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Archive for the ‘tomatoes’ Category
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
 Prepping potatoes for the campfire There’s no reason not to eat well when you’re camping. I packed my CSA and garden veggies, chicken and eggs up and hauled them to Lassen National Park for a weekend camping trip. Before we left I cut the chicken into pieces and put it in a ziploc with wine wine and herbs so it was all ready to go.
 Grilling chicken and potatoes I always pack my knives with me wherever I go so it’s quick and easy to prepare everything. The potatoes go into foil with onions, garlic, butter, salt and pepper.
 Campfire dinner: Chicken, potatoes and homegrown tomatoes The tomatoes don’t need anything but salt! When they’re straight from the garden, they need no additional flavoring.
 Searing albacore When we go to my dad’s cabin, we cook many nights over the campfire but we also have a propane-fueled kitchen so I can get even fancier with my dishes. We had seared albacore with an orange-reduction sauce.
 Steaming clams in white wine and garlic Alongside the albacore were clams that I steamed with white wine, garlic, butter and parsley.
 Grilling the one porcini we found Every year we go to to the cabin we find ONE porcini. Just one. Every year. It’s wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It gives us the hope we’ll find more and we never do. Unfortunately there are cows that are left to roam wild and they eat the mushrooms! I bet that beef tastes fantastic.
 Gorgeous grilled porcini We sliced and grilled the porcini over the campfire, just like we do every Thanksgiving trek. It’s the only way to eat porcini as far as I’m concerned.
Next time you head into the woods, don’t pack trail mix and hot dogs. There’s no need. If you prep beforehand, you can have just as wonderful a meal as you would at home….plus, everything tastes better in the mountains. I have no scientific evidence for this but it is true. Try it!
Tags: albacore, camping, clams
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, flavor, food, hardcore, mushrooms, porcinis, potato, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
If you have an abundance of tomatoes, this is an easy, rich, tasty way to consume them.
Summer Pasta Sauce
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1 1/2 c. white wine
- 1 zucchini, chopped
- Tomatoes – as many as you can peel and fit in your pan.
- 2 cloves garlic
- Saute the onions until they are just starting to brown.
- Add the white wine and reduce completely
- Before the wine is completely gone, add the zucchini
- Once the zucchini is softened, add the tomatoes
- Salt the tomatoes
- Add the minced garlic
- Let this bubble away until it’s no longer watery (may take a while)
- Puree in the food processor (a batch at a time if needed)
Posted in amateur, recipe, self pleasuring, tomatoes, zucchini | No Comments »
Monday, August 8th, 2011
I got a HUGE number of tomatoes and hot peppers from my dad’s garden over the weekend. I’ve already used nearly 1/2 the tomatoes, believe it or not!
Tonight I’m making grilled skirt steak burritos with fresh guacamole and salsa. The secret to my guacamole is LOTS of lemon juice. The secret to my salsa is these tomatoes.
I don’t have much of a recipe. For the guacamole I mix avocados, onion (either powder or grated fresh onion, I don’t like chunks), lots of lemon juice, cayenne and salt. Easy.
For salsa, I put onion, hot peppers, lime juice and salt in the food processor, mix all that until it’s paste-like. Add some tomatoes and blend it all up. Then some cilantro. Then I stir in some chopped tomatoes and adjust everything by taste. I wing it.
Posted in tomatoes | No Comments »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
It’s gotten cold and rainy. When that happens, I start making more pasta and soup. More comfort foods. More warming, cozy foods. One of the easiest is usually pasta with red sauce.
2 onions, chopped
3 oz pancetta, diced (optional for vegetarians…not optional otherwise!)
Cook down until onions are soft and starting to brown.
Add 1c. white wine and 2 cloves minced garlic. Cook off almost all the wine.
Add 3 cans of tomatoes (not sauce).
Rehydrate some porcinis. I put as many into my 2 cup measuring cup as I could comfortably do. It’s not 2 cups of dried porcini per se because they aren’t packed in but they add great flavor so if you have them, use them! We have a few.
Chop up the porcinis once they’re soft and add them to the sauce. Let that reduce for, oh, awhile. You want to cook off most of the water bit of the tomatoes so you have a good thick sauce. When almost all of the liquid is cooked off add a huge handful of minced herbs. I use thyme and marjoram.
When the sauce is saucy and not watery, dump it into a food processor and zap it until its perfect.
Once again, I ate before I snapped a final picture. I wish I had smell-o-vision. This is one of my favorite smells in my house: garlicky goodness.
Posted in amateur, pasta, porcinis, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Friday, October 15th, 2010
JoLe
1457 Lincoln Avenue
Calistoga, CA 94515
707-942-5938
We used to go to Calistoga just about every year. We’d go in February, off-season, rainy, cheaper, but just as tasty and relaxing. Since our son was born six years ago, we’ve only been twice. This trip makes three times. Every time we go, I say, “We need to make this happen more often!” The main reason I said that this time is JoLe. 
I honestly can’t remember exactly how I found JoLe. I was looking for somewhere new to eat in Calistoga. We’ve done All Seasons Bistro and Calistoga Inn multiple times. Somehow I stumbled upon this wonderful farm-to-table restaurant and knew I had to try it.
We spent the day at the spa: mud+jacuzzi+massage=body-jello. I’m sure that contributed to my overwhelming drunkenness by the end of dinner! Still, I enjoyed every bite and every sip. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
JoLe does a tasting menu but it is unlike most tasting menus out there. You get to choose whatever 4, 5, or 6 courses you’d like from the menu and it’s not for the table but per person. That works well for picky me! We started with Forni Brown & Welsh Mixed Greens: Cherry tomatoes, avocado, bacon . Translation? BLT-Avo without the bread. An Atkins BLT if you will. So, so good. The bacon wasn’t too smoky, which I don’t like, it was more just salty and porky and there was the perfect amount of it for the salad.
The next course held a bit of a shocking win for the sommelier. He brought me pink wine. I don’t drink pink wine. Maybe it’s the goth in me, I just can’t do it. I don’t even like Domain Tempier Bandol Rosé. This one was called Lorenza. It was from Lodi. None of these things were going to make me like it more. It was paired with Bobby P Tomato Salad: Heirlooms, ricotta, pesto. Well, firstly, I left of the ricotta and they put the pesto on the side which I didn’t eat either because it had cheese in it. So, I had my gorgeous plate of tomatoes drizzled with some balsamic. No complaints here, I only eat tomatoes in season and I know that in the very near future they will go away and I’ll be tomato-less for at least 9 months. A bite of tomato, a sip of PINK wine….wow! Most wine doesn’t clash with tomatoes but not many actually pair with them. This one did. The tomatoes gave the wine a tomato-water flavor. It was incredible. I’ve never had anything like it. Kudos to Dan the sommelier!! (After far too much wine, my husband actually high-fived him…My husband doesn’t high-five…embarrassing now but it felt justified then!).
The next dish, Pink Snapper: Melted leeks, salsify, red wine reduction was beautiful. I make a lot of fish and we have, to quote my husband, a stupid amount of Pinot. So we pair fish and pinot all the time. We go against the grain you know, fish and red wine–shocking! I like them together and it was no exception here. The thing I fail at is getting the fish skin to crisp up. The waiter informed me that I should start with a cold pan (like with bacon). It makes perfect sense. I always start with the pan hot and it doesn’t render the fat under the skin and it gets soggy.
The Black Cod Croquettes: Chick pea, spinach and chorizo stew was a huge win. I’m not big on deep fried stuff. Fries, done right, are way up my list of favorite things, otherwise I’d rather have it pan-seared than deep fried. The exception being these amazing croquettes. The weren’t at all greasy, they were perfectly cooked through, they were complimented well with the spinach and chorizo. A surprising favorite of mine.
You may notice that the wine descriptions are disappearing and the food descriptions may get a liitle vague. To be honest, the whole evening gets a little vague. I remember clearly my pure bliss in eating the Quail: Broccoli rabe, figs, balsamic brown butter…however I don’t really remember why. I raved about both the quail and the wine pairing. What that wine was and why I loved it so is forever lost in a wino haze. Occupational hazard really.
 Now we’re to the point in the evening that I know happened. I have photographic evidence. I know I thought the sorbets were great. I even remember favoring one over another. What flavors were they? Wouldn’t you like to know!! I guess you’ll have to just go to Calistoga and have them for yourself. Of course, they’ll be different flavors depending on the season but I’m sure they’ll be just as good.
I think this is still considered an ”up and coming” new restaurant. I think it will go far. We were completely bowled over by the food and the talent of the sommelier. I hope we can get back up to Calistoga again before reservations for JoLe become too hard to come by! And next time maybe I’ll get the 5 courses instead of 6, I was more full and drunk that I really ought to have been…yum.
Posted in avocado, bacon, beef, dinner, restaurant, review, seasonal menu, table dance, tasting menu, tomatoes | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
I twittered this recipe the other night but don’t want to lose it, the sauce was great!! It was the first time I’d ever made Bolognese. Can’t say it’s quick but it’s still easy and rich and so yummy.
1 lg onion, 2 stalks celery, 6 cloves garlic.
Add about 1c. chopped pancetta:
Add 1 lb ground beef, 1/2 lb italian sausage. Cook until brown.
Add 1/2 glass red wine, reduce. Add 2 can tomatoes, 1c. chicken stock, 3T fresh thyme, 1/4 c cream
Bolognese then simmered for about 1 – 1 1/2 hours.
The final product. I stirred in a big handful of fresh basil off the heat. Had a fabulous 2002 Ridge Syrah with it.
Posted in pasta, recipe, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
 A mishmash of things from the fridge and the garden turned out to be a really wonderful dinner.
1-2oz. pancetta, diced small (optional if you’re vegetarian, required if you’re not!!)
1 leek, white and pale green parts only, chopped
Sautée these in a pan with olive oil until they are caramelized.
(Make the pesto while you’re waiting, recipe below. And put on a pot of water for the pasta!)
Add about 1/4 cup sweet vermouth to deglaze, and let this reduced down until syrupy.
Add:
1 cup diced summer squash (I used round zucchini)
2 minced garlic cloves
When squash is softened, add:
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
Immediately turn off heat!
This gives the sweet, richness of the caramelization but the freshness of summer tomatoes. If you turn off the heat it doesn’t break down the tomatoes but there’s enough heat left to warm them up with the dish.
Parsley-pecan pesto:
1 bunch parsley, stems removed
3/4 cup pecans
1/4 c lemon juice (I like lemony pesto!)
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
Run all this in the food processor and add olive oil (while the food processors still running) until it’s the texture of pesto! I probably use just shy of 1/4 cup of oil.
Toss the pesto into your cooked pasta (I used linguine) and top with spoonfuls of the tomato leek mixture.
This turned out even better than I expected it to. I served it with a Ridge Wines 2005 Syrah/Grenache and it went beautifully.
Posted in leeks, recipe, tomatoes | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
I am picking a basket of cherry tomatoes every other day from one plant. I eat as many as I can but needed another form of consumption. This recipe could easily be for just a bowl of gazpacho but since I had 8 people to divide this between, it became an amuse bouche.
It yielded just shy of 2 cups:
2 baskets cherry tomatoes
Puree in food processor then strain through a chinois.
Rinse food processor and puree:
1 handful of parsley
1 garlic clove
1 shallot
juice of 1 lemon
pinch or 2 of sea salt
2 T olive oil
Add strained tomatoes back in (discard skins and seeds), zing in processor.
Chill.
Slice a jalepeno and let it steep in some olive oil for as long as you’ve got (I let mine sit about 3 hours, room temp). Strain into squeeze bottle.
Peel and slice cucumber into sticks. Mince some basil.
For presentation:
Put a cucumber slice into a champagne flute.
Pour in gazpacho mixture.
Drizzle a little jalapeno oil on top.
Drop a little minced basil on top.
Drink, enjoy, and wish you had more!!
Posted in amuse bouche, gazpacho, recipe, tomatoes | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Updated Aug 3, 2009
Cook 1/2 cup of quinoa in stock (I use chicken stock) according to package instructions.
While that’s cooking, mix vinaigrette together:
3T White wine vinegar
2 minced shallots
2 minced green onions
a handful of chopped parsley
salt and pepper
NEW ingredients!:
Sauté 1 small chopped leek and 1 small chopped fennel bulb, add 2T white wine when soft and cook off. Add to vinaigrette mixture.
Once the quinoa is tender, mix it into the vinaigrette mixture.
Refrigerate until cool.
Mix in one egg as a binder and refrigerate again for at least 20 min. or so.
Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a pan until quite hot.
Form quinoa mixture into patties (as thin as you can make them without them falling apart). Carefully place into hot oil and let fry until bottom is crispy and brown. Don’t try to turn them over too soon or they’ll fall apart, they need to crisp up to hold together!
Turn and do the same to the other side.
Remove from oil and place on paper towels.
Serve topped with something yummy. I topped them with an heirloom tomato and basil salad.
Enjoy!
Posted in quinoa, recipe, tomatoes | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
I usually don’t make it to the store on Tuesday. Wednesday is Farmer’s market day so I try to just hold off and eat what we’ve got. Last night the fridge was pretty empty. But from the garden I picked this lovely plate of Brandywine tomatoes. I grow Winter garden, so I can pick things to cook when it’s cold out too, but nothing is like good summer tomatoes! I’ll be so sad when the season is over.
Posted in photos, tomatoes | No Comments »
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