Good To The Last: Chard Pesto on Toast

This may not be the prettiest thing to ever come out of my kitchen... but it's definitely one of the cheapest... and best tasting!

Today I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Do you sometimes find yourself with a boatload of Swiss Chard?
2. Are you left wondering what to do with all the thick stems from that chard?

I've been in that boat on more than one occasion. I used to just toss them into the freezer and add them to the pot when I made stock, but now I have another trick up my sleeve... Chard Pesto.

I first read about this simple and delicious stuff a few years ago in the book, An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler... and I haven't tossed a single stem in my stockpot ever since. 

Chard Pesto
Not really a recipe, more like just a thing you do when you have a big bunch of chard stems...

1. Cut them up, then throw them in a pan with some butter or oil, salt, pepper, and garlic.
2. Cook them down a fair bit, adding a little water and a lid in the beginning.
3. Check and give it a stir now and then to see how it's coming along, removing the lid when mostly done.
4. Take it off the heat once "they" become an "it" (soft and mushy and thick enough to stand on its own)
5. Let cool it down some (too hot and it will steam the toast, making it soggy).
6. Pile it onto pieces of toast made from good sturdy bread and grate some Romano or Parm over the top.

It's the kind of thing that is so lacking in attractiveness that you won't want to make it for guests. Once you taste it though, you really won't want to share anyway... so it's just as well. I should also add that it makes a mighty fine dinner on a day when you don't want to spend a lot of time cooking.

End-Of-Season Misfit Cherry Tomato Paste

Well, it's over. For us anyway. Tomato season is officially done. We plucked the last hangers-on off, and there won't be any more until next summer. Do you still have tomatoes where you live? Some years have found us picking them into November, but that was an exceptional year in a backyard that got oodles of sunlight. This was not such a year, and this is not such a yard. Alas.

Waste not... want not

As you may have noticed by now, I hate to waste any bounty and am always looking for ways to make the most of what we have. These last-of-the-season cherry tomatoes were in all different states of being. Some were perfection, some on the green side, and a few so ripe they practically imploded on contact. There were also those that looked ripe but had taken so long to get color that they just didn't taste as good as they should have.

You can leave the skins on
I figured the best thing for this to-motley crew was to make a tomato paste. But with all the stuff I've got going on right now, I just didn't want to drag out the food mill. Did I really need to get rid of the skins? (That's another theme around here: I don't peel or skin fruits and vegetables unless I absolutely have to.)

It's not laziness, it's efficiency!
I'm all about saving unnecessary steps, time, and energy, with one condition... the end result can not be lacking in any way. In fact, the end result should be at least as good as the version that it's riffing. OK, so maybe it doesn't always happen that way, but that's what I shoot for. This golden tomato paste (from Sun Gold tomatoes) is the very essence of ripe homegrown tomatoes. It's like all of summer condensed down into a little jar (and it's going to taste grand this winter in stews and pasta sauces)!


The Lazy Girl's End-Of-Season Misfit Cherry Tomato Paste
There is a tinge of bitterness from the skins, but it can be tempered with a bit of sea salt and/or sugar. I'm betting though that when used in a hearty stew or ragout... it will won't be an issue.

Ingredients...

Cherry Tomatoes: enough to cover the bottom of a baking sheet in a single layer
Olive Oil
Salt & Black Pepper
Fresh Herbs: basil, oregano, or thyme, roughly chopped (Don't bother chopping the thyme, just strip the leaves from the stem.)
Sugar (Optional, and possibly not needed depending on the tomatoes of course)

Directions...

1. Wash, stem, and dry the tomatoes. Fill the pans with a single layer of them. Turn the oven to 300°F.
2. Drizzle a little olive oil over the tomatoes. Grab the baking sheet in two hands and shimmy the tomatoes back and forth in the oil. Then sprinkle some sea salt over the tomatoes, followed by the black pepper.
3. Roast for two hours, rotating the tray(s) half-way through. If the tomatoes start to get too dark, push them around on the tray and turn your oven down a bit. If after two hours, they don't seem done (kissed with golden brown, squishy and collapsed), leave them in until they do.
4. Take trays out of oven and let cool briefly, then transfer roasted tomatoes to the bowl of a food processor. You may have to process them in batches, but it will go fast. Pulse until skins are cut up quite small.
5. Look at the texture: does it look dry-ish and too pasty? If so add a little more oil and pulse it in until it's more of a glossy-creamy consistency. Now taste it. Does it need more salt? More pepper? What about a touch of sugar? Always add in small increments. Keep tasting until you're happy with it.
6. Toss any herbs you want to use (if any) into the food processor with the tomato paste and pulse briefly to distribute them throughout.
7. You're done! Let it cool completely, then transfer to freezer containers, label, and freeze.

Notes: This yields anywhere from 1 to 2 cups of finished tomato paste. Freeze it in quantities that you are likely to use when cooking: half-pint canning jars, smaller plastic freezer-safe containers, even ice cube trays. 

More Notes: The first batch I made got some thyme added in at the end, and I used my stick blender. It took longer to get the skins broken up enough that way, but it's a good option if you don't have a food processor. The next two trays went into the food processor and had fresh chopped basil and oregano added.

Shine on, harvest moon!

Simply Cilantro Salad Dressing

One of the last things I did before my second cilantro plant bolted, was to make a simple dressing with it. A simply delicious dressing. If you are one of the many people that don't like cilantro, you probably won't find this tasty in the least. The rest of us, who do like cilantro... will love it.

Simply Cilantro Salad Dressing

Adapted from: simplefoodhealthylife

1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 bunch/handful cilantro
1/2 tsp ground pepper
sea salt to taste

Mix everything but the salt together in a food processor. Taste the dressing, then start adding the salt, a 1/4 tsp at a time, tasting as you go. When you're happy with it, transfer the dressing to a bottle or jar and store in the fridge. It should keep at least a couple of weeks.

Notes: We've been using this on lots more than just salads... tacos, quesadillas, even omelets and baked potatoes. It's great for a bright little touch of flavor almost anywhere.

Farm Fresh Harvest Pasta Sauce

Just days before our trip, while I was in fact hip deep in Concord grapes, cherry tomatoes, and other fresh produce that wouldn't wait for our return, we stopped to chat with a neighbor while on a walk through the neighborhood....

This neighbor, who has a small farm, was busy that day harvesting everything she possibly could before they moved. They were being forced out, not by a giant food conglomerate, and not by the government policies that hobble small farms. No, it was the simple act of their rent being raised to the point where they could no longer afford to remain. It's a sweet little farm with a tidy little house to one side with contented cows, happy pigs, and chatty chickens wandering about. The kind of sweet little farm that could only exist because of the hard work and commitment of two conscientious and genuinely nice people.

She asked if we'd like some tomatoes
Well, we couldn't say no. Who can say no to homegrown tomatoes? We may have had a truckload of cherry tomatoes this summer, but it's a little hard to make a BLT with tomatoes the size of marbles. So we finished our walk and Hubby went back over with a bowl. What he returned with were the most glorious Roma tomatoes I'd ever seen. There were a couple of big heirloom beauties also, and an onion that left me speechless, it was so fat and healthy looking.

Concord Grape Jelly (and the errors of my ways)

So.... I mentioned having a ton of grapes the other day. Well, it wasn't really a ton... it was 13 pounds. I exaggerated. I can't even say that it seemed like a ton of grapes. I've actually had hands-on experience with what an actual ton (or twenty) of grapes is like when Hubby and I help with the wine crush at our favorite winery each autumn.

Our harvest of Concord grapes was like a drop in the proverbial bucket (barrel?) compared to that. But since my backyard is a far cry from ever being called a vineyard and my kitchen is certainly no winery... those 13 lbs. still seemed like a whole awful lotta grapes.

Making the most of what we've been given
The vines came with the house, stealthily growing under the ivy on the back fence. And although we didn't plant them, pay them any attention, or even want them... there they were: fat, juicy, sweet, abundant, and free. They were a truly a gift to us, and I wasn't about to waste them.

Freezer Jam Of The Golden Sun

Forget the moonbeams and butterflies, or catching falling stars that will fit in your pocket... that's just the stuff of sappy love songs. You can however, catch the summer sunshine and keep it in a jar. At least that's what this jam tastes like to me. Tomato sunshine.

Picture yourself in the middle of winter... it's cold, it's wet, the weather is miserable. You take a jar out of the freezer to thaw. You toast some rustic bread until it's crisp and golden, add some good flavorful cheese—maybe an aged cheddar or smoked Gouda—then pry off the lid of the jam jar and dollop this golden orange stuff over the top. You're transported. You suddenly remember the smell of your hands after picking tomatoes last August. You get a flashback of a warm ripe tomato bursting sweet in your mouth and forever defining the word "summer". It could happen. In fact, I'm planning on it.

Harvest Gold
I've got Sungold cherry tomatoes practically coming out of my ears right now, and while I love them, I know this gloriousness won't last much longer. So I'm "saving for a rainy day" the only way I can right now and capturing the very essence of summer sunshine in a jar for later. 

When I read this recipe, I just knew it would be amazing made with our Sungold cherry tomatoes. Some of them are so sweet, they stop tasting like tomatoes at all and say with assurance, "You see, we really ARE a fruit!". I made one batch at first just to try it out. I filled two half-pint jars, lidded them, labeled them, and stuck them in the freezer. With the bit that was left over, I dolloped it over toast with brie. Two or three times. The creamy pungency of the brie with the sweet, earthy tomato jam... my, oh my... oh my.

Sungold {Cherry Tomato} Freezer Jam

adapted from: The Vanilla Bean Blog

4 cups Sungold cherry tomatoes
1-1/4 cups sugar
a pinch of sea salt

1. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in half.
2. Put them in a heavy pot with the rest of the ingredients.
3. Bring mixture to a boil then drop the heat down to a simmer.
4. Cook the jam until thickened, 60-90 minutes, stirring frequently.
5. Jam is done when you can swipe a finger across the back of your spoon and the path remains.
6. Blend briefly with an immersion blender if you'd like a smoother texture.
7. Let cool and transfer to jars.
8. Refrigerate for up to two weeks, or freeze for 6 months.

Yield: 2 to 3 cups.

Notes: Flavor is the name of the game here, so obviously you'll want to use only homegrown or farmer's market cherry tomatoes. This recipe doubles well. My first (single) batch made just over 2 cups. The next time I made it, I doubled the recipe and got just over 5 cups. Can't wait to try this on a grilled cheese sandwich, panini, cheeseburger... hmm, what else?

Dr. Franken-Cilantro, I Presume?

My cilantro bolted. Actually, it is currently bolting. What does it even mean, to bolt? It sounds like something in Dr. Frankenstein's notes: 

...don't forget bolting: Add contact points to monster [sides of neck?] for attachment of jumper cables; crucial for next phase in reanimation of creature. Bwah-ha-ha-hah!

"It's Ali---ive!!!"

In this instance however, it describes what happens to cilantro plants when their roots notice that the soil has reached 70°F. If you've ever had your cilantro bolt on you, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, I'll let you in on what happens at that magical 70°F point... the plant decides that the time is right for making seeds, shoots up with a staggering amount of growth, bursts into pretty little blossoms, followed by round green seed pods.

It happens fast. It happens dramatically. You're happily snipping some cilantro here, some there. A salad dressing one week, maybe a marinade or quesadillas the next, and then...BAM! By the time you realize what's happened... it's too late to warn the villagers.

So... I guess the whole creating-a-monster analogy actually does apply here after all.

Simply Simpler Simple Syrup

I kind of love recipes that are expressed as ratios; where any unit of measure will work regardless of whether you use metric, Imperial, or an old chipped teacup. You know: one part of this to three parts of that, where the "part" can be anything from a thimble to a 5-gallon drum. Super simple.

Well, the other day I needed to make a small amount of simple syrup for a batch of iced tea I was making. The classic simple syrup recipe is 1:1 (one part sugar to one part water, boiled together and cooled). Couldn't be simpler... or could it?

It was HOT that day—the day I needed to make my liquid sweetener. I did not want to turn on the stove for anything. Not even 10 minutes. Besides, I really didn't need a lot of it; hardly worth dirtying a saucepan for. And that's when it hit me... when I feed my water kefir grains, I just add the sugar to the water and swirl the heck out of it for a few seconds until it dissolves. No heat required... Hello!

I quickly tossed a half-cup of sugar and a half-cup of water into a pint Mason jar, then I capped it and shook it like I meant it. It took about 2-3 minutes of shimmying, but the result was a jar of liquid sweetener, ready to use.

Savoring The Simple Gifts Of Summer

I didn't plan on taking a photo of my dinner last night. I didn't plan on blogging about it today. I didn't plan the meal at all. Sure, I knew we'd be having leftover bratwurst with mustard, but beyond that, it all just fell together, and when I sat down and started to dig into it... my senses took everything in and I had to grab the camera.

What you don't see in the photo is the color of the summer evening sky. You can't feel the perfectly soft warmth paired with the gentlest of breezes in such contrast with the scorching heat earlier in the day. You might get a hint of the relaxed ease of the meal, but what about the thrift? What about the sense of accomplishment, stewardship, gratitude, and relief? And, of course, there's the deliciousness to consider as well. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but how many can you really see? To anyone else, it's just a plate of food, but to me it represents so much more...

Total Concentration

We were blessed this summer/fall with an abundant crop of tomatoes. I am talking about major abbondanza. Some of the shrubs didn't do very well or produce much, but the ones that did... did so with sheer abandon. Not only did we have enough to stuff ourselves silly with, but we had enough to bless friends and neighbors with too. Such a great feeling. But all good things come to an end as they say, sunshine and tomatoes included. So I reduced, concentrated, and intensified the last 5 lbs of sun and warmth... and stuck them in a little jar for when the cold, wet, gray of the coming winter starts to get me down. Just like rainy days and Mondays. 

Eating Paste

It may seem an odd choice, to make what is essentially a small amount of tomato paste out of the last of our homegrown tomatoes, but to call this stuff "paste" is to call filet mignon "a steak", or aged balsamic "vinegar"... doesn't quite do it justice. No tomato paste I've ever had has the depth and intensity of flavor that this stuff has. So is it tomato paste? Yeah... but it's really really really good tomato paste. And won't it be wonderful to use in the middle of winter when flavorful ripe tomatoes are the stuff of summer dreams and memories.

Homemade Tortilla Chips with Faux Hummus

A couple weeks ago my friend told me about an appetizer she'd had at a local restaurant... she told me it would be super simple to recreate at home and that it was, in fact, incredibly delicious. Then she proceeded to make it for me. (Yea!)

This is what she did... she mixed some local lime-infused olive oil and good balsamic vinegar into plain store-bought hummus. And that was all there was to it. Except for the eating part. We started dipping cubes of Ciabatta bread in it and I almost couldn't stop. Let me tell you... I fell for that stuff in a bad way. Who needs dinner when you've got a bowl of that in front of you?

Not too long after, I found myself staring at all the tubs of prepared hummus at Trader Joe's. Why not just make my own? After a quick glance at the ingredients, I grabbed some tahini and headed home to research recipes. It wasn't until a day or two later that I noticed the container was labeled Tahini "Sauce". Harrumph. So much for following the recipe for real honest-to-goodness hummus.* Time to just wing it.  The tahini sauce was made from olive oil, salt, and lemon juice, in addition to you know, actual tahini. Well with all that, I was half-way to hummus already...

Do Snails Love Basil More Than I Do?

Snails couldn't possibly share the same kind of love I have in my heart for basil. Though by the looks of our plants... they're certainly not shy with their PDA.

After lackluster growth in the past, we decided to put our three basil plants into the ground this year instead of in pots like we usually do. The snails, of course, have been delighted with our decision.

I went to the web in search of chemical-free snail solutions and instead came across some valuable advice regarding growing, pruning, and harvesting basil. I found out two very important things regarding our basil plants... a) we've been doing everything wrong, and... b) it's not too late to fix it!

The very next moment I was out the door with my straw hat and pruning snips in hand. I pruned/harvested all of our basil plants, and now I have a sink full of ugly snail-nibbled basil. You guessed it... it's pesto-time. In fact, it's Big Batch pesto time. I had enough for 2 batches — one for now and one for the freezer.

Quoting... DeSylva & Brown

"You’re the cream in my coffee, 
You’re the salt in my stew; 

You will always be my necessity— 

I’d be lost without you. 

You give life savor, 
Bring out its flavor; 

So this is clear, dear, 

You’re my Worcestershire, dear."

—From the show "Hold Everything" (1929) 
Lyrics: B.G. DeSylva & Lew Brown / Music: Ray Henderson

(Click here for the song!) 

PS...Happy Birthday Honey! 

Salty Like The Sea

Sea salt is, at its most basic, just evaporated seawater. What makes the different types of sea salt stand out from each other are factors such as where it's harvested, how it's harvested, and what kinds of trace minerals and other elements it contains. All these things will influence it's color, moisture content and flavor (oh yeah, and price).

The one thing that all sea salts will do is make your food taste better. The larger crunchier crystals tend to dissolve slower than table salt and provide little bursts of flavor that make food really sparkle. If you've never done a side-by-side taste test of salts, now is the time. Start with the sea salt, putting a few grains of it on your tongue. Let it dissolve some, then start noticing the taste of it. Have a sip or two of water and then do the same thing with a bit of table salt. The difference should be pretty obvious.

From Curdled To Creamy... or How Julia Child Saved My Sandwich

I'm a mayo girl... I'm even a Mayo girl (heritage-ly speaking that is). I don't like dry sandwiches, and have to have a smear of mayo inside each slice of bread or I'm just not happy. 'Tis true. So when Hubs and I decided we couldn't finish off this roasted turkey without having a turkey sandwich or two... the wallet said, "If you want mayo on it, you'd better make it yourself!". And why not? It's just eggs and oil, a little mustard, salt and vinegar or lemon juice. We have all of that in our pantry and fridge at any given moment. Besides, I've made it before, it's a cinch...

Never Send A Blender To Do The Job Of A Food Processor.... I'll never stray again.
Not wanting to stray too far from the recipe/method I used before, I chose the Machine-Made Mayonnaise (page 363-364 of Julia Child's The Way To Cook [1989])... but I thought I'd use my new blender instead of the food processor. This soon proved a mistake. It began with the continuous fine spray of egg and oil out the center of the lid as I drizzled in the oil. And it ended with a blender full of separated mayonnaise-y liquid and a very disheartened girl whining about her cursed beginners luck.

Fan Of The Cran

Back in November I was delighted to find ginormous bags of fresh cranberries at our local Costco. Hubs convinced me to get two bags—they were a great price, only available for a short time, and I could freeze any I didn't use for later—all the criteria necessary for justifying a bulk grocery purchase.

Forward to January and we still had quite a few of those tart little jewels socked away. While I could never have foreseen the big roasted turkey we now have in our midst, it's truly delightful to have some cranberry sauce with it and really do things up right. Cranberry sauce is the perfect counterpoint on a plate of turkey, mashed potatoes and rich gravy (and it goes great with a pork roast too).

For this cranberry go 'round, I wanted something quick and easy but a little bit special too–just not so special that I'd have to make a trip to the store...

Meet My Friend Tom

A lot of assumptions get made when someone gives you an 18.64 lb. frozen turkey... It's assumed that: (1) you like to eat turkey...  (2) you have a freezer large enough to house the big bird... (3) you have a roasting pan big enough... (4) you even know how to roast a turkey. Of course, if the first assumption is correct, the others will take care of themselves one way or another. Today it all fell into place. I have to say, it was a pretty good feeling.

Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cranberries

Picture this: Thanksgiving morning, I sit with my mug of tea trying to clear the night from my eyes and focus on what I need to do: bake a pie and make cranberry sauce. Both are easy. The pie I've made before about a billion times, and the cranberry sauce... even the most complex of those are little more than chop-simmer-cool. Though I'm surrounded by a half-dozen excellent recipe options from holidays past, I decide to go online and look up more of them. I do stuff like that. Last night, too tired (and too cold) to want to stop at the grocery store on the way home for a couple oranges, I had decided to use Meyer lemons in the cran-sauce this year. They go great together in lots of other things, and I'd already seen one recipe in a Sunset magazine using that combination. Two results from my online search looked promising. One was from Bon Appétit and the other from Figs With Bri, a lovely food blog that overflows with warmth and deliciousness.

The holiday season is always a magnet for bittersweet emotions and this week has been the official start of them. Hubs and I are disappointed that we couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving with my family or his (all of them hundreds of miles away). We are overcome by the generosity of good friends offering to share their family table with us. We are concerned about friends who are having serious health issues. So, how do I handle all of this? Simple really, I sit and weep over a cranberry sauce recipe I found on the internet. But I never forget the sweet side of bittersweet: our relatives are relatively healthy and happy, we have loving, caring friends with big hearts, and we have food, clothing, and a roof over our heads. When you boil it all down, anything more than that is just sauce for the turkey... it's nice to have a little on your plate, but it's the meat that matters.

This Little Figgy Had Ice Cream

True confessions... I have never eaten a fresh fig. No particular aversion to them or anything like that, they just escaped me. Off my radar. I was a picky-eater as a kid, so maybe it's a stale mental-leftover from my childhood? Maybe it was just because they "looked funny". Who's to say? I was (am) also a very imaginative child, and figs, when quartered, have always reminded me of the ravenous houseplant in The Little Shop Of Horrors and/or the sand-worms of the desert planet Dune. When they're quartered and then cooked, they look like the undersides of starfish. None of those are images of things I'd really like to see on my dinner plate, then or now.

Once upon a time, I even lived in a house that had a fig tree smack-dab in the middle of the back yard. And yet I never ate of that tree. You see, it was my job to mow around it. It was exceptionally messy and it supported a healthy population of ants. This same yard also had a loquat tree sitting off to one side. Fig... loquat... lawn. At the time, I felt it was about the most useless yard in the world. Now I'm thinking that I might very well have been mowing around a goldmine. But what did I know?

Summer's Last Hurrah

Next summer, when we have more tomatoes than we'll know what to do with*... I'll know exactly what to do with them. I will make this tart. I will make this tart over and over and over, all summer long... and we will never tire of it. It's that good. There is so much going on in this tart I can't even begin to describe it. So I won't. I'll just let the ingredients speak for themselves: some homegrown tomatoes, fresh herbs, a smear of homemade mustard, a drizzle of olive oil, tangy goat cheese, a touch of honey... all caramelized, concentrated, cozy and warm, and in the loving arms of a crisp pastry shell.

I rolled the pastry dough out quite thin so I could make two tarts and use up all the tomatoes we had picked. We'll still get more tomatoes over the next few weeks, but not in this quantity. This was summer's last hurrah. Here, baked together in a tart shell, were our Sungold, Early Girl, Juliette, and Sun Kiss, snuggled up cheek-to-cheek.*