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Everyone these days has heard that almond butter is healthier than peanut butter, but wow is it expensive! Did you know, though, that nut butter is incredibly easy to make, & it’s a fraction of the cost of what you’ll pay for it at the store? Over on Simply Primal, we’re making these:
I call them big bowls of awesome. They’re super easy to make, absolutely delicious, & offer a great way to use up all the excess produce August creates. What will you put in yours?
Tomatoes, ‘maters, reddish orbs of perfect delight. Whatever you call them, we can all agree on one thing: when they’re in season, every dish should revolve around them. Sadly, my very own Sam can’t eat them! He loves them, but like many other people, his body doesn’t like anything from the nightshade family – so that means no eggplant, no peppers of any kind, & definitely no tomatoes. Honestly, it’s bad enough to have discovered wheat & milk sensitivities; if I couldn’t eat my beloved tomatoes or peppers, I think I’d give up & eat nothing but watermelon the rest of my days. Thankfully, I can eat them, & I enjoy every moment of mid to late summer here in Ohio, when tomatoes are at their prime & everyone has far too many. I mentioned on Friday that I had my first local tomatoes of the year, & it was like heaven on a plate. My favorite way to eat them is still with basil & mozzarella cheese, lactose intolerance be damned, but they’re also wonderful just sprinkled with a bit of salt & drizzled with balsamic vinegrette. YUM. My tomato recipes: Ones to try: Here’s something quick for you to try that I whipped up this weekend…
Now you have no reasons to pass on the staff lounge piles of tomatoes your co-workers are bringing in. Get cooking!
Break out your piñatas, call the mariachi and find your sombrero más grande… It’s Cinco de Mayo! At my work, any celebration is an excuse for a pot luck and with the diversity of cultures we have, the variety of foods is spectacular. I can’t wait for the tostadas with tinga, tamales and nopales! This year, I must have accidentally uttered the phrase “I make a pretty good guacamole” to the wrong person because I found myself carting a giant bowl of the stuff to the office this morning. I’m a little intimidated. Everyone has their own preference for this staple and I didn’t grow up amongst avocado trees like most of my co-workers. Still, I have had nothing but good reviews on my guac, so I’ll let you in on my recipe.
I can never make the same guacamole twice. I wrote up this recipe last night, but when I went to make it I couldn’t avoid tweaking it a bit. This time I added a little bit of mustard powder. Why? I think I’ve just seen that mustard sitting in my spice cupboard for too long and wanted to use it. I don’t think it had much of an impact on the flavor, but it made me feel creative. I also omitted the garlic because I forgot to stick it in the oven before Lost.
This recipe is meant for a fiesta! I’m serving at least 25 people. You’ll have to cut down the recipe for less people. Generally, figure about 1 avocado for 2 people. Guacamole de la Gringa de Ohio (The White Girl from Ohio’s Guacamole – it sounds más auténtico in Spanish) 12 very ripe avocados (they should be dark green a little mushy when you squeeze them.)
Juice from 2 limes
7 serrano peppers, diced (you can use jalepenos, but they’re milder)
3 Roma tomatoes with seeds removed, cubed
1/4 red onion, diced
1 cup cotija cheese, crumbled
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 cloves roasted garlic, diced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt to taste
Put the avocado meat in a large bowl and stir with a fork, adding more avocado as it becomes smooth. Add just enough of the lime juice as you mix the avocado to make it easier to stir. Some people like chunky avocado, some like it 100% smooth. I like it somewhere in between, but closer to smooth. Once it’s to the consistency you like, add 4 or 5 of the serrano peppers. Put the rest of the peppers in a small bowl so people who like it spicier can add more to their own portion. I usually put the other 1/2 of the cilantro bunch in a bowl, too. Add all the other ingredients and mix ‘em in. Drizzle more of the lime on the mixture, just so you can taste it, but not enough to make it watery.
You need to mix the avocado shortly before serving or it will go brown. The lime stops some of this, but not enough to make it the night before. I chop all my ingredients the night before and mix everything up in the morning. If it gets a little brown, you can always scrape that part off the top and Voila! You’re ready for a party.
Guacamole basically a mashed avocado salad so you can add whatever you think will taste good so have fun with it. Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
One of the most marvelous things about Southern California is its year-round growing season. It’s hard to have too much hate for a place that can provide you with citrus in December – and from your neighbor’s tree, no less. After my first year here, I decided to take advantage of the bounty by joining a CSA. If you’re not familiar with CSA’s (although I’m sure you are), the acronym stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I buy half a share in Morning Song Farm, a local farm, and in return I get a box of fruits, veggies, herbs and nuts every other week. I love knowing that what I’m eating is grown locally, organically and is in season. It takes the stress of trying to buy sustainable produce off my shoulders and I feel great supporting the farm. When I first began the CSA program, I did not cook that much. Honestly, I still don’t cook half as much as I’d like, but a fridge full of fresh produce has spurred me to cook more. I had been quite bad about having leftover veggies, though, and that has inspired me to take a look at the produce I use the least and share some of the recipes for how to use them with you. This week my project is kale. Kale is such a neat green. It’s not exotic by any stretch, but I never grew up using it. It does grow year-round, so if you’re in a colder climate you still can have kale coming up, even if there’s snow on the ground. As such, I get it in my basket almost every week and almost every week I end up wasting half of it. I’ve cut up bits and pieces to add to eggs, pastas, salads and soups, but I can never use it all so this week I decided to search for a dish where kale was featured so I could reliably use up my portion whenever I receive it. After a bit of searching, I found a some super simple recipes for kale chips. I wasn’t quite sure about how much I’d like them, but figured giving it a try would be better than wasting the plant. Turns out, they’re great. The first batch wasn’t perfect, but definitely enjoyable. I only used about half the bunch of kale since that’s all that would fit on the baking sheet pre-cooking. It was positively overflowing. I didn’t take into account the fact that the kale would shrink so much and used a bit more olive oil and salt than I should have. Some of the chips were wilty and all of them were too salty. Still, I couldn’t stop eating them! Here’s my version (which is really close to everyone else’s version) of the recipe: Preheat the oven to 350. And that’s it! The resulting product does not look beautiful, but the texture and saltiness make a great substitute for unhealthy potato chips. I ate about half the batch the first night and brought the rest to work, though it tastes better right out of the oven. Besides, I probably ate more kale in those two days than I had in months. Stay tuned for more adventures in CSA cooking. I’ll be looking at dandelion green recipes next time. CSA programs are all over. If you’re interested, visit www.localharvest.org to see if there is a farm near you.
One of my absolute favorite things about the holidays is cookies. Ironically, I don’t really care for all that many cookies – gingerbread and chocolate chip are really the only ones I can’t do without (and are the ones I’m making this holiday), but a sugar cookie, peanut butter crisscross, or chocolate crinkle have been known to be dunked into my hot chocolate on occasion. My mom has a tasty recipe for date pinwheels (which I’ve yet to snag), but that small list contains probably the only cookies I’d ever want. I often flip through cookie cookbooks, wondering at the tasty variety within, but always put them down. I know that honestly, I’ll probably never want to make any others – every time I bite into a snickerdoodle, I always think gee, I could be eating a sugar cookie. There are other confections synonymous to the holidays that I enjoy, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m more than happy to pay someone else to make peanut brittle, popcorn balls, buckeyes, & pumpkin roll. My mom makes the best nut roll, which I suppose I’ll need to learn to make one of these days (I just don’t have much patience for anything that needs time to rise), but this Christmas, I’m only making two cookies & one trifle. For gingerbread, I use Martha Stewart’s Gingerbead People recipe – they come out just perfect; chewy & soft. I skip the icing & just add a few mini chocolate chips for eyes & buttons, & toss some sugar on them before they bake. I always make a least a few batches of my chocolate chip cookies, to my fiance’s & father’s delight. One thing I’ve noticed while baking this year is that although I love doing it, & your own cookies always taste better than anyone else’s, baking is really rather expensive! Beyond the pantry basics like flour, sugar, eggs, & vanilla, once you pick up the walnuts, chocolate chips, ginger, & molasses, just making two kinds of cookies easily makes them at least $10 each to make. Now, both recipes make quite a lot, but still – no wonder bakeries charge so much for a dozen cookies! I’ve been thinking about the baking for a little while now, especially the timeline. I was on vacation last week, so I could’ve easily spent a day or two flour-covered in the kitchen. But if I did that, the cookies would already be a week old (or older) by the time Christmas rolled around, & I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not eat stale cookies whilst digging into my stocking. I decided that I’d wait until this week to make them, & so this morning I mixed up two batches of gingerbread dough to chill while at work. Now, I swear I’ve been picking up extra stuff at the store for at least the last month – more flour, an extra bag of sugar (just in case!), chocolate chips, brown sugar, etc. I took stock of what I had, & what I needed, & I was certain I had everything. Then I was short a 1/4 cup of molasses, & had to run to the store – because checking the “quick substitutions” chart in the back of my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook said that a swap for molasses was honey, and yep… I’m out of honey, too. (Go ahead, Mom. You can laugh. Just don’t forget to pick me up some honey before I see you on Thursday!) So I’m back from the store, having picked up the cream cheese I also forgot I needed for the recipe below, & I’m down to the last step – adding flour. Someday, I’d like a shiny KitchenAid mixer. One that can handle two batches of gingerbread goup turning into dough with the addition of the final cup of flour. As any recent college graduate of the 21st century can tell you, there’s a lot of debt – & so a shiny KitchenAid mixer is as out of the question as a new car. I had (note the past tense) a cheap $20 hand mixer. It gave out during when I added the final cup of flour. Six cups proved to be its kryptonite, & it could mix no more. Thankfully, I possess reasonably okay upper body strength & was able to stir the rest of it by hand with a wooden spoon, but still. The chocolate chip cookies ought to be interesting to make by hand! Luckily though, I did discover that one can whip cream with a blender, & so was spared a half hour of whisking. This year I’ll also be making the No Ordinary Trifle originally from Wet Noodle Posse for our department party. It’s pretty simple to make, & always recieves rave reviews. I’ve often heard that every girl needs a trademark dessert, & I think this one might be mine. You’ll need several bowls, but it’s totally worth the clean-up. Here’s the recipe with my alterations: What you’ll need: How to do it: So, what are you making? Any family traditions you must make? New recipes you’re going to try out? Tell me all about it? |
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