Holy Tomatoes!!

The tomatoes in my garden are out of control! For the last few weeks we have been picking about a liter of cherry tomatoes every 2 days. Yesterday I swear we picked a bucket and there are more ready to be picked today!! So with this many tomatoes new recipes were in order and a recipe that used a lot of the tomatoes cause I don't want them to go bad. I made a cherry tomato sauce and tossed it with rigatoni, parmesan cheese, & arugula very yummy and fresh tasting! 

Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
2-3 pints Cherry Tomatoes (slice half of the tomatoes in half)
3 tbsp sliced garlic (approx 4-6 cloves)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (more if you like it really spicy)
3/4 tsp salt
pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tsp chopped oregano


Preheat oven to 350
In a large glass pyrex (13x9) toss all the ingredients except the herbs. Roast in the oven until the tomatoes are tender, stirring occasionally for about 40-45 minutes.  
Remove from the oven and toss with the herbs


I used this sauce for pasta but you could also use it over chicken. As mentioned above when you toss the pasta with the sauce you can vary the recipe by adding arugula, spinach, parmesan, sliced chicken, or shrimp etc. See what's in your fridge that's what I do!

Organic Vegetable Basket Inspires Dinner!

In my previous post I mentioned that I signed up for an organic basket program for the summer. It started this week and the picture above is from the first basket. All the vegetables are organic, more important to me is that they are fresh and local. They come from a farm in Franklin, Quebec which is just an hour out of the city. The program is 20 weeks long, so from now until mid November, there will be a basket available once a week. I foresee Thursdays being my new big dinner days! This week I didn't prepare a thing until I picked up the basket, then I went to the grocery store to get any missing ingredients. I think this is the best way to cook...to be inspired by your ingredients, instead of starting from a recipe. I gathered the ingredients and then said "what I can I cook from this?"

So for the contents of this weeks basket: Radishes which are bigger than golf balls!, Beets with greens intact, green onions, 1 zucchini, oak leaf lettuce, bok choy, thai basil, savory, garlic flowers & I exchanged cilantro for a huge napa cabbage. I was really pleased with the contents. There are a few items that I have never cooked with before but that is part of the adventure, plus it forces you to create new recipes!

So for dinner I made a garden fresh salad with honey/champagne vinaigrette & cabbage rolls.

 For the salad I used the oak leaves (new ingredient for me) they have a soft texture like a bibb lettuce but with a bit of a kick like arugula. I peeled and shaved a beet (if you slice a beet very thin it is enjoyable raw), green onions, radishes, & zucchini flowers (from my garden) I just tore them into the salad at the last minute. Ingredients not from my garden or the basket were goat cheese & tomatoes (next week hopefully). The recipe for the vinaigrette is at the bottom. The combination between the soft lettuce, crispy beets, smooth goat cheese and overall freshness of everything went really well with the sweet vinaigrette. When I tasted the vinaigrette on it's own it was very sweet from the honey, but it worked really with the earthiness from the beets and the tangy goat cheese.

For the cabbage rolls, I picked up a meatloaf mix (ground pork,veal,beef) at the grocery store and used some leftover tomato sauce that I had made earlier in the week. I sauteed onions, the zucchini and garlic (from my garden) together until softened, added the meat. I chopped up some of the Savory herb which I would say is like rosemary, sage & thyme got together. It is a very woodsy herb. I cooled the mixture added 1 egg whisked and 2 good handfuls of freshly grated parmesan. I blanched the large cabbage leaves in boiling water for 2-3 minutes until they were softened then drained and dried them. Then the assembly began. Put a little tomato sauce in the bottom of a baking dish so the rolls don't stick. Place a cabbage leaf on a board and add about 2 1/2 good spoonfuls of filling at about the middle of the leaf. Fold the bottom of the leaf up, tuck the sides in and roll to create a little package. Some of my leaves were broken it's not a big deal after-all cabbage rolls aren't exactly a gourmet meal! Place the rolls in the baking dish, top with tomato sauce and bake covered for 30 minutes  @ 350.  I topped them with a little more parmesan, they were pretty yummy and not as much of a pain to make as I thought they would be! They also reheat really well. 
Honey Vinaigrette

• 2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 5 tablespoons extra-light olive oil
• Ground white pepper

Whisk together the first 3 ingredients and then slowly whisk in the oil so the dressing emulsifies. Add pepper to taste. 

Tribute to Julia Child

I remember watching Julia Child on TV when I was very young, I found her peculiar and hilarious. Her larger than life characte made quite an impression on my ten year old self. She always looked like she was having so much fun, and her voice was unlike anything I had ever heard. I am very surprised and dissapointed in myself that it was the release of the movie Julia & Julia that pushed me to buy her famous cookbook "Mastering The Art of French Cooking". The book is filled with good old fashioned hearty recipes. The layout of the book is very different from a traditionanl cookbook. For example, in her book she lists the ingredients as they appear in the recipe with the instructions beside them, sometimes you have to flip 2 or 3 pages to make your list of ingredients before going to the grocery store. Once you get used to her methods it is very clear and easy to understand, which was the whole point of her book. She wanted women that don't know there way around the kitchen to be able to read a recipe and execute it deliciously.

Yesterday, I set out to make a beef stew from the book. No not Boeuf Bourgignonne, I didn't have a whole day to spare! I made what I would call it's cousin Boeuf a la Catalane. She described this as a mediterranean stew, although the only thing that is mediterranean about it would be the tomatoes and parmagian. The stew was easy to make, the only change I made was that instead of using a skillet to start the cooking and then transfering everything to a casserole I cooked everything in a dutch oven. The stew was hearty and delicious. It resembled a Jamabalaya because of the rice. I am defiinitly going to use this cooking method for other proteins (chicken, shrimp etc). It was yummy and my hubby had thirds, so I think it is a keeper!!!

Try the recipe below and let me know if you like it as much as we did. I change a few things but just for convenience. Sorry there are no pictures because Jeremy didn't want to wait for me to take them. Oh and there was no leftovers!

Boeuf A La Catalane-Julia Child

1/4 lb chunk of bacon cubed
2 Tbsp Olive oil
3 lbs stewing beef but into squares about 1"
1 1/2 cups sliced onions
1 cup unwashed white rice (raw)
1 cup dry white wine
2-3 cups beef stock
2 garlic cloves minced
1/2 tsp thyme
pinch of saffron ( didn't have)
1 crumbled bay leaf ( I used  dried and left it whole)
1lb ripe red tomatoes, peeled, seeded, juiced and chopped. ( I drained a can of diced tomatoes) about 1 1/2 cups
1 cup grated parmesan

Equipment needed: medium sized dutch oven (I used a 5.3L round), slotted spoon, a large bowl, a small bowl. wooden spatula (so not to scratch your pot)

Preheat oven to 325

In a dutch oven heat a tsp of the oil and lightly brown the bacon, remove with a slotted spoon to the bowl.

Dry the meat on paper towels, heat the dutch oven until the oil/bacon fat is almost smoking, add the meat a few pieces at a time to brown. When it is brown place in the bowl.

Lower heat to moderate and brown the onions lightly, remove them and add to the bowl.

Stir the rice into the oil/fat for 2-3 minutes until it turns a milk color. Scrape into the small bowl with a  spatula for later. '

Pour off any remaining fat, add the wine and stir for a minute over the heat scraping up all the yummy brown bits. Add the bacon/beef/onions back to the dutch oven.

Add the garlic, thyme, salt & pepper, bay leaf & saffron (if using)
Add the stock almost to the height of the beef, bring to a simmer, cover and set in the lower position of the oven to simmer slowly for an hour.

Remove dutch oven from oven, stir in the tomatoes, bring to a simmer, cover and return to the oven for about another hour until the meat is fork tender.

Remove from oven and raise temp to 375.
Skim off any fat if there is any, add more stock or water so that it almost at the height of the beef. Stir in the rice bring to a simmer and cover. Place back in the oven and keep it at a full simmer, do not stir it anymore at this point. Cook for about 20-25 minutes, the rice will have absorbed almost all of the liquid and should be cooked.

Remove from oven, just before serving fold in the Parmesan (if you want)

Bon Appetit!

Cooking with Beets, the super food!

So when I was younger I hated beets I thought they were yucky and tasted like dirt! Now I have a more refined palette and I can appreciate there earthy flavour. Also beets are very good for you. They are rich in folate, a nutrient important for cell growth. Beets can also help  keep your brain healthy, a lack of folate has been known to have a higher risk of dementia, according to a recent study in the Journal of Nutrition.

The first time I looked at a roasted beet recipe I thought "forget it" this is way to complicated and time consuming, but I have now realized they are just as simple as making mashed potatoes they just take a bit more time...(and most of that time they are in the oven, so you are free to do other things!)

Here is the way I prepare beets:

Preheat your oven to 425

Cut the hairy tips off the ends of the beets, then I place them in a single layer on aluminum foil, make sure the foil is long enough so you can fold it over to make a pouch.

Fold the aluminum foil over to cover the beets and crimp or fold each side in until the beets are tightly wrapped. Place your pouch on a baking sheet (in case the pouch leaks) and place in the center of your oven for 45mins-1 hour depending on how large the beets are. Flip the pouch over half way through the cooking process just to make sure you don't get any burnt parts.

You will be able to smell the roasted beets and that will give you a good hint on when they are done. If you are not sure, you can take the pouch out, open it and poke a beet with a knife, if it is tender then it is ready if not, then just wrap the beets up again and roast for a little longer.

When you remove them from the oven let them stay wrapped in the pouch for 15 minutes or so, this will allow the beets to steam a bit which will make them easier to peel. After that open the foil to allow the beets to cool.

Once they are cool, put on your plastic gloves (to avoid staining your hands, although if your not making a ton of beets you should be ok if you wash your hands immediately)

Hold the beet in one hand and rub the skin off with your other hand, the skin should slip right off, sometimes the skin gets a bit stuck and you can peel or cut it off with a small knife.

At this point your beets are ready for their next use...salad...purée etc.

A roasted beet has such a different taste from the beets I remember. The simple process which only takes about 15 minutes of active cooking time, makes all the difference in flavour. (inactive is when it is in the oven)

My favorite way to eat roasted beets is with goat cheese and arugula. The picture shown is my attempt at a fancy beet salad! Actually it looks fancy but is easy to all you need is a cylinder mold then you just layer and voila!