I am thrilled that my garden has produced over 50 lbs of tomatoes this season. That also means I have been on a kick to try and use the tomatoes in as many innovative ways as possible. Here is one of our favorites so far. Since the tomatoes are front and center in this recipe, I do recommend using fresh, organic and preferably, locally grown tomatoes. For tomato lovers, this is a treat on hot summer nights!

Source: Martha Rose Shulman’s NYT column titled Recipes for Health

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

2 pounds ripe tomatoes (organic and locally grown recommended)

Salt to taste

1 large garlic clove, peeled

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, plus a few leaves, slivered, for garnish

1 cup water

Pinch of cayenne (optional)

Method:

1. Cut 1/2 pound of the tomatoes (2 medium) in half across the equator, and grate on the large holes of a box grater set over a bowl. Line a strainer with cheesecloth, and set over a bowl. Place the grated tomatoes in the cheesecloth and allow to drain for one hour. (The “tomato water” that drips through will have an intense, pure flavor.) Meanwhile, cut the remaining tomatoes in wedges and toss in a bowl with salt to taste, the garlic clove, vinegar and olive oil.

2. After one hour, gather up the cheesecloth around the tomato pulp that remains and squeeze to extract all of the remaining juice. Transfer the juice to a blender. Add the tomato wedges and all of the juice in the bowl, along with the tomato paste, basil leaves and water. Blend until smooth (if necessary do this in two batches). Adjust seasoning, and if you want a hint of heat, add a small pinch of cayenne.

3. Strain the soup through a medium strainer set over a bowl, pushing the soup through with a spatula or the bottom of a ladle. Serve right away, or for the best flavor refrigerate for one to 24 hours before serving. Blend again or whisk before serving. Serve, garnishing each bowl with slivered basil.

This is an adaptation of Mark Bittman’s recipe from “How to Cook Everything.” It is a simple and easy way to create a tasty cream sauce, a nice change for us as we typically have pasta with tomato sauce or with vegetables in olive oil.

Serving size: 4 (with salad)

Time: Approximately 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound penne or similar pasta
• 1/2 lb cremini mushroom, sliced
• 1/4 red onion, diced finely
• About 3/4 cup fresh ricotta
• 1 tablespoon softened butter (optional)
• 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup freshly shelled or frozen peas
• Crushed red pepper, to taste (optional)
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Parsley (optional)

This is a recipe I modified from a friend’s blog and made in Singapore for the family. I must say the outcome was good enough for the Vino forum .

Ingredients

1) Pomfret! – sliced into pieces. If you want to make the whole fish follow Reshma’s recipe from her blog. I was working with 3 fish. So recipe is to scale accoring to the # of fish.

2) Marinade: 1 sprig of fresh coriander, 6-7 cloves of garlic, 1-1.2 inch ginger, 5-7 green chillies, 1 hunk of frozen shredded coconut, 1 tbsp tamarind paste, dried curry leaves (microwave fresh curry leaves for 1 min) salt to taste.

3) Rub the fish pieces with the marinade.

4) Coating: Rice flour and semolina mixed with salt, turmeric and chilli powder.

Rub the fish with the marinade well before coating thickly with the rice flour and semolina mix. Shallow fry in oil. While frying you have to be careful. fry well on one side till the flour batter crips and then turn over.

Garnish with lemon and serve hot!

As Summer approaches, green garlic is back at the farmer’s market.  I threw together this soup last week using a sweet potato in addition to a yukon gold and it turned out really well.

Ingredients

• 1 green garlic head , fine chopped
• 1 small yukon gold potato, cubed
• 1 small sweet potato, cubed
• large pinch of crushed red chile flakes
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• olive oil
• water
• salt
• garlic chives (optional)
• about 1/4 cup milk or 1/8 cup cream

Method

1. Heat about 1 tbsp olive oil in a sauce pan on medium, and add the green garlic cloves and the red chile flakes
2. Saute the green garlic until soft (do NOT let it brown)
3. Add both the potatoes and thyme, and enough water to cover the potatoes.  If the green portion of the green garlic looks fresh, chop that up finely and add.
4. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are done (about 10 minutes, depending on how big you cut them)
5. Blend until smooth, transfer back to the sauce pan and add the milk/cream.  You can adjust how much of that you add for your desired thickness.
6. Top with some chives, croutons, Death Sauce, etc…. eat!

I found a recipe for Guinness-Chocolate ice cream today at the Brown-eyed Baker, and it sounded so good, I decided to make it today.  Well just as I was about to chill the custard prior to freezing it, I had a thought.  In addition to the Guinness, why not throw a couple of teaspoons of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey into it?  Well, I have to say the result was nothing short of phenomenal.  Here is the recipe, with that ever so slight adaptation.

Ingredients

• 7 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup whole milk
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup heavy cream
• ¾ cup Guinness Stout
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey

Method

1. Put the chocolate pieces in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.
2. Warm the milk, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer over the milk chocolate, then stir until the chocolate is melted. Once the mixture is smooth, whisk in the cream, then the Guinness, vanilla, and whiskey. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (at least 8 hours or overnight), then churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Our first beautiful loaf of bread

There is a cult-like following for this recipe on the web.  The national craze started with Mark Bittman of the New York Times giving prominence to a bread recipe used by Jim Sullivan of Sullivan’s bakery in NYC.  Like the title suggests, it involves making bread without having to do any kneading.  The surprising result is a delicious, crispy on the outside, moist on the inside bread that requires almost no effort other than time and some planning.

This is our second attempt at this bread.  We bought active dry yeast instead of the instant yeast that the recipe calls for.  Being beginner bakers and knowing nothing about different yeasts, we just figured it would work the same way… we were wrong.  Apparently, active dry yeast needs to mixed with some warm water prior to mixing it in the dough, in order to activate it.  Not having done that, our first loaf (if you could call it that) barely rose at all, and was… well, let’s just say not good.  This is our second loaf where we used the rest of the active dry yeast we had, but we properly activated it first.  It makes a big difference!  Although, we did go and buy instant yeast, so that we could try that next time.

Because on needs to let the dough rise for 14-20 hours (the longer the better… less yeast, more rise time = more flavorful bread), you need to have some forethought and planning to make it.  The actual labor however is minimal.  We mixed the dough on a Saturday at about 6pm.  We started baking the bread at about 3pm on Sunday, so we gave it almost 21 hours to rise.

Hopefully you’ll see plenty of follow-on postings by us about bread making.  We definitely want to experiment with different types of flour (whole wheat, semolina, rye, etc.).  We only used white all-purpose flour in all parts of this recipe.

No Knead Bread Recipe (from Mark Bittman at NYT)

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Source: NYT’s Mark Bittman

Time: 10 minutes

This is an adaptation of Bittman’s recipe actually. He specifically calls for black kale. Since I grow curly kale at the garden that is what I used to make it. We also made a couple of other changes to the recipe. Make sure not to substitute the black olives with any other kind though. The subtlety of the olives is what makes the salad.

INGREDIENTS

1 large bunch kale (about 1 pound), stemmed and cut into thin ribbons

1/2 cup black olives, pitted and chopped

1/4 cup grated Parmesan or other hard cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

Salt

Black pepper

Pine nuts (optional)

METHODS

1. Combine the kale, olives and cheese in a large bowl. Drizzle with the oil and vinegar, sprinkle with salt (not too much) and lots of pepper, and toss. Add the pine nuts, if using.

2. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to an hour.