Too many tomatoes problems.

Perhaps you had thoughts about how many amazing tomatoes you wanted in April, and now it is August/September.  Perhaps you were a rational economic actor at the farmer's market. Perhaps someone left a grocery bag full of tomatoes on your doorstep or conned you into taking some at work.  Regardless, you have TOO MANY TOMATOES. 

Here is the general advice: peel your tomatoes, cook them into some sort of sauce, put the sauce in jars, carefully follow the instructions on sealing jars OR put the sauce into tubs and freeze the tubs.  

Sometimes, that is too much work.

SO: let us say your tomatoes are beautiful and perfect, and the only problem is that there are too many of them.  You've had tomato salad and tomato sandwiches and gazpacho.  There are still a lot of tomatoes left.

You could cut out the stems and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer.  After a couple of hours you can take them off of the baking sheet and put them into plastic bags where they will clink together like billiard balls.  Later, you can put these into sauces as if they were canned tomatoes.  Someday. Maybe it will stave off the tomato madness a bit next April.

Also, salsa.  Chop and/or puree them, add some cilantro and diced onion and lime juice and salt, place adjacent to some chips, watch it evaporate.

IT is also possible that your tomatoes are over the tomato hill. Not gross, exactly, but a little soft, a little wrinkled.  

If you throw a peeled yellow onion and five-six tomatoes into a blender, and then put add some curry paste, a teasppon of salt, and either half a dozen chicken thighs or a couple of drained cans of garbanzos and simmer the whole thing over low heat for 45 minutes, you will have a passable masala-type dish, which you can eat with rice or spoon into your face alone.  

Or take the tomatoes, cut out the stiff stem bits, slice them in half unless they are cherry tomatoes, toss them with a little bit of oil, sprinkle them with salt and sugar, and put them in a low oven (350 degrees and down) for 2+ hours and you will get caramelized super tomato concentrate which can be added to your other tomato dishes to up the umami component.  This also freezes well, though I usually cover the top with oil so it doesn't dry out.  Downside: two plus hours with the oven on during summer.  

Salt and Sugar Pickles for Rice Bowl

The photo of these pickles looked far too similar to my mirin pickles. As 40% of what I actually cook is a bowl of rice with things on top of it, I figure it's time you realize that I eat a.) chicken and b.) not all that many pickles at once. It's also time that I realize that I can buy less than five pounds of any sort of produce.

Thinly slice about half a cup of cucumbers (wash if waxed) or watermelon radishes or daikon. Mix with a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of kosher salt. Let sit for ten minutes. Serve.

Ratatouille-

Like the movie.

I cleaned out the fridge while making a gallon of pico de gallo- and found about seven eggplants hiding in there. It's time for the annual empty-the-kitchen ratatouille. This is a reasonable, pared down recipe. Feel free to quintuple. I assume this serves something like six, if you're sane.

Chop two onions, add to a large pot, and saute over low heat- stirring often- until nicely caramelized- about half an hour. Chop some peppers. You know, twoish bell peppers of any color, those sweet long peppers that are actually pretty hot, Hungarian wax peppers- I don't care. Chop them up. Roughly chop about seven cloves of garlic. I don't even know how I bought this much garlic. Chop up like a pound and a half of eggplant, which is a lot of eggplant, believe you me. It's not seven eggplants- it's about one big one, or two Chinese eggplants, or fifteen of those adorable Indian varieties.

Oh no, I forgot to add the Indian eggplants.

Blanch two pounds of tomatoes and let cool. Around now, the onions should be done. Turn up the heat, add the peppers, and cook for five minutes. Add the eggplant. Peel the tomatoes and slice into the pot.

Turn the heat down, cover, and cook for about two hours. It might not look like there's enough liquid, but the eggplant will soon start producing liquid. Stir every twenty minutes or so to prevent burning. If you want to put it in the slow cooker, put it in the slow cooker.

Spread on bread or crackers, or serve with an arugula salad. It's good with lemon and salt.

If there were a picture, it would be of my tired face.

Excuses, Summer Rice Bowl, Bahn Mi

It's still summer here in the Bay Area- and most of my cooking looks like this.

I would like to share my summer version of the rice bowl. I leave out the soup, the broccoli, and the sweet and sour root vegetables, and include cucumbers sliced into matchsticks, stir-fried long beans (with garlic, ginger, vinegar, and soy sauce), steamed sweet potatoes (cooked over the rice), and fried eggplant. (Eggplant soaks up a terrifying amount of oil- it's like frying a sponge.) We still include five minute tofu, sliced avocado, kim chi, and toasted sesame seeds. The number of sides might be a little out of control, now that I think about it.

Speaking of frying eggplant- in it I have found a worthy vegan base for Bahn Mi. Let us rejoice, and eat delightful sandwiches. The key is delightful crispy rolls and very good vegetables. I use a mix of cucumber slices, bell peppers, jalapeños, tomatoes, fresh fried eggplant (or a slice of bacon or pork belly. I am weak), cilantro, basil, sour kim chi, mint, daikon.... I pretty much toast a torpedo roll, hollow it out a little, slather it with soy sauce mayonnaise, and then fill it with the sliced vegetable contents of my fridge and a few slices of something savory and full of fat.

Summer is excellent.

Five Minute Gazpacho for One

In order to keep up with my farmers' markets in August problem, every meal we eat at home must have a produce dish. Here's my new lunchtime side for as long as the tomatoes are excellent.

Coarsely chop 2/3 pickling cucumber and two small tomatoes. Put in bowl. Find the garlic press, and press one clove garlic, 1/3 pickling cucumber (in thick slices), one slice hot pepper (or more to taste), and two small tomatoes, halved. Add the gruesome product of your pressing to the bowl. Add the juice of one lime, to taste. Stir and season with salt and pepper.

Pesto Potato Salad

I've been making a lot of pesto. I think "Ooo, I want to make tomato basil napoleons and this bunch of basil is only a dollar!" I buy two bunches. I use ten leaves. It wilts. I make pesto. I might as well make another kind of potato salad, right? What is this, six?

This pesto salad is best with either 2/3 cilantro and 1/3 mint (C: too minty) or all arugula or the really oily pesto one buys in stores if one does not have a produce fixation. Boil one pound of potatoes until tender- try to use a sweetish potato, like white potatoes or German butterballs or Yukon golds. Destem one half pound green beans and cut into inch long pieces. Blanch the green beans until tender- about two minutes.

Slice the potatoes into bite sized chunks. Add green beans. Dress with olive oil, lemon juice, and 1/4 cup pesto. (I suppose you could use less pesto, but at this point I'm just dumping it into everything. Oil and lemon are to taste- a dollop and a half lemon, probably.)

It's a pretty good potato salad, but I like all potato salads. Obviously.

Peach Onion stir fry

We have too many peaches.

Cut one sweet onion into slices. Saute over medium heat in a little bit of oil until somewhat brown. Add two sliced peaches and cook, stirring, until peaches are tender. Serve over brown rice.

Greens with bacon stir fry

Our farmer's market is right next to a Ranch 99 superstore- which means we have a greater variety of produce, more reasonable prices, and the actual ability to buy all of the produce that one will eat in a week. I love multiculturalism and the long-term consequences of poorly conceived wars.

There are usually three to seven types of greens for sale- huge two hand bunches for a dollar. I'm terribly unclear on the names (and occasionally the families) but I tend to prepare them all the same way:

Chop one slice of fatty bacon into small bits. Fry on medium-high heat until crispy. Add one bunch chopped greens and stir until greens are tender. Serve.

Sometimes I fry a little onion or garlic with the bacon. Real vegans could just do that and add some oil. I sometimes garnish with lemon juice, chili paste, green onions, or cilantro.

As a pro tip- Ipomoea aquatica is absurdly tasty, the stems of bitter melon and chayote are not.

Insalata Primavera

I think I might be the only person on Earth who eats pasta primavera and thinks "What's with all the annoying pasta?" I prefer to have this flavor dense salad. If you wanted to turn this into pasta primavera, you could add 1/2 lb of cooked spaghetti or penne at the end.

Shell about a pound of fava beans in the pod. Unless the beans are very young, (smaller than a pea) peel off the outer coat of the bean. Take a moment to be happy that you eat this foundation of pre-Columbian European cuisine once a year. Yay Phaseolus domesitcation events!

Slice the white parts of two or three bulbs of green garlic- or 2 or 3 spring onions- or all of the above. Saute gently in oil in a large pan for about five minutes.

Stem one pound (one bunch) of asparagus. Break (or cut) into two inch slices. Add the fava beans to the garlic pan and saute for about three minutes. Add the asparagus and continue to saute until bright green.

Remove from heat and drizzle with olive oil and a generous coating of black pepper. Add about 1/2 cup of chopped Italian parsley. Stir. Eat.

Orange Avocado Salsa

I am prone to buying ten pound bags of oranges this time of year. I think it's a primal urge to ward off scurvy.

Cut the ends and peel off of five oranges. Cut into slices, and then bite-sized cubes. Add 1/4 onion, minced and 1 handful cilantro, chopped. (Fair warning: I made this salsa to suck up to a toddler with a love of chips. It's super mild. And maybe a little bit acid for small people.) Add 1 tsp. sugar and 1/4 tsp salt. Just before serving, add 2 avocados, chopped coarsely. Stir.

I suppose you could add more onion, a couple of peppers, and maybe a dash of lime. Taste it first though, because the acidity can be a little intense.

Tom Kha Het: Spicy Thai-style Coconut Soup

There was a (embarassingly prolonged) period of my life where my wisdom teeth had opinions. Eventually, I had these dogmatic dentiles removed, and my life became much more pleasant.

Before I was wise enough to submit to minor surgery, my teeth would occasionally become infected. It was then impossible to eat anything other than soup- and being young, foolish, and overly concerned with my figure, I ate very little of that. I should note that I have a terrible temper when I'm hungry.

Thus, C got into the habit of bringing along a take-out bucket of this soup to every date. I envision him throwing it through the door before he enters my apartment.

Anyways: earlier this month, a friend from college sent me a bag of Kaffir lime leaves. The farmer's market sells fat bundles of lemongrass for a dollar, and I occasionally fall prey to the deal. Galangal is apparently essential to the flavor, but none leapt into my path and I did not know how important it was until my soup was already made and eaten.

Mix 4 cups stock with 1 16 oz. can coconut milk and 1 tsp brown sugar. Cut one stalk lemongrass into 1 inch lengths. Make several tears in a Kaffir lime leaf, leaving the center vein intact. Thinly slice pennies off of a 1 inch section of ginger or galangal. Measure out a reasonable amount of pepper flakes or chopped fresh pepper (1/2 tsp, 1 tbs.) Put all of the above ingredients into a pot and simmer for 20 minutes.

Slice and add 2-3 cups of vegetables to the broth. I personally like cabbage and mushrooms- any sort of mushrooms- but you might like sweet potatoes, carrots, thinly sliced tofu, or onion. In the summer, you might like those wonderful vegetables I try not to think about this time of year. Simmer until vegetables are tender.

Now you must "correct the seasoning". One could use fish sauce for a pleasant glutamate flavor, or one could use Braggs- 1-2 tsp of both. The juice of one or more limes is essential, as is a quantity of coarsely chopped cilantro. Salt and pepper to taste. Eat.

Avocado Dressing

This is the other stuff that I ate tonight- after a month without farmer's markets, my last visit resulted in so much produce that every meal must include at least one bowl of greens.

Even breakfast.

Oh, it's the most wonderful time of the year: peewee avocado season. Itty-bitty avocados are now $1 a pound- that's a buck for like six! After one has exhausted all reasonable recipes for avocados, one becomes... creative.

This is good enough to make if you don't live in the tiny part of the world with peewee avocados. It's pretty tasty on salad, broccoli, lentils, artichokes, sandwiches, lots of things that aren't actually vegan.... It's like super double good mayonnaise with an avocado base instead of eggs.

Peel one clove garlic. Remove the bottom of the bulb. Drop into a food processor with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 cup olive oil, the juice of two lemons, and one peeled and pitted avocado (or two peewee avocados). Blend until smooth. Eat.

This will stay emulsified overnight- I'm not sure how it'd do after 24 hours, because it never lasts that long.

Winter Salad

This salad was originally going to be named something that cast all sorts of aspersions on people who don't have winter produce. I changed my mind because my evil laugh didn't carry over to text. Instead, we have a friendly, accessible title.

I love frisee (death to accents) but I have trouble finding recipes for it. (Yes, there is the salad where bacon fat replaces olive oil. It's January. We don't eat like that anymore.) I also love other winter fruits- and C eats mandarins like other people eat Cadbury cream eggs. Clearly, all of these things need to become a salad.

Tear one head of frisee into bite sized pieces and put in a medium sized bowl. Add seeds from 1 small pomegranate. Peel two small mandarin oranges and add the segments. Slice in one avocado.

Make a dressing from the juice of one Meyer lemon, a teaspoon of chopped shallot, 1/4 cup olive oil, and a little bit of salt. Dress the salad. Eat. Cackle.

Antipasto platter

Somewhere in my cold shriveled heart is a belief that a pile of bitter vegetables will make up for about a week of saturated fats, alcohol, and simple carbohydrates. It's like C and the whole cold drink on a hot day causes heart failure superstition. It's not that he believes it, it's that by now room temperature soda tastes better. So yes, after the excesses of the last holiday I am willing to call vegetables dipped in olive oil and garlic healthy and am willing to call bitter root vegetables antipasto. (Where I'm from antipasto is usually pepperoni, the saddest prosciutto, sliced mozzarella, Parmesan, and pickled pepperoncini- I feel like adding a couple of olives is pretty much the first step on a slippery slope to... a pile of bitter vegetables on a plate.)

Bagna cauda is supposed to be just ample olive oil and lots of chopped garlic, warmed gently. As someone who will take the occasional shot of vegetable oil when feeling low, oil and garlic isn't special enough for me. I added lemon and salt. (So exciting. Living the dream here.) So yes, heat one cup really good olive oil gently over a very low flame. Add six to eight cloves garlic, smashed and peeled. After about three minutes the garlic will be soft enough to smash further, if it pleases you to do so. Add the juice of two lemons and a dash of salt.

I used blanched kale, red endive, blanched carrots, sliced boiled beets with a splash of vinegar, thin sliced fennel bulb, and blanched Jerusalem artichokes. I would say to skip the carrots, but I'm pretty sure that it's the only thing everyone else ate. Seasonality is key, chickens- perhaps you are not reading this in the depths of winter and can choose from roasted peppers and ripe tomatoes and sauteed eggplant. Perhaps it is spring, and tiny baby vegetables are making themselves known. Do you wish to add some baked mushrooms? Some sweet onions? Some lovely spinach? Some olives and pickled artichoke hearts? Please do. Put whichever available vegetables that look delightful on a platter, and then dip them into the bagna cauda. (Some things- like blanched kale- require drizzling with the bagna cauda. Please eat blanched kale with a fork. For everyone's sake.)

I can feel my liver growing stronger. Hypothetically. Given holistic medicine isn't a crock.

Fall Salad, brought to you by the letter P

I like alliterative recipes.

I've stated before that I don't approve of lettuce. Thus, my salads tend to be heavy on non-lactucal ingredients. Serves two.

Cut two fuyu persimmons into sixths, cut off the peel, and slice into thin wedges. Collect the seeds from 1/3 pomegranate. Peel two pears and slice into thin wedges. (See how I sliced the pears lengthwise in the photo? Don't do that. They're much harder to arrange artfully. While we're learning from my mistakes, let's toast 1/4 cup of pecans in a dry pan over medium heat. Let's not burn them.)

One must dress the pears to avoid unsightly discoloration. I figure there's a threefold choice for dressings here- I used a fairly typical three parts balsamic to four parts olive oil, dash of salt, dash of sugar dressing. One could embrace the fallishness of the whole thing, use fresh pressed olive oil, the very first lemons, and a dash of apple cider. One could also make a mirin, rice vinegar, and grapeseed oil dressing. Aim for 1/4 cup total dressing.

Wash one head butter lettuce and 1/2 head escarole. (Or one head leaf lettuce or romaine. I like the bitterness of the escarole, because it reminds me of high school.) Tear into small pieces and dress with half the chosen dressing. Arrange on salad plates. Place persimmon slices and pear slices over the lettuce. Drizzle remaining dressing over the salad. Top with pomegranate seeds and pecans. Or pine nuts. Pistachios. I think the theme is exhausted.

Alternatively, you could mix everything together in a large bowl and serve it out of that. Or eat directly from the serving bowl. Or just chew on leaves you find on the forest floor.

The Cure for "Eating Locally Fridge"

Yeah, I don't know why all my pictures look like poop lately.

About a week after most people commit to eating more local food, their fridge is full of more greens than they can reasonably eat. Boiled greens, stir fried greens, sauteed greens, raw greens... a person gets tired. Thus, here's my recipe for "I SAY IT'S PESTO"- which is probably very much like the original form of pesto.

Peel six cloves of garlic. Chop coarsely in food processor with 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt. (Or puree, I don't care.) Destem one bunch cilantro or parsley (which you might conveniently have left from your idiocy with chimp food). Add to food processor. Also destem an unreasonable amount of kale, spinach, arugula, mint, or more cilantro or parsley Put it all in the food processor. Puree, adding olive oil as needed to maintain goopiness. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon.

This is good on pasta, I will grant you. It's divine on green beans. It's also pretty good on greens that might not be so good in a pesto; blanched chard, turnip greens, or kale, chopped cabbage, maybe thinned with a little more lemon juice and use as a dressing for lettuce...

If you add 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp thyme, and use 2 tbs of wine vinegar instead of lemon juice and just parsley and cilantro, you have chimichuri. Which you should try on potatoes, fish, grilled meat, or vegetables. (Worst vegan ever.)

If you don't like cilantro but want to start, this is a good recipe. The anethole vaporizes, so the delightful soapy taste is absent. If you really want to trick your brain, eat this in circumstances that make you unusually happy. Then do it again. Soon, your brain will think that you like cilantro.

Boiled green peanuts.

I bought a butt-ton of green peanuts. At the farmer's market. Attempts at roasting them gave results that were not high on the edibility scale. I wanted to make a chile/ground peanut sauce and put it over potatoes, but that was temporarily vetoed by C. Boiled peanuts are so good that I might never try any other peanut recipes.

Put three tbs salt and three cups of water into a pot. Heat to a boil. Add up to two cups of green peanuts. (Why you'd want two cups, I don't know. They might make you ill if you eat them all yourself. Not that I know anyone who'd do that.) Boil for ten minutes. Remove. Dust with salt. Eat.

After I made two cups worth, I tried it again with half a cup. Still tasty. And I tried it with shelled raw peanuts. Still tasty. It's hard to mess this up.

These are pretty much the perfect snack on a lazy, rainy day. Try them with a pot of green tea and some trashy fiction/video games. Or a big stack of thank you notes. (All water marks with salt riming on my thank you notes are from tears of gratitude.)

Sarlah Salad.October Style.

Why yes, that is a piece of chicken skin. It makes your skin beautiful.

I am the worst vegan ever.

This is another recipe garnered from a roommate. I have a lot of these, both because some of my roommates are awesome cooks and because I've had twenty-four roommates. Law of averages, really. Sarlah lived on a salad of chopped vegetables- fresh, blanched, and wilted- with one of several fermented soy products and a wee bit of oil. Of course, this version is remade for my finickier tastes- and as a "last farmer's market of the year" salad.

Rinse one handful really nice lettuce. Or chopped cabbage. Or parsley, kale, chard. I'm not really a follower of the cult of the salad. Green or red leafy thing. Put it in a large bowl.

Garnish with cucumber slices, apple slices, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced tomato, toasted peanuts, toasted sunflower seeds, bell pepper, carrot, (I keep referring to the picture to remember what I included) boiled beet slices, sliced raw or wilted summer squash, and finely sliced onion. In short, go to the farmer's market. Put the vegetable contents of the market into a bowl. Dress. There you go.

But the dressing, you ask- what sort of dressing makes this salad a Sarlah salad? Take one tbs miso, two tbs rice vinegar, and one tbs olive oil. Stir together. Put on salad. Eat.