Tag Archives: tomatoes

Homemade salsa

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I love a good pico de gallo, and I’m often tempted to buy them in the store. But delicious homemade salsa is so easy to make fresh!

salsa

As the last of the summer tomatoes appeared at the farmer’s market, I chopped those up for salsas, but cherry and grape tomatoes also work really well here. You can vary the ingredients as you please, but possibilities are green and red peppers, red or white onion, fresh corn kernels (I usually sauté them a bit), hot pepper, garlic, avocado and cilantro. You could also add in some seasonal fruits if available; pineapple, mango and peaches all work well.

Chop everything up into small pieces (or pulse in a food processor) and stir to combine, then just add olive oil and lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar, plus fresh ground black pepper and plenty of salt. The best part is taste testing and adjusting everything as needed.

What’s your favorite salsa ingredient?

The Food Matters Project: Quinoa Tabbouleh

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Sara of the beautiful Simply Whole Kitchen chose this week’s Food Matters Project assignment, Quinoa Tabbouleh. It reminded me of a recipe for quinoa tabbouleh I made a few years ago (it’s the image at the top of this page!) but I haven’t had it since. This time, I went beyond the tomatoes and cukes and threw in whatever I had in my fridge — leftover roasted Turkish eggplant from Eastern Market, red pepper, Cherokee tomatoes, white beans. I didn’t have a lemon, so I used a bit of red wine vinegar as a stand-in acidic ingredient and it worked fine. This was a great clean-out-the-fridge recipe and a yummy accompaniment to white fish breaded with cornmeal.

Find the original recipe at Simply Whole Kitchen and see other variations from the FMP members here.

quinoa tabbouleh

Quinoa Tabbouleh, adapted from The Food Matters Cookbook

1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 cup water
2 small Cherokee tomatoes (or other good fresh tomatoes)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup roasted eggplant, chopped
handful fresh cilantro, washed, stemmed and chopped
3/4 cup cooked white beans
sprinkle of red wine vinegar
olive oil, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste
red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Bring the water to a boil and add the quinoa. Reduce the heat to low and cover it, cooking for about 10-12 minutes or until it’s fluffy. (If your package directions say otherwise, feel free to follow those.) Use the time while they cook to chop the vegetables. Combine the above ingredients from the quinoa through the white beans in a large bowl, then begin to add the vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes bit by bit, tasting as you go until you have a combination you like.

Related posts:

The Food Matters Project: Crisp Rice Cakes with Stir-Fried Vegetables and Chicken
The Food Matters Project: Mixed Grill with Chimichurri
The Food Matters Project: Roast potatoes and chicken with romesco
The Food Matters Project: Raspberry Cabernet Sorbet

Eggplant parmesan with chunky sauce

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I’ve been trying lately to make homemade bread. Not sure why, but it’s just something I feel like I need to do. Maybe it’s the cold weather; maybe it’s my love for carbs. But last weekend, I was trying to make baguettes and I needed something to go with them.

Enter eggplant parmesan. I piled it with chunky homemade tomato sauce, then dipped the baguettes into it. It was a great way to warm up the apartment on a cold winter night! I may not be the best bread baker yet, but here’s what I did for the eggplant parm.

Eggplant parmesan with chunky sauce

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
1 14.5 oz can whole tomatoes
1/2 eggplant
1 egg
2 very stale rolls to make breadcrumbs (the ones I used were rock hard), or store-bought breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Chop the onion into small pieces and add it to the pan when the oil is hot. Press the garlic into the pan and cook until the onion is translucent.

2. Here’s where you can try a few different things with the sauce. If you like a very chunky sauce, just add the tomatoes whole as they are and break them up using a wooden spoon in the pan as they cook. If you like it a bit smoother, chop them up before you add them to the pot, or even puree them in a food processor. You can add all the juice from the can or add it little by little as the sauce needs it — your choice. Add the tomatoes the way you want to, bring the mixture to a boil and then turn it down to simmer. Stir in a bit of salt and pepper. Cook it for a half hour or so, or until the tomatoes break down, stirring occasionally.

3. Wash the eggplant, trim off the top and cut it into thick slices and pile them up on a plate. If you’re not using store-bought breadcrumbs, put the stale bread in a food processor with some salt and pepper and process until it forms breadcrumbs.

4. Now you’re going to make an assembly line. Beat the egg in a shallow bowl and put it next to the plate of eggplant. On the other side of the egg, put the breadcrumbs in another shallow bowl. Finally, lightly spray down a baking sheet with non-stick spray and put that next to the breadcrumbs. Work down the line, dipping each piece of eggplant in the egg on each side, then dredging it on each side in the breadcrumbs. Lay each piece flat on the cookie sheet with a bit of room around each.

5. Bake the eggplant in the oven until the breadcrumbs are browned and the eggplant is soft when you poke it with a fork. The time this takes will vary depending on how thick your slices are, but it will probably take about 20-30 minutes.

6. Once the tomatoes in the sauce have broken down and the sauce has thickened to your liking, taste it for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. Spoon the sauce over the eggplant, top with parmesan cheese and serve with toasty bread or over pasta, with the greens of your choosing.

Serves two.

Eggplant parmesan

Bloody mary soup with shrimp, spinach and chickpeas

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Happy 2012 to all, and if anyone out there is feeling like they need a bit of a detox, you’re not alone. I got a new food processor/blender for Christmas that makes awesome smoothies, and I went and bought a ton of fresh fruit and veggies to try it out.

We had a couple of friends stay over on New Year’s Eve and I made brunch the next morning. I decided that I wanted to put my new toy to the test and make homemade bloody marys — that’s with fresh vegetables, not bottled tomato juice. It turned out to be a lot more labor intensive than I expected, mostly because I had to play around with the recipe a lot. After several rounds of adding liquid, blending and straining, I had a pretty good, very spicy batch of bloody marys that worked wonders on the hangovers. After we had enjoyed our drinks, however, I still had a ton of leftover pureed veggies that hadn’t even made it through the strainer.

Rather than put them to waste, I thought I’d make soup with them tonight. I was thinking of it as kind of a mix of a hot gazpacho and a bloody mary, with some toppings mixed in for good measure. It’s full of vegetables and protein, so a bowl was very filling. I’ve written it below as though I was making this all at once instead of a first round for the drinks and a second round to use up the leftovers, so the measurements below are approximate and I’d recommend tasting a lot as you go. And the mix-ins can be varied — the idea is to use up any lingering stuff you have in your fridge from holiday festivities, so get creative!

Ingredients:

5 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (optional, or use horseradish, which is traditional in bloody marys; we just didn’t have any)
1 cup packed spinach
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
4 oz cooked, deveined and peeled shrimp
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
salt and pepper, to taste
water, as needed

1. Put the tomatoes, celery, carrot, onion, jalapeno, 1/2 cup of the spinach, garlic and Worcestershire sauce in a saucepan over medium-high heat with a liberal shake of salt and pepper. Cook until all the vegetables are soft, adding water in 1/4 cup intervals as needed if it gets too thick. The consistency will depend on the kind of tomatoes you use, and keep in mind that all the vegetables will release water as they cook.

2. Once the vegetables are soft, put the whole mixture in a food processor and pulse until it reaches a consistency you like. You can also make it ahead up to this point and refrigerate for later.

3. Transfer the mixture back to the pan over medium-high heat. Stir in more water here if needed to bring it to a soupy consistency. Taste to see if it needs more salt and pepper.

4. When you’ve got a flavor you like, stir in the second 1/2 cup of spinach, the shrimp and the chickpeas. Cook until the spinach is wilted and the soup is heated throughout.

I served this with a dollop of plain yogurt along with cornbread and some cauliflower florets tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and broiled.

Bloody mary soup

Veggie and tofu quinoa

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I’m not sure why, but I’m a big fan of making one-pot/one-pan meals. (Sometimes I use two pots, but they always end up finishing in the same pan: see exhibits A, B and C.) I grew up on the meat-starch-veg-salad style of dinner, but I rarely find myself doing that now. It’s not a conscious decision, but come to think of it, I always mix several elements of my plate together in one bite anyway, so I think I just like the way flavors combine. Plus, using fewer pans means fewer dishes!

The other nice thing about cooking this way is it gives you a lot of room to be creative. When the flavors are all mixed in like that, if you mess something up or toss in something that doesn’t work, the rest of the dish tends to mask it. I find myself tossing in things that just need to be used up or that I think might work well, just to try it out.

So tonight I needed something healthy and fast because I came in starving after yoga. Technically it was a two-pot dish because I made the quinoa separately, but I tossed it back in with the veggies when it was done to stir-fry the whole thing a bit and it worked out well.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup red quinoa (or use regular — I just happened to have the red)
3 tablespoons olive oil, as needed
1 brick extra-firm tofu, squeezed dry
1 tablespoon soy sauce
5 broccoli florets, chopped into smaller pieces
1/2 zucchini, chopped into thick chunks
1/4 cup canned diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts (for instructions on toasting them, see the bottom of this post)
4 leaves fresh basil
garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the quinoa and get it started cooking — usually you boil double the amount of water as there is quinoa (so for 1/4 cup quinoa you’d boil 1/2 a cup of water), then add the quinoa and turn it down to medium, cover the pot, and cook until soft, which is usually around 10-12 minutes.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Chop the tofu into squares, then sprinkle them with soy sauce to give it a bit of flavor. When the oil is hot, fry the tofu squares, flipping them around occasionally so they’re crispy on each side. When they’re browned and crispy on the outsides — after about 10 minutes, but it will depend based on your stove — add the zucchini and broccoli. Sprinkle on some garlic powder, salt and pepper, and optionally red pepper flakes. (You can always adjust these amounts later if needed.) Chop up the basil and add it to the pan, along with the tomatoes. Stir fry until the vegetables are cooked.

When the quinoa is finished cooking (all the water has been absorbed and it’s fluffy) dump it into the skillet with the vegetables and give it a quick stir fry. Here’s where you can taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Stir in the pine nuts at the end.

Serves one.

Loads-of-veggie omelet

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Since I generally don’t have a whole lot of time to spend on breakfast during the week, omelets are one of my favorite weekend treats. I don’t really like meat at breakfast (my stomach doesn’t handle it well that early) so I load them up with vegetables, and a trick I’ve been using lately for a super flavorful all-vegetarian omelet is canned tomatoes. I think it’s even better than using fresh tomatoes, and here’s why: you can add a couple spoonfuls of the juice and you have an instant vehicle to add spices while the rest of the vegetables absorb it and get soft.

Here’s how it works:

Heat a sprayed 8-inch non-stick pan over medium heat and add whatever chopped vegetables you like (I use whatever I have on hand, but I really like onions, mushrooms, kale and broccoli). Brown them just a bit (less than 5 minutes), then add a spoonful or two of tomatoes and a couple spoonfuls of the juice. Since the pan is hot, it will probably start bubbling pretty much immediately. Quickly shake in some salt and pepper and garlic powder, maybe some oregano or whatever you like, and I usually add a couple of red pepper flakes, and then mix them all in. As the juice from the tomatoes cooks off, the rest of the vegetables will absorb the flavors of the spices as well as the yummy juice from the tomatoes. If the liquid evaporates before the vegetables are soft enough for your liking, just add a bit more as needed.

Remove the vegetables from the pan when the liquid is all gone and the veggies are soft. You may need to wipe it out quickly and respray it. Heat it back up and add two beaten eggs (I like to use one whole and one white). Once it sets, flip it over and sprinkle some cheese on top, then pile the vegetables up on half of it. Fold the empty half over the covered half and remove from heat once the cheese has melted.

As far as cheese, I will often use a slice of soy cheese just to make it a little heart healthier, because once it’s melted you can’t really tell the difference. But on the weekends, sometimes you need a special treat, and I love to grate a super sharp cheddar over this.

Omelet veggies with tomato and juice

TIP: If you do want to make this during the week, the really time-consuming part is the vegetables, so you could make a pan of these on the weekend and just stick them in the fridge. That way, you just have to make the egg part in the morning, which is relatively easy to do with minimal caffeine in your system.

Learn to love lentils

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Earlier this year, a good friend of mine got me involved in a program teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) through an outreach program in DC. She’s been doing it for awhile now, and as a language lover myself who missed volunteering, I finally asked her if the program needed extra teachers.

Let me back up for a minute for a quick philosophical statement: I am a firm believer that language is one of the most important (and least celebrated) ways we connect with each other. It’s also possibly the most powerful eraser of boundaries, because it allows us to express ourselves and understand one another, which, let’s face it, is really half the battle.

It was really when I spent a semester in Spain during college that I started thinking philosophically about the importance of language to human connection. My parents came to visit and when they met my host parents, each couple only spoke a few words of the other’s language. But they were able to piece a few things together, making heavy use of gestures and of me as a translator, and it felt like an incredible achievement for all of us to be able to communicate across this massive cultural ocean.

Language is integral to human interaction — we rely on it so regularly that it becomes commonplace, and we take the ability to communicate for granted. It’s always been a huge part of my life even beyond my studies of Spanish, but I didn’t realize the extent of how it shaped me until fairly recently. I credit my grandfather in large part for cultivating a love of words in me; language was always something we connected on in a special way. We were readers together and writers together, and I could sit for hours and listen to him telling me story after story about when he was a little boy — in fact, we kids used to beg him for stories. He kept in touch unfailingly through letters throughout my childhood and even in college, until he began to show symptoms of dementia just a few years ago.

Words are how I express myself, and that fact has made me into who I am today. When I’m not writing, I’m talking and telling stories. (Those of you who know me in person will, I’m sure, agree wholeheartedly with that statement.) I’m not the silent type, and I never will be. If my power of language is taken away from me, I’m at a complete loss.

Anyway, that was my drive for signing up to volunteer as a language teacher — I want to help people harness the power of language. I started teaching classes one night a week for two hours, and from the first class it was completely evident that Tuesday nights were going to be my favorite time of the week. As exhausted as I am from the weekend and the day and all the small annoyances of life, the smallest breakthrough (like when a student would make a joke in English, or when we overheard one of them counting under her breath in English rather than in her native language for the first time) completely erases everything else. It energizes me for the rest of the week and gives me hope about the nature of people. My students show up faithfully every single week, for no reason other than that they want to learn. They don’t pay a dime for the classes, and they don’t have parents or the law telling them they have to come learn. They just want to learn. They want to interact. It’s an incredibly exhilarating feeling to be a part of that.

But back to why I’m posting this on a food blog. Teaching has brought me more than this great outlook and energy — I also learned one of my new favorite recipes from another teacher. She had the teachers over for dinner one night and made this amazing tomato and lentil stew, which I immediately began to try to replicate in my kitchen. It’s probably evolved into something a lot different from Debbie’s original recipe, and the measurements below are all kind of an estimate, because I really just eyeball it and taste it along the way. But it’s simple, basically just lentils and tomatoes, seasoned with cinnamon for an almost Moroccan-inspired taste. Some people tell me tomatoes with cinnamon sounds gross, and ew! lentils!, but I’ve converted every single one of them (including my meatatarian boyfriend and my sister, who actually requested it twice when she was here visiting me in February). Incidentally (or maybe not?), it’s also a great thing to make on a night when you get home late and starving (after, say, teaching a 2-hour evening class?) because it’s simple, quick and hearty.

Lentils and Tomatoes, based on Debbie’s Lentils and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

1 cup lentils, rinsed and picked over (brown lentils or French lentils usually work well; red ones tend to fall apart and get mushy)
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 small white onion, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes, with juices
1/2 to 1 tbsp cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
a sprinkle of cumin, optional
red pepper flakes, optional, to taste (just because you know I love me some spiciness)

1. Fill a small saucepan with water, sprinkle a bit of salt in it and it bring to a boil. Cook the lentils in it. The time will vary according to what kind you’re using, but it will probably be about 15-20 minutes. You’ll know when you taste one and it’s soft, but hasn’t fallen apart. If you’re unfamiliar with cooking lentils, I’d recommend getting them dry in a package from the store rather than from the bulk section from a place like Whole Foods, just so you have the label to reference how they recommend cooking them. Once you’re more familiar with lentils, you’ll get a feel for how long it takes.

2. Meanwhile, add the olive oil to a larger frying pan or cast-iron pan and heat it over medium heat. Mince the garlic (or, even better, crush it in a garlic press) and add it to the pan.

3. Once the garlic starts to get fragrant, add the chopped onions and cook until they’re translucent.

4. When the lentils are done, drain them (reserving the liquid if you like to use as a broth for something else later) and add them to the big pan.

5. Drain the tomatoes into a bowl so you reserve their juices. Add the tomatoes to the pan along with some of the juice, just enough to keep the stew wet.

6. Stir in the cinnamon and season to taste with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes. (The measurements above are definitely an estimate, so taste this liberally as it cooks and season it to your liking.) Bring the whole thing back to a boil, keeping it moist as needed with the reserved tomato juice, but not letting it get too soupy.

7. Serve hot over rice or with a thick slab of bread.

Serves 2.

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it’s so fluid. I love cooking this way, where I shake in ingredients from my spice rack and taste as I go to find the right combination. It will all depend on the type of lentils you use, the type of tomatoes you use, and the strength of the spices you use. It’s kind of like telling a story — the pieces are basic, but it’s how you communicate it that makes it totally delicious.

This also works beyond spices: this week, for example, I was making this when my boyfriend was working late. I figured we could both probably use something green that day, so I threw in some broccoli with the onions. I thought it might not work with the cinnamon, but I actually loved the flavor and texture the broccoli added and will probably use it again next time. And when Debbie made me this dish, she garnished it with feta cheese, which I rarely have around, but it was amazing when she made it. So get creative. Make it into your own story. And if you discover another delicious twist, please post it in the comments so I can try it next time!

Why I love summer

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A few of my favorite summer sights: dogs running at top speed and splashing through the surf like it’s the happiest day of their lives. Little tan kids running around laughing on the beach. A pitcher of margaritas coming my way. And fresh tomatoes at the farmer’s market.

There’s no better summer bounty than a warm, juicy tomato. I could live on them. Some days I eat them at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A couple weeks ago I went to Eastern Market and snagged a pint of these gorgeous little cherry tomatoes. I ate them like candy, seriously. I’m going to cry if this guy isn’t there with them again next time — I snagged his last box.

Cherry tomatoes

I had them one Saturday morning with my favorite breakfast indulgence — shrimp and grits. I threw a little bit of cheese in there too just to be extra decadent.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 serving of Quaker grits, cooked according to box directions
1 handful of shredded cheddar, or whatever cheese you prefer — you could even go low-fat and you’d never know the difference
salt and pepper to taste

1. While the grits cook, boil some water and throw in the shrimp. Cook them until they’re thoroughly pink and their tails curl in — it only takes a couple minutes, so watch them carefully.

2. Drain and rinse the shrimp.

3. Once the grits are cooked, stir in the cheese and the shrimp.

4. Serve immediately. Best in the summertime with fresh sliced vine tomatoes or cherry tomatoes.

Serves one.

Shrimp and grits with cherry tomatoes