy fresh corn kernels, spinach, maybe some watercress (?) and sliced sweet red onions. Kara, chime in if I missed anything.

Kara’s Salad: tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, corn, spinach, red onion and watercress

And did I mention the Sour Cream Blueberry Pie for dessert?? So yummy, with a crispy lattice top and crust. Hubs refused to even taste at the mere mention of the words “sour cream.” His loss – was scrumptious. I haven’t bugged Kara yet for the recipe and probably won’t. Fear if I make it, it will go straight to my hips.

Thank you, Kara & David!

Sharing is Caring – Double Trouble Tomato Bruschetta

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At least that’s what Barney says. Those of you with small kids will get a smile out of that. Those of you without will likely scorn me and unleash the unbabyme app on my web presence.  Ah well, can’t please everyone.

This afternoon’s post is about sharing. I am fortunate to have awesome readers who frequently send me recipes.  Going forward, I will periodically invite readers to post to this blog as well. I love sharing recipes and  collaborating to improve a meal.  And, clearly love talking about cooking with all of you.

I will be out of town the next few Saturdays, so will sadly miss my beloved CSA Pick-ups at Wolfe Spring Farm. In my place, I have drafted friend, neighbor and fellow foodie Dan Doern to wax poetic on summer’s finest. I am also sad to miss this period because it is really peak season now in the NE. Readers may remember Dan Doern from pickled haricot verts fame. No pressure, Dan, but don’t let us down.

In reality, I fear Dan will handily out-foodie me. Bring it, Dan.

And, also in the spirit of sharing, I wanted to pass along a recipe sent to me this morning by  long-time friend, social media superstar and part-time vegan, Nicolette Barber. Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do with this year’s tomato bounty. Nico shares a timely recipe for Double Tomato Bruschetta that looks scrumptious. Take your basic bruschetta recipe, add sun-dried tomatoes to increase depth of flavor and melt some mozz on top. Kick it up a notch, why dontcha?

All Recipes: Double Tomato Bruschetta

Haven’t tried the recipe, but want to. Readers, please keep sharing!

Monday Night Dinner: A Day Late, but Still Worth Talking About

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I made an easy-peasy salmon recipe last night that’s definitely worth sharing. It’s from Cooking Light  – Salmon with Roasted Tomatoes. Minimal prep time, and delicious outcome. The only con is that you do have to use your oven, which can be a downer on a summer night.

From Cooking Light: Salmon with Roasted Tomatoes

What I love about this recipe is that you don’t even have to halve the tomatoes. Wash and dry them, toss with some olive oil, garlic cloves, thyme and salt and pepper. Done! The recipe tells you to mince the garlic, but I simplified it further by leaving the garlic cloves whole and smashing them. I also added a quartered hothouse tomato simply because I had it on hand. All tomatoes and garlic were from my CSA Pick-up on Saturday. This week’s tomatoes are done and done.

Tomatoes Ready to Roast

I do like roasted tomatoes. Check out another great roasted tomato recipe here.

And here’s my final product:

Final product: Salmon with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Preview: CSA Pick-up 8/4/12

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All this and more! Wow, I felt exhausted and excited just looking at this list. And then I spied a basket of small, shiny green peppers. I chatted with June and mentioned that there was so much included in this week’s pick-up that she didn’t bother with the peppers even. She feared members would have my reaction! But when I told her I was thinking about gazpacho, she kindly offered to pick a few cucumbers for me and said to help myself the peppers, too. So nice! Thank you, June!

Stay tuned for more on the recipes…

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Vegetables and Trickery

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I had absolutely no plans for Friday night dinner. I vaguely thought we’d pick up something ready to go for dinner and relished the absolute lack of planning. While in the car, we made a pit stop at the Farmer’s Market in Sheffield, MA, in search of inspiration for our meal. I was conscious not to be tempted by the wares on display and splurge the night before our CSA Pick-up, and focus only on the meal at hand. I also knew what we had in the house

  • 1 v large zucchini
  • 1/4 head of cabbage
  • Potatoes galore
  • Eggs

Pretty limited selection, I know. We picked up a few ears of corn from a trusted farmer and had hopes that it would be tastier than last week’s. Hubs and I talked over a tomato salad and looked around for some, but only “paste tomatoes” were on display.  Still early in the season, said Dominic and his crew from Moon in the Pond Farm. A vague idea started forming in my mind about zucchini fritters or some kind of veg pancake. I suggested it to Hubs and he looked nonplussed.

I hit the books when we got home and offered a few suggestions based on an old copy of Bon Appetit and my handy How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbok by, you guessed it, my food idol Mark Bittman. I suggested this recipe for Shaved Zucchini with Parmesan and Pine Nuts to Hubs. He scoffed – too obvious a use of zucchini, a verboten vegetable. I then suggested some fritter recipes and we settled on Korean Style Crispy Vegetable Pancakes. The fact that the recipe name contained the words “pancake” and “crispy” helped sell it.

Vegetable Trickery: Korean Style Crispy Vegetable Pancake

I followed the recipe with the exception of using rice flour, which I didn’t have on a hand. I halved the recipe and it made 2 large pancakes. My first pancake did not turn out as crispy and I considered it my “tester” pancake, a phrase coined by Hubs. The second pancake is pictured above. I used about a cup of shredded zucchini, a healthy handful of thinly shredded cabbage, as well as a carrot, scallions and chives from the garden.

So that’s where the trickery comes in. You couldn’t individually identify the zucchini or cabbage, but they were in there. On their own, these ingredients would never fly in our house, but mixed into a dish with the word “pancake” in it, I could get away with it. There are a bunch of food writers out there proposing recipes like this all the time, especially for kids.  Things like stashing sweet potatoes in muffins, not to name names [Jessica Seinfeld], but I’m generally not a proponent of this method. I want ingredients to shine and for the people I’m cooking for to know what they are eating. But I mention it here because you could put almost any veg in this dish, serve it with dipping sauce and it would be roundly praised.

Scallion Ginger dipping sauce

Final word from Hubs: “Pretty good for an impromptu meal.” I would definitely make the Crispy Pancakes again, using rice flour as Bittman recommends. We also had corn on the cob and some mixed greens. The corn was sweet and succulent, with even rows of ears. As it should be.

Tomatillo Madness

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So what happened to the tomatillos? As many folks suggested, I prepared salsa verde, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and downright tasty. No fear factor anymore, my little green friends. The technique I had seen down in Mexico was more complex, using a comal, and probably more authentic, too, but the end result of this recipe was delicious. I boiled the whole tomatillos, then used the hand blender to blend them with white onion, cilantro and jalapeno. No need to marginalize this because of its simplicity – it definitely worked.

Looking to get a head start on things, I made the salsa verde Monday night in prep for Wednesday’s night menu inspired by Novagirl’s comment on shrimp tacos. Sad to say, the salsa verde has virtually disappeared by Wednesday afternoon. Uh-oh. I foolishly gave away 1/2 the batch thinking that it would never be consumed, but underestimated the addictive nature of salsa verde and tortilla chips.

Looking deeply in a glass jar: Salsa Verde (practically) all gone

I am such a fan of salsa verde now that I would even outright purchase tomatillos to make it again. Yum. So, I also prepared Pico de Gallo to make up for the salsa verde shortage.  I chopped and seeded 2 small tomatoes, chopped 1/4 of a medium-sized white onion, 1/2 jalapeno pepper and a few sprigs of cilantro. Mixed them altogether and listo, fresh Pico de Gallo. Since I had done such an expert job of seeding the tomatoes, the salsa turned out a little dry, so I added a handful of chopped cherry tomatoes that I had on hand from my CSA pick-up. They worked like a charm and added some interesting, if nontraditional, color.

Pico de Gallo with heirloom tomatoes and yellow cherry tomatoes

What to drink tonight? Beer would be an obvious choice, but I was thinking of a glass of wine. This dish is a tough one because it has a lot going on, particularly the heat from the jalapenos in both salsas. I thought about the bottle of J Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Gris that I had chilled in the fridge. I decided to do some research before risking it and opening this bottle I’ve been saving for a year. I was thrilled to find a reco from Snooth.com for Oregon Pinot Gris (close enough!), suggesting medium-bodied, fruity whites. A rose’ would work, too, or Torrontes from Argentina. I like Snooth’s tag line: Drink Better Wines.

Looking forward to tasting: J Vineyards 2008 Russian River Valley Pinot Gris

I stumbled upon a similar taco recipe from Food & Wine for Shrimp tacos with Pickled Red Onion Salad  in a post on Blog Your Own Wine.  I’ll have to try that at some point, too.

In the meantime, off to pull all this together into dinner. Stay tuned,  Novagirl!

Go USA! Sunday Night Dinner featuring Red, White and Blue

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Hubs and I had a simple summer dinner tonight featuring our locally sourced goodies.

  • Early Corn Chowder served cold to start  the meal (left over from last night’s dinner). Tastes even better on day 2T
  • Arugula salad with Shaved Parmiggiano and Cherry Tomatoes, dressed in balsamic vinaigrette. The arugula was a treat from our friend Steve’s farm, Berkshire Bounty Farm, tomatoes from yesterday’s CSA pick-up
  • Finished off with Macerated Strawberries and Blueberries, pictured below. The strawberries were grown in our friend Nash’s greenhouse and the blueberries were local, though not certified organic. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it’s heaven

  • Red, White and Blue: strawberries, blueberries and vanilla ice cream

    GO USA!!!

American Classics: CSA Pick-up 7/28/12

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This veritable bounty will be transformed into:
– Tangy mustard coleslaw – use cabbage
– Corn chowder – use corn, potatoes, tomatoes, shallots
– Spaghetti al pesto genovese (ok, this isn’t an American Classic. Realized that after I published. Oops) – use string beans, potatoes, garlic and basil (from our garden and Wolfe Spring)

And more…stay tuned

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