Staycation postcards -- with recipes!
I took Thursday and Friday off last week (thedeepquiet took the whole week, but she has a lot more vacation time saved up than I do) for an extended Labor Day weekend. It was lovely. We continued getting rid of crap and setting up appropriate storage for the crap we are keeping. thedeepquiet put together lots of furniture from Ikea. I alphabetized all our CDs and cassettes - we can actually both see and reach all of them now - and we purged some of each. We had a visit from my cousin S and his nuclear family Sunday, and yesterday we spent the whole day knitting and listening to music.
And there was cooking. Getting veggies from the CSA is feeling more and more like involuntary servitude to me. On Saturday we received nine pounds of tomatoes, mostly the small plum type. I knew there was no way we would eat nine pounds of raw tomatoes before they spoiled, so I decided to make sauce with most of them. I had never made sauce from fresh tomatoes before. I was also thinking of making these tomato preserves from the New York Times Magazine, but the pile of tomatoes seemed a lot smaller once I had peeled and seeded them, so all I did was the sauce. Maybe I'll make preserves next week, if we get an insane quantity of plum tomatoes again.
I read a few recipes on teh intarwebs, and then as usual I did my own thing. This took most of Sunday, but I was ignoring it a lot of the time. I love my slow cooker.
Tomato Sauce
About seven or eight pounds of tomatoes, peeled and seeded
Two onions, peeled and chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 small green peppers, seeded and chopped
a little bit of sherry
1 6-oz can tomato paste
black pepper
I learned how to peel and seed tomatoes from a cooking tutorial I found on the Web. Wash the tomatoes and cut a shallow X in the blossom end of each one. Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Set up a big bowl of ice water next to the stove. Boil the tomatoes for about 2 minutes, then fish them out and put them in the ice water. I had to do this in multiple batches. When the tomatoes are cool, you can slip the skins off easily with your fingers. To seed them, you can either squeeze the peeled tomato in your hand so the seeds slide out through that X you cut (I did this with the smaller ones), or you can cut it in half across its equator and push the seeds out with your fingers (that's how I did the big ones).
While I was dealing with the tomatoes, I threw the garlic, onions, and peppers into my 6-quart slow cooker crock with a splash of sherry and set it on high. Then I added the tomatoes and tomato paste. I cooked this in the slow cooker for about 8 hours total, on high. For about half that time, I left the cover off to let the liquid boil down. At the end, I added a little black pepper.
This is so yummy, it's a revelation. The tomato flavors are so deep and complex. I was going to add some herbs -- maybe some fresh basil, or some dried oregano and thyme -- toward the end of the cooking period, but the plain sauce was so delicious I didn't want to muck it up with distractions. We ate some with whole wheat pasta, and I have leftovers for my lunch today.
I was going to freeze this, but I only ended up with about 2 quarts, so I think we're just going to gobble it up.
Last night I was going to make pesto mashed potatoes for dinner, but I had neglected my pesto for too long and it was turning into a science project. We had some fresh dill that needed to be used up, though, so I regrouped and made this, based on Jo Stepaniak's recipes for "sour cream" in Vegan Vittles and The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook:
Vegan Sour Cream with Dill
1 12-oz box silken tofu (I think I used extra firm, or maybe it was just firm)
1 T sesame tahini
Somewhere between a quarter and a half cup of fresh dill tips
1 T white wine vinegar*
1 pinch salt*
a few grinds black pepper*
* more to taste.
Put everything in the food processor and whoodge until very smooth. Taste, correct seasoning, and whoodge again briefly to combine.
This tasted eerily like sour cream -- or at least, eerily like my recollection of sour cream, and a lot like Tofutti sour supreme. I took the whole batch and mixed it into a big pot of mashed potatoes -- maybe 3 or 4 pounds worth. Made the potatoes nice and creamy without having to add any soy milk, which is good because the only kind we have is vanilla, or Earth Balance, which is even better because I'm trying to stay away from extracted fats. This was our main course for dinner and there were lots of leftovers, yay!
And there was cooking. Getting veggies from the CSA is feeling more and more like involuntary servitude to me. On Saturday we received nine pounds of tomatoes, mostly the small plum type. I knew there was no way we would eat nine pounds of raw tomatoes before they spoiled, so I decided to make sauce with most of them. I had never made sauce from fresh tomatoes before. I was also thinking of making these tomato preserves from the New York Times Magazine, but the pile of tomatoes seemed a lot smaller once I had peeled and seeded them, so all I did was the sauce. Maybe I'll make preserves next week, if we get an insane quantity of plum tomatoes again.
I read a few recipes on teh intarwebs, and then as usual I did my own thing. This took most of Sunday, but I was ignoring it a lot of the time. I love my slow cooker.
Tomato Sauce
About seven or eight pounds of tomatoes, peeled and seeded
Two onions, peeled and chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 small green peppers, seeded and chopped
a little bit of sherry
1 6-oz can tomato paste
black pepper
I learned how to peel and seed tomatoes from a cooking tutorial I found on the Web. Wash the tomatoes and cut a shallow X in the blossom end of each one. Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Set up a big bowl of ice water next to the stove. Boil the tomatoes for about 2 minutes, then fish them out and put them in the ice water. I had to do this in multiple batches. When the tomatoes are cool, you can slip the skins off easily with your fingers. To seed them, you can either squeeze the peeled tomato in your hand so the seeds slide out through that X you cut (I did this with the smaller ones), or you can cut it in half across its equator and push the seeds out with your fingers (that's how I did the big ones).
While I was dealing with the tomatoes, I threw the garlic, onions, and peppers into my 6-quart slow cooker crock with a splash of sherry and set it on high. Then I added the tomatoes and tomato paste. I cooked this in the slow cooker for about 8 hours total, on high. For about half that time, I left the cover off to let the liquid boil down. At the end, I added a little black pepper.
This is so yummy, it's a revelation. The tomato flavors are so deep and complex. I was going to add some herbs -- maybe some fresh basil, or some dried oregano and thyme -- toward the end of the cooking period, but the plain sauce was so delicious I didn't want to muck it up with distractions. We ate some with whole wheat pasta, and I have leftovers for my lunch today.
I was going to freeze this, but I only ended up with about 2 quarts, so I think we're just going to gobble it up.
Last night I was going to make pesto mashed potatoes for dinner, but I had neglected my pesto for too long and it was turning into a science project. We had some fresh dill that needed to be used up, though, so I regrouped and made this, based on Jo Stepaniak's recipes for "sour cream" in Vegan Vittles and The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook:
Vegan Sour Cream with Dill
1 12-oz box silken tofu (I think I used extra firm, or maybe it was just firm)
1 T sesame tahini
Somewhere between a quarter and a half cup of fresh dill tips
1 T white wine vinegar*
1 pinch salt*
a few grinds black pepper*
* more to taste.
Put everything in the food processor and whoodge until very smooth. Taste, correct seasoning, and whoodge again briefly to combine.
This tasted eerily like sour cream -- or at least, eerily like my recollection of sour cream, and a lot like Tofutti sour supreme. I took the whole batch and mixed it into a big pot of mashed potatoes -- maybe 3 or 4 pounds worth. Made the potatoes nice and creamy without having to add any soy milk, which is good because the only kind we have is vanilla, or Earth Balance, which is even better because I'm trying to stay away from extracted fats. This was our main course for dinner and there were lots of leftovers, yay!