Food

Blendtec and Tomatoes. A Heavenly Match

September 24, 2013

This post takes the cake for all-time fastest tomato preserving.

Well, crap. Now that I think of it, there was the year I simply put entire tomatoes in the freezer whole… I guess that was faster. But this version actually qualifies as tomato puree, so I’m going with it.

As anyone who lives in the Midwest knows, it has been a bizarre gardening year. B I Z A R R E. Flood, Frost, Flame, F___ (don’t tempt me. I’m very bad at alliteration.) For example, I finally started harvesting tomatoes in September. While Bon Appetite and every other cooking-with-the-seasons resource is on to their fall recipes, Minnesota BEGINS to harvest the summer staples. I made my first gazpacho on September 5th. Who wants gazpacho in September?

Apparently, WE do! Because at that point on the calendar, I believe we topped out around 97 degrees. Like I said: crazy weather. Approximately 10 days later I experienced my first frost completely out of the blue. I had not one single clue that was even on the horizon, much less imminent. Nothing was killed — or at least nothing I really cared about.

But the early September heat wave certainly stimulated the tomato harvest, and for that I think most of us are grateful. It was also extremely needed for my raspberries and pumpkin patch, both of which seem to have caught up to where they need to be in order to be able to have successful harvests.

Maybe it’s my age — or maybe it’s because EVERYONE is now gardening, canning, preserving — but something seems to have made me apathetic. -And if I don’t want to do it, well then, at this point in my life I’m NOT going to do it, dammit. But the tomatoes. THE TOMATOES! They are rolling off vines knocking us over. Too many. And as apathetic as I might be, I still can’t seem to be able to wast them.

So I got to wondering: I wonder… I wonder… if I can just puree the whole tomatoes in the Blendtec and freeze them? [google. google. google…not much to be found…] So I just did it. And let me tell you: it was FAST and it was EASY and I’m THRILLED. Isn’t that all that counts?

I started by cutting them and ended by pulling the green stem off and throwing them in whole. Duh. I forget: the Blendtec can blend wood…

Yum! (looks more like MANGO than tomato!)

Then I measured 2 cups into small sandwich size and 1 cup into snack size ziploc bags.

And put the smaller bags inside a gallon sized freezer bag and laid flat to freeze.

All in, it took about 20 minutes. Stay tuned for how well it cooks up. I will try that soon, before I make buckets more of the stuff and update here.

Breakfast for the Non-Breakfast Person

February 6, 2013

Never, in all of my 79 years* have I eaten breakfast on a regular basis.

Oh I know. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I KNOW!!

“It’s the most important meal of the day,” they yell!
“Breakfast controls your appetite so you don’t overeat and snack,” they lie!
“You burn more calories because breakfast jump starts your metabolism,” they explain!

“B.S.,” I reply.

And I still cry foul. Maybe I’m just special**, but breakfast does none of the promised things for me that it apparently does for the rest of the world. When I eat breakfast, it only jumpstarts my appetite and my imagination. As in: “What else is there to eat now?” And, “How much longer until lunch?” And frankly, if there is a time during the day during which I am NOT hungry and craving food, why in the world would I decide to force-feed myself just because a bunch of so-called experts tell me I should?

So, it is not with any haughty über-knowledge on health and wellness that I propose you give this breakfast a try. It is simply, without question, the most effing delicious thing I have discovered in the past year or two. Not since Meatless Monday’s discovery of Indian food have I been this evangelical about a food item. So now, like the vast majority of people in the world, I sit down to breakfast most mornings. Not because I am hungry, but because it is so damn good.

I could write on and on about this. And that’s just a little scary. It’s also why I haven’t written much in the past few months. I simply don’t have the time to write a tome every single time I open WordPress. I supposed it’s also because I can’t find that blasted Road Trip journal, but no one actually believes me about that so…

Here’s the deal:

Buy Fage Fat Free Yogurt. Not only is it the perfect texture, but then you only have one carton of yogurt molding in your refrigerator instead of the two you normally have because you no longer have to buy plain for cooking and sweetened for eating.
Buy either a big thing of honey or agave nectar, which doesn’t crystallize like honey, but isn’t *quite* as delicious. It more than makes up for that in the reduced frustration factor though.
Mix the yogurt with the honey or agave to taste.
Add a wicked amount of pomegranate seeds. I used to buy the packaged ones– so easy! — but they ferment so dang fast, so now I buy a crate of pomegranates and keep them in our garage. They last a month!
Skip the granola. The pomegranate seeds are crunchy enough and there’s one less thing to put away.
Stir it together and tell me it’s not the best thing you’ve ever eaten.

* OK, I’m not really 79 years old. But tell that to the arches on my feet and my hamstrings that are so tight I’m fearful they are going to snap the next time I lunge at my cat in anger as she claws my couch.

** I am special.

Thanksgiving’s Biggest Lie

November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m laying on the couch in the dark. It’s 6:00 am. And I’m writing this from the tiny keypad of my phone. It is both the most cool and the most frustrating thing, all at the same time.

I got out of bed because I couldn’t sleep. I was being tormented by dreams of that damn turkey, haunting me from the basement fridge. –And I’m not even a nervous turkey cook!

Or am I?

I dreamt that I took the turkey out of the oven to flip it and realized that I had started it breast-side up. I was supposed to start it breast side down. So I flipped it over, and it was suddenly too big for the pan — and all the pan juices overflowed onto the floor.

While I’m not a nervous turkey cook I do worry that I won’t have enough pan juices for the gravy. Gravy, as you know, is the most important part of the entire meal.

Anyway, this post will reach you too late, I fear.

The biggest lie they tell you at Thanksgiving: transfer your turkey from the freezer to the refrigerator 3-5 days before you cook it so that it can safely defrost at the correct temperature.

What a load of crap!

I do it every year. And every year I remove a frozen-solid turkey from my fridge.

So tell me: am I the only person this happens to?

If not, I certainly hope you discovered this yesterday and not this morning. I can’t really save you now, but for what it’s worth, the fastest way I’ve found to remedy a frozen bird is to submerge it in water.

But honestly, you might still be screwed.

Call the guests and push it back an hour or two. Or go to the liquor store and buy more booze.

It’ll be fine.

I just wonder when someone — anyone! — will publicly admit that it will take a month to defrost an 18 pound turkey in a normal fridge.

And I’m not even sure of that.

Beet Chips. My Hungover Sunday Idea.

November 4, 2012

I got this idea when I was making kale chips last weekend. When I looked online to see if people do it, I found recipes for deep fried beet chips. But, if you have been reading this site for any length of time, you know my stance on deep frying. And not because it’s bad for you. But because it makes my house (and hair) smell.

So.

Being hungover, I have a command post set up on the couch where I can order people around and be close to the junk food.

My last set of orders was to Charlie to go pick me some beets. I’ve had a burst of energy since taking 3 Advil and 3 Excedrin. Plus, two lattes, several handfuls of pita chips. Some kale chips (it’s a super food you know), a Baby Ruth, steel cut oatmeal with pomegranate seeds, some almonds and… I’m sure there is more. Well, actually the microwave keeps beeping at me because I forgot that I put in some Velveeta and Rotel cheese dip. Once I start in on that, I’m going to, for sure, have to have an ice cold Coke to go with it.

So anyway. Charlie picked me the beets and I peeled them and sliced them paper thin on the mandolin.

I poured oil over them all and placed them on a cookie sheet, not overlapping, and generously salted and peppered.

I baked them at 250 for about 40 minutes. I had to use a spatula to carefully scrape them off the cookie sheet without breaking because they were so thin.

Sickening good. And remember: I hate beets. So this is quite astonishing to me.

I might have to eat them all.

My Love Affair with Kale Continues

October 27, 2012

So my new thing, besides *finally* learning to bake kale chips without burning them, is eating kale raw. I’m obsessed. I’m a Kale evangelist. I should be this fervent as a Christian. Seriously.

I bring my kale salad around saying “wanna try some?”

And today (actually about a month ago, as that is when I first started writing this post) I brought a bowl of kale chips to Morgan’s soccer game passing them out at the gate while I worked on tickets. All takers were smitten, except Paster Greg, who agreed that I should be that fervent for Jesus, and also said they’d good with ketchup — which I took as the single strike against them.

I usually grow just black tuscan kale, which is the long skinny leaved variety favored in Italy.

[Cuz I’m so cultured.]

This year, I also grew a box of Red Russion. Which, isn’t red at all, but is perfect for my salads and chips. Not that the black tuscan isn’t good for those things, mind you. It just that… oh never mind. It seriously doesn’t matter.

Here’s a question for you to ask the produce manager the next time you go grocery shopping (which for me is hopefully never): WHY THE HELL IS THIS KALE SO EXPENSIVE?

And if you aren’t comfortable with such a bold question to a perfect stranger (and swearing), then how about this one: WHAT IN THE SAM HILL CAN I DO WITH 5 KALE LEAVES?

These are both totally fair questions. Kale should not be expensive this time of year. It’s like arugula, which is like a weed. Yet you can only buy the daintiest little bunches of it for something like $5. Crazy. Meanwhile there is this kale revolution going on everywhere: recipes, online, restaurants… I’m waxing poetic all the live long day. My friends go to the store to buy some (because my house apparently isn’t as convenient as a grocery store), and you have to pay $3 for 5 medium sized leaves that will cook to nothing and serve about one person. It is seriously crazy. We need to start a mutiny.

Well, you can. I’ve got a lot of things to do today and besides, I’ve got enough kale to last me until 2014.

The other day, I read about using kale to make some kind of pesto sauce. Frankly, the blog I read it on is one that I accidentally subscribed to and can’t figure out how to unsubscribe. The blog drives me literally bonkers. And yet I can’t help peeking when they show up in my inbox because I love to hate this woman. She is an unadulterated and shameless COPYCAT of www.latartinegourmande.com, who you could also hate but for entirely different reasons (jealousy). The copycat styles her photos the exact same way LaTartine does, which is very unique to her (and gorgeous). And worse, she tries to write in the exact same voice — which is crazy because latartine is French and english is her second language! aaaah it just drives me to drink. I’ve got to figure out how to unsubscribe. Anyway, forgive my rant. The copycat did mention a kale pesto that sounded intriguing… She probably copied it from somewhere.

For now, in addition to my kale posts (I was going to link them for your convenience, but I found I’ve written way too much about kale. Just type it in the search box and see for yourself.) from previous years, here is my latest and greatest way to devour my crop:

Kale & Mustard Greens* Chips:

These are everywhere online. But here’s my I-tried-it-so-you-don’t-have-to-suffer-the-same-fate advice: bake at 250 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, turning and removing just before they turn brown. Lots of recipes have you bake them at 400 or higher for a minute or two. It is impossible to keep most of them from burning at that temp.

Take out any bigger sized stems, because these take way to long to get crispy and you’ll burn the leaves waiting for it to happen.

Rub the leaves between your hands to distribute the olive oil.

Salt (and pepper) generously! I also like to sprinkle a little hot chili powder on them for a little zing.

Now that it’s not humid in MN, they keep a long time in a big bowl in the pantry. Keep them on the counter and you’ll find yourself eating them instead of crap food.

Kale Salad:

Why don’t I have any pictures of this? I know not.

Anyway, here’s the deal: cut up into salad size pieces, toss with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt for a medium sized bowl of kale, (probably about 2 or 3 lame grocery store bunches) a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice from a half of lemon. Stir it all up and let it sit about 30 to 60 minutes. That’s all it takes to tenderize the leaves. Then mix with just about anything tossed with a little more lemon and olive oil to taste. Here are some I’ve tried and loved:

apples, almonds & quinnoa
butternut squash & craisins
wild rice and pears

*Mustard Greens. I planted these this year and they are quite the prolific little crop. They are really zippy tasting raw and I’ve used them raw with the kale for salad. Spicy, mustardy tasting. I’ve also baked them into chips and it works great! They take just a bit longer to cook.

(Never fear: road warriors will be completed, as promised, by christmas.)

Rainy Saturday…

October 13, 2012

You may thank me, drought-striken Minnesotans, for this unexpected, unforecasted rainy Saturday.

Why?

Because I started washing windows yesterday. Because it always rains the day after I wash windows. Inexplicably. Without fail. I don’t actually believe that, and yet… it hasn’t rained for something like 75 days, I wash windows yesterday and even though the forecast from last night doesn’t call for rain, it is currently raining.

Coincidence?

I remain on the fence.

And while we are on the subject of windows, you may think I’m overly ambitious. That my windows may not actually need to be washed.

I disagree.

For that is what each and every window looks like. And understand this: it is ever-so-difficult to capture those spots in a picture. Because that picture doesn’t do justice to the overall effect of gray water spots covering every entire window in our house. (Of which there are 67 and I have washed 15. Not that I’m keeping track.)

The spots are from the Plunkett’s man, sprayed in September to deal with our boxelder bugs and asian beetle problem.

Last year we couldn’t spray because we were painting the house. It was a melee! I was actually feeling quite smug about the whole thing and thinking I wouldn’t spray this year either, because it was only really bad for a few weeks and *presto!* they were gone.

Only they weren’t gone. I slept with, vacuumed — and even almost ate — boxelder bugs on a daily basis throughout winter and well in to summer. They were fricken everywhere. So this year I bowed to the chemical god, suppressed my holier-than-thou organic attitude and called Plunkett’s.

And the trade off is this. The window spots. Which are a beast to remove. Even with a nylon scrubby they remain visible when the sun hits the window just right.

Whatever.

I’m ticked I can’t continue on my window-washing death march. I was all ready to tackle the remaining main-floor windows when it started misting.

Instead, I turn to the garden.

And the rotting vegetables on my counter.

And the kale.– Though that is fodder for another post. (One I started writing about 2 weeks ago and have yet to complete, actually.)

And the apples, which I haven’t even wrapped my mind around yet. And the longer I procrastinate, the less I will have to deal with because the wasps are steadily working on ingesting each and every apple.

Did you know that? That wasps eat apples? Literally eat them so that when they are done it looks like a human took a bite?

Anyway.

Here’s another “Did you know”:

Did you know that if you don’t harvest your carrots in a timely fashion, that someone else will?

Who?

I know who, but I did not get a picture of the culprit. Here is all the remains of the evidence.

I also hope to deal with the already-mentioned-rotting tomatoes today, that I harvested over a month ago, but weren’t totally ripe at the time.

Now they are going to bad. In addition to my own festering stash, it seems I was visited by a tomato fairy, who generously came to let my dogs out one day that I was gone last week, who deposited some of her own on my counter as a “gift.”

And just when I think I am getting to the end of this thankless task, I go out to the garage and trip over this: