Category Archives: Vegetarian

Sauce from Freshly Picked Tomatoes

This was my second time making homemade tomato sauce from tomatoes from my garden this summer. The first time, I started with 2 pounds of tomatoes and that just did not make enough sauce for my druthers. This time, I started with over 4 pounds of assorted types of tomatoes, including 3 plum tomatoes from the plants in the whiskey barrel in my back yard.

plum tomatoes in my back yard

I cut a small X at the bottom of each tomato, put them in almost boiling water for a minute or so, cooled in ice water, and slipped the skins off. I then cut the tomatoes in half, cored them, and squeezed most of the seeds and excess liquid out. Here are the results:

Just under 2.5 pounds of crushed tomatoes from a bit over 4 pounds of whole tomatoes

Just under 2.5 pounds of squeezed tomatoes from a bit over 4 pounds of whole tomatoes

Next, I added about 2 T of extra virgin olive oil and 3 cloves of garlic, chopped, to my 10 inch saute pan, put the heat on med-high, and got things sizzling just a bit, turned down the heat and sauteed until the garlic was aromatic. Then – the fun part: mushing/crushing up the tomatoes with my hands before adding them to the pan. Yes, is IS okay to play with your food!

I also added a teaspoon each of salt and sugar at this, followed by a chopped green chili pepper and a Tbsp of fresh thymes leaves from our attic balcony garden:

peppers and thyme in the sky. For Wakefield MA folks, that is the Galvin School parking lot in the background.

I also added a Tbsp of chopped fresh basil leaves at this time. After simmering for 5 or 10 minutes, I used a slotted spoon to remove the pulp so the liquid could cook down and thicken.

pulp and liquid separated

Here is the liquid after simmering uncovered for 20 minutes:

thickened sauce makes a great base for the sauce

thickened liquid makes a great base for the sauce

At this time, I added back the pulp, and added a teaspoon of fairly finely chopped fresh mint leaves, also from my attic garden. Here are two pictures showing how many mint leaves make a teaspoon of chopped mint. That is chocolate mint, by the way. My favorite!

mint leaves with tablespoon for size perspective

a teaspoon of chopped mint

I let the sauce simmer a bit more and, voila! Amazing sauce – nice and thick.

Thick and chunky sauce

Two cups sauce, to be exact

This came out REALLY good! YUM!

Here is the list of ingredients I used this time around:

Fresh tomatoes, assorted varieties, just under 4 1/2 pounds
2 Tbsp olive oil, extra virgin
3 good-sized cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
one green chili pepper, de-seeded and chopped
1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp chopped fresh mint leaves

Did I miss anything? <grin> Of course, I will probably vary the recipe ingredients and minutes of simmering each time I make sauce. But, this should do as a good guide.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to food blogger extraordinaire Chez Pim. I found her post 15-Minute Tomato Sauce. Really. when searching for tips on making sauce from fresh tomatoes. While my version takes more than 15 minutes, I got the idea of separating out the pulp and thickening the liquid by itself from her. Based on my previous sauce making, I can say that the separation method is worthwhile, whether you are in a hurry to make the sauce or not!

Quick and Easy Pesto Pasta Salad

Bow Ties with Pesto, Feta and Cherry Tomatoes

Recipe courtesy Dave Lieberman via FoodNetwork.com with some of my notes added

* 1 pound bow tie pasta (farfalle) (I used a 14.5 ox of Barilla Plus)
* 3/4 cup Pesto (see my pesto post)
* 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
* 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* Olive oil, as needed

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Stir in the bow ties and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain the pasta and run it under cold water just until it stops steaming. Bounce the pasta around to get rid of as much water as you can.

Dump the pasta into a large serving bowl. Stir in the pesto until the pasta is coated. Toss in the cherry tomatoes and the crumbled feta. Taste the salad and season it as you like with salt and pepper. You can make the salad up to about 1 hour before you serve it. Check out the salt and pepper just before you serve the salad. If it’s looking a little dry, add some olive oil and stir it around.

And, voila!

Pesto Pasta Salad with Tomatoes and Feta

I have not actually tried it yet and, since the recipe says to serve within an hour of serving, I am not sure how it will be after being chilled during the morning part of our meeting. Well, only one way to find out. I’ll update this post about it later.

pesto, pesto, pesto…. :) and food art featuring fresh-picked garlic

2 Replies

I am blessed to have a space in a “borrowed/cooperative” garden in which I have enough basil plants that I can pick enough basil at one time to equal 3 packed cups. Time for pesto, of course!

An added bonus was freshly picked garlic from Farmer Dave of Dracut Mass who is at the Wakefield Farmer’s Market each Saturday. I had some walnuts in my freezer (just toasted them up a bit and they were fine) and parsley from same garden as the basil source, good olive oil… It was heavenly!

Here is the recipe I used as a guide – from Cook’s Illustrated – followed by my notes and pics:

Makes 3/4 cup, enough for 1 pound of pasta. Published July 1, 1996.

Pounding the basil releases its flavorful oils into the pesto more readily. Basil usually darkens in homemade pesto, but you can boost the green color a little by adding the optional parsley. For sharper flavor, substitute one tablespoon finely grated pecorino Romano cheese for one tablespoon of the Parmesan. The pesto can be kept in an airtight container, covered with a thin layer of oil (1 to 2 tablespoons), and refrigerated for up to four days or frozen for up to one month.
Ingredients
1/4    cup pine nuts , toasted (or substitute almonds or walnuts)
3    medium cloves garlic , unpeeled
2    cups packed fresh basil leaves
2    tablespoons fresh parsley leaves (optional)
7    tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
1/4    cup finely grated Parmesan cheese or Pecorino Romano
Ground black pepper
Instructions

1. Toast the nuts in a small, heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until just golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes; set aside. Add the garlic to the empty skillet and toast over medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until fragrant and the color of the cloves deepens slightly, about 7 minutes. Let the garlic cool slightly, then peel, and chop.

2. Place the basil and parsley (if using) in a heavy-duty 1-gallon zipper-lock plastic bag. Pound the bag with the flat side of a meat pounder or rolling pin until all the leaves are bruised.

3. Process the nuts, garlic, herbs, oil, and 1⁄2 teaspoon salt in a food processor until smooth, stopping as necessary to scrape down the sides of the bowl, about 1 minute. Stir in the Parmesan and season with salt and pepper to taste.

First – I was wondering, just HOW packed should the cups of basil leaves be? So, I packed them pretty much to the max a few times and weighed the results each time. 1.5 ounces per cup is what I got consistently.

1 cup packed basil equals 1.5 oz. That's a one cup measure to the left.

I had 3 cups/4.5 oz of basil leaves, to I increased amounts accordingly, although I lost concentration early on and toasted 3 times the amount of walnuts instead of 1 and 1/2 times, and also added .2 oz of leftover pine nuts I found in the fridge – but the pesto didn’t suffer from it!

Here is a shot of the freshly picked garlic from the Farmer’s Market that I used:

garlic knife basil

By the way, the knife you see in my pics was given to me by my Mom about 20 years ago. It is a great knife. And, I am lucky enough to have a live-in knife sharpening expert who keeps it and all my knives in most excellent shape!

Here is the end result:

Tomatoes picked from our backyard “whisky barrel” garden seasoned with a bit of dried oregano, freshly ground pepper, and salt, and then drizzled with olive oil,

The above-described pesto, and

Totally amazing “aged 3 years” cheddar cheese purchased at, yes, you guessed it, the Wakefield Farmer’s Market from Phil Hermann and MooBaaNaa Cheese. (I bought the ricotta today, also, and look forward to trying it. Phil said it is great for dessert with a touch of honey.)

But, here is our little appetizer feast:

YUM. There is nothing else to say.

Can’t go wrong with fresh mozzarella!

Finally – Ultimate Hummus!!!

1 Reply

I love Middle Eastern food, and have been making hummus for years – and doing a pretty darn good job it too, I might add. 🙂 However, being prone to experimenting, combining recipes, and just plain guessing on measurements, sometimes the texture or flavor would be just “okay” and, a few times, I added too much liquid and couldn’t fix it, having run out of garbanzo beans. Making hummus thicker with more tahini doesn’t work too well because the flavor and texture of the tahini become too overwhelming.

BUT – I believe I have it down, now. First, the basic recipe, than I’ll give a tip or two for an extra flavor boost.

This makes about [have to go measure the container it filled to tell you! I’ll update if I end up posting before I get this. My guess is 3 or so cups.]

Hummus with Roasted Red Pepper

1 15 oz can of garbanzo beans (chick peas) drained and rinsed
2 cloves of garlic, minced (I use big cloves)
1/3 chopped parsley – not firmly, but not lightly (mediumly?) packed when measuring
1 medium carrot, grated
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/8 cup olive oil
1/3 cup of tahini (sesame pasted from lightly toasted sesame seeds)
1 roasted red pepper (medium/smallish – measuring about 3×3 when flattened)

I always prep everything, first, and wash up any dirty dishes or utensils, then start filling the
food processor: [NOTE – remember to use a spatula to scape down the ingredients from the side of the bowl as you go along.]

I put the garbanzo beans in, and then added the next three ingredients, minced garlic, chopped parsley, and grated carrot, distributing each somewhat evenly in the food processing bowl.

Then I ran the processor, pulsing a bit, to get them mixed up and the garbanzos to a coarse texture.

Then I added the lemon juice, and pulsed a bit, then the olive oil, and let that run for a bit.

Next, I added the tahini and ran the processor for another bit, sometimes stopping to scrape down the sides, until well-mixed.

Last to go in was the roasted red pepper. Just toss it in whole, and don’t bother patting it dry, first. It will blend in nicely.

And, that’s it! So easy! So delicious!!!! And healthy!!! Can you tell I am excited about this? Colorful, too.

NOTE – many hummus recipes call for a little water. DON’T use water unless, at the very end, the hummus seems too dry. I used water previously, not considering the water content of the added veggies, especially the roasted red pepper, and it came out a tad soupy.

I doubt you’ll need any water with this recipe. However, factors can vary – maybe the tahini is dry, or the chickpeas have a lower water content for some reason. But, wait until the end before considering adding the H2O.

Now, for the flavor boosters. First, this hummus is great when using store-bought tahini and bottled lemon juice. And, obviously, it uses canned garbanzos. I also use store-bought, jarred roasted red pepper. I bet roasting a fresh red pepper and cooking up one’s own batch of dried garbanzos would give a boost, as well as reduce the sodium content of the hummus from these prepared items.

But, I can tell you for sure that squeezing the lemon juice fresh and making your own tahini really adds a punch!

Fresh squeezed lemon juice is easy – I have a little hand juicer (plastic and thus not as stable as I would like) that works fine. After cutting the medium-sized lemon in half, I had more than the 1/4 of juice I needed.

Making tahini isn’t difficult, but it is more time consuming than squeezing a lemon. But the flavor is well worth it. I am sure I’ll keep a jar from the market on hand, but I am also going to make sure that I always have sesame seeds around, as well!

To be honest, while I almost always have fresh lemons on hand and use bottled lemon juice in a pinch, I don’t think I had ever made my own tahini. Today I did because, part-way into prepping to whip up a quick batch of hummus, I realized that I had finished off my last jar… Luckily, I had a bag of sesame seeds in the fridge. Whew!

Now, tahini can be made from either toasted or raw sesame seeds. My understanding is that Asian tahini is made from raw sesame seeds and Middle Eastern tahini is from toasted sesame seeds. So, how to toast?

Many recipes say to spread the seeds on a baking sheet and put in the oven, but I prefer the quick, easy, and more energy efficient method of dry-roasting in a frying pan. Just make sure it is a heavy frying pan. I prefer to use a cast iron pan for dry-roasting nuts, seeds, and grains, but a sturdy stainless steel pan should work, too.

To make just a tad more tahini than you needs for this recipe, put 3/4 cup raw sesame seeds in a 10 inch or larger skillet/fry pan, that has been preheated on medium. Just stir them around as they heat up, start popping here and there, get a bit darker, and release a wonderful aroma. Lightly toasted with do the trick.

Then, put them in a wide bottom bowl or other container so they will cool off a bit, then put them in the blender. Run the blender on “grind” for a bit until they start looking ground up. Then, (and this is where I didn’t measure but think I “eyeballed it” okay) add maybe 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil (I used canola) and see how it looks. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides and mix things up a bit before continuing. Then add a tad more oil, grind some more, see how it looks. I think I used 3 tablespoons of oil.

WOW – REALLY good!!!! I’ve always enjoyed tahini from the store, but it rocks when you make it yourself. Also, the store-bought kind always separates, and that can cause problems as to getting the right texture in foods in which tahini is an ingredient.

So, the recipe is great even without doing the “from scratch” ingredient thing. But, I highly recommend 1) fresh squeezed lemon juice and 2) homemade tahini.

Now I am going to have to try roasting red peppers. Although, I doubt I’d do that just for hummus…seems like a waste of heating fuel. But, my curiosity may get the better of me… However, if I have time, I might cook up a batch of garbanzos if I am making hummus for a big crowd or plan to use them in other recipes, too.

Anyway – that’s the scoop.