Grilled Sweet and Spicy Salsa

quick and easy salsa

Pat had a peach craving yesterday, so he went to the farm and got about 5 lbs of peaches, again, and a few ears of corn.

So, we turned on the grill and got to work. We threw two ears (leave husks on, but get them damp, this helps to steam the corn inside), one peach, cut in half, and one big tomato from the garden, cut into thick slices, right onto the grill.

On our gas grill (turned to med-high) the corn took about 12 minutes, the peach about eight, and the tomato about five, just make sure you flip everything.

Once everything was cooked, I husked the corn, and cut it off the cob, peeled the skin off the tomato, and cut it and the peach into chunks a little larger than the size of the corn kernels.

The peach and corn held together well, and the tomato started to break down to make the salsa nice and juicy. I added the juice of half a lime, and some of our ghost salt to give it a kick (from Princeton, NJ's Savory Spice Shop, an awesome store that has every spice you can imagine, dried mushrooms, spice blends, and tons of stuff I would never have imagined). You can just use chili or cayenne powder instead, but then make sure you add some salt too.

The final result was sweet, spicy and acidic. You can use it on dinner (I'll show you soon what we added it to, yum!) or let it cool and eat it with chips.

Tomato and Eggplant Salad

tomato, eggplant and herb salad

I love Caprese salads, but with all the tomatoes out in the garden, I'm trying out a few healthier options (all that mozzarella!). Plus, I have other things growing out there that need to be eaten too!

So, I cooked one of my mini eggplants by slicing it in half, and cooking it flesh side down in a pan with a little olive oil until it was soft and a little brown, then I flipped it until the skin side had just a little color.

While this cooked, I went out and got some lemon basil, lemon thyme, orange mint and flat parsley from my garden, and sliced it all. Then I cut the tomatoes and eggplant into smaller pieces, and tossed all of this with olive oil, pepper and some ghost pepper salt we got from this awesome spice store in Princeton, NJ, and added some mixed greens (more for fluff than anything, this was my dinner, after all).

It was good, but I was wishing for some fat in this salad, maybe because I love mozzarella so much, but I think next time this salad is definitely going to have almonds, olives, cheese, or something more on it.

Quinoa and Veggies

quinoa and all the veggies in the fridge

For lunch today, I scoured the fridge and pantry, and, for the life of me couldn't figure out what to eat. I kept thinking, "there's nothing, and I don't want to go to the grocery store..." So, I reminded myself to think outside the box from my every day ideas, and I grabbed the box of quinoa (Peruvian seed that's low in fat, but high in protein and lots of important vitamins and minerals) off the shelf.

I peeled and chopped one carrot, one medium red pepper, one chili pepper, half of a white onion, two cloves of garlic, and tossed them in a pot with just a little olive oil.

After about two minutes on a medium high flame (I just wanted to bring out the flavors a little, not really cook anything through), I added one cup quinoa, one cup water, one cup veggie stock, a little ground mustard, allspice, salt and pepper. I brought this to a boil, then turned the flame to low, covered, and set the timer for 20 minutes.

Then I remembered how awesome couscous is with golden raisins and almonds, so I chopped a handful of each, and tossed them in.

There was so much flavor from all the veggies, and then little bursts of sweetness from the raisins. The only part I would change were the almonds, they were just a little too crunchy, so I would either, cook them longer, leave them out, or add flax seeds instead for a little nutty flavor.

Making and Canning Salsa

A few days ago, Pat bought tomatoes so he could make bruschetta. When I came home from work, I asked him if he was feeling alright, and reminded him about our 30 tomato plants in the yard. He told me he didn't think any were ripe. And that he hadn't even made any bruschetta.

So, needless to say, we have pounds and pounds of tomatoes.

My goal this summer has been to learn more about canning, and to try new recipes with all the produce from our garden.

I thought about making marinara sauce, but we are growing four san marzano tomato plants, and I want to save that adventure for those tomatoes once they are more ripe.

So, instead I decided to make salsa

yummy salsa

Overall, it was pretty easy, but a little time consuming.

First, I took all of the tomatoes we had (maybe 5 pounds, not positive), cut small Xs on them, and dropped them into boiling water in small batches. As the smaller ones started to float, or the larger ones you could see the skin coming off, I scooped them out, and dropped them into ice water (this method is called concasse). I only left them in the ice water for about a minute, because otherwise they got a little water-logged. Now the skin peeled off easily, and the seeds were easy to pull out.

Dump the water, but keep the pot handy, you'll need it in a few minutes.

Once I cleaned all of the tomatoes, I took one medium sized onion, five cloves of garlic, about a tablespoon and a half of chopped cilantro (use more if you like cilantro more), one bell pepper, and five hot peppers (seeds removed, but most of the pith remained, I just didn't want seeds in the salsa), and all of the tomatoes, and chopped them in a food processor. This makes the salsa more smooth, which I prefer, but if you like a chunkier salsa, chop everything with a knife.

Once this was done, I dumped this into the pot, added some cumin, 2 small cans of tomato paste (to give the salsa some body), covered the pot, brought to a boil, turned down the flame, and simmered for about a half hour. If the salsa isn't spicy enough, you can also add more cayenne or chili powder now, or separate into two pots, and make one spicier.

At this point, you can put the salsa in the fridge, and once its chilled, add one and a half tablespoons of lime juice per cup of salsa, and serve it, but it made a lot of salsa, so I decided to can four jars of the salsa.

canned salsa

I don't have a canner, so I took my biggest pasta pot, with the pasta insert, filled it with enough water to cover the jars, and brought it to a boil.

Once the water boiled, I submerged the 8 oz. jars and boiled them for ten minutes. I also put the lids in a separate, small pot of water and boiled these for five minutes. This sanitizes them, and softens the rubber to make it adhere to the jar.

Once the jars were sanitized, I added a tablespoon and a half of fresh lime juice to each jar, and filled it the rest of the way with salsa.

Next, put the lids and rings on, and put them in the pot, with at least an inch of water above the jars. Boil the jars for 20 minutes, bring them out of the water, loosen the rings a little, and turn upside-down. Leave them on the counter over night, and they should be sealed well.

We could have made about seven jars, I think. But I'm glad we didn't because we ate almost all of the extra salsa in one sitting. Its refreshing and just a little spicy.

Caprese Panini

tomato, basil and mozzarella panini

I almost always have fresh mozzarella in the house this time of year because I'm so addicted to Caprese salads. But today I only had one medium sized mozzarella ball left, and I wanted a heartier lunch, so I decided to turn my old standard into a sandwich.

I sliced everything, and then just put it on the George Foreman grill.

The result was a little messy, so next time, I should try to get some of the seeds out of the tomato, and maybe press the bread a little before I make the sandwich so I can get it a little more flat. I would also have loved some sun-dried tomatoes on this (ooh, that gives me an idea for next week...)

Shrimp Quesadilla

shrimp quesadilla with spicy mayo

We have lots of chili peppers yellow grape tomatoes in our garden, so for a quick dinner, we decided to make quesadillas.

I grilled a few shrimp, then chopped them, onions, tomatoes and peppers, and tossed everything (with cheese) onto a flour tortillia. We mixed sirracha (spicy chili paste) and mayo to make a spicy mayo topping.

Simple and delicious.

Bruschetta Take 2

heirloom tomato bruschetta

About a month ago, I shared the bruschetta Pat made, where he used our ninja food processor to chop raw veggies and then baked the whole thing, but I didn't like the look of it as much, and we have a way better selection of tomatoes in the garden now, so I decided to make another go of it.

I bought fresh bread from the grocery store (it was still warm!), cut it in half and grilled it to give it a crunch.

While the bread toasted, I chopped garlic and onions and sauteed them in a little oil, until the onions started to soften. Then I chopped my heirloom tomatoes and tossed them in the pot for about a minute.

I put some parmesan cheese right on the warm bread, then put the tomato mixture on top. I finished with just a little ghost pepper salt.

This had such a great roasted, rich flavor, where the one from last month had more of a bite from the more lightly cooked onions and garlic.

Green Beans

best green beans

Today I'm keeping it simple. I picked about a pound of beans from the garden, and while I'm sure there are plenty of ways to prepare them, I always believe simple is best.

Just steam them until they are almost cooked, then toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper until they start to turn brown. This gives them a nice roasted flavor, but without turning the oven on.

Cheese Plate

cheesy dessert

So, I usually try to first eat from my garden, and second, eat local, but sometimes I can't resist. These cheeses are all from Trader Joe's, and are from all over western Europe. But, I figure, they know what they're doing when it comes to cheese, and its ok to bend the rules occasionally.

So for dessert, we decided to have a trio of Goudas. I know, yum. From left to right, its a 1,000 day aged Gouda, a honey goat milk Gouda, and a three year aged Gouda. I love the sweeter goat milk honey Gouda, and Pat loved the crunchiness of the three year aged Gouda (it's like candy!)

To stick with my ideal locavore diet, I added some local honey, peaches and jam. (See, I try.)

Corn and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

corn, roasted red pepper and tomato soup

I know that summer and hot soup aren't always synonymous with one another, but soup is so easy to make, and makes great leftovers to take to work, so I decided to crank up the AC, and pretend it was soup weather.

To start, I took two red peppers and cut each into four, flat pieces. Skin side up, I put them in the broiler for a few minutes, until the skin was blistered and black. Besides adding a nice roasted flavor, doing this makes it easy to get the skin off (which can leave a weird texture in a puréed soup.)

While this cooked, I put on a small pot of water for the tomatoes. Then I coarsely chopped one medium onion, and three large garlic cloves, and set them aside. I then cut the corn kernels off of three ears of corn, and set that aside separately.

By now, the peppers were done, so I carefully (they are very hot) peeled off the skin and added the pepper flesh to the bowl with the corn.

Now, I prepared my tomatoes concassé by cutting a shallow X into the bottom of each tomato, and dropped them into the boiling water. This lightly cooks the tomato, and also makes it easy to get the skin off and seeds out. Because the smaller heirloom tomatoes in my garden are getting ripe, I used a variety of grape and cherry tomatoes, with the largest one just bigger than a golf ball. Using this method, smaller tomatoes will float when they are ready to be peeled. Once the tomatoes were done being peeled and seeded, I added them to the reserved corn and peppers.

In my soup pot, I heated about a tablespoon of olive oil and added my chopped onion. Once the onion started to turn translucent, I added the garlic and stirred for about 30 seconds, then added the corn, peppers, tomatoes, about six cups of vegetable stock, salt and pepper, both to taste. (For a thinner soup, feel free to use more vegetable stock.)

I turned the heat to low, and cooked for about an hour.

Once the corn was soft, I scooped out some of the corn and vegetable mix, trying to mostly get the corn, and set it aside while I used my immersion blender to blend the soup as smooth as I could. After the soup was puréed, I added the reserved corn back in to give the soup some texture.

This surprisingly delicious vegan soup made about four servings.

Caprese Salad

caprese salad

I know its super simple, but its so good. The mozzarella is made fresh at the local grocery store, and the basil and tomatoes come from the garden.

I used purple, sweet and lemon basil.  I use just a little bit of lemon basil, and it adds such a nice hint of citrus.

We have around 12 different types of heirloom tomatoes in the garden, and I love that each variety tastes a little different.

Finish with salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic, and enjoy.

Pepper Poppers

stuffed hungarian wax peppers

We have a pretty good variety of peppers that are really starting to grow in the garden. I like hot peppers, but can only take them in small doses, so these Hungarian Wax peppers are perfect for my taste. They are similar to jalapenos on the Scoville scale, but I've noticed that there seems to be a pretty large variance, one being much hotter than the next. (Or at least for the ones growing in our garden.)

So when I was trying to decide what to have for a snack, I decided that stuffing a few peppers was a great idea.

I mixed up some low fat cream cheese, pecorino romano, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Then I cut one side of each pepper, so I could take a few seeds out, and put the stuffing in.

At this point, I was planning on dipping the peppers in egg and breading them, but we were out of eggs, so I switched course.

I skewered all of the peppers together, cut side up, put them in a pan with cooking spray, covered them (which helped to steam them and make them softer faster), and cooked them for about five minutes.

When they came out, the bottoms were a little dark, and the cheese was starting to melt out, but the peppers were tender, delicious, and easy to eat. I topped mine with some bread crumbs to give it a little crunch, but they didn't stay on very well when I actually ate the peppers, so that isn't really necessary.