A Mother Recipe: Marinated Roasted Peppers

Right now I’m reading The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute by Michael Ruhlman. First published nearly a decade ago (I picked it up recently at a used bookstore in Maine), it’s the story of how Ruhlman, a journalist, fared at the CIA—he enrolled intending to write the book, so he wasn’t exactly there to become a chef, but that makes his account all the more fascinating. Because our enjoyment (and a virtual education while looking over his shoulder) is his goal, it’s a more lively read than it might otherwise have been. I’m about 100 pages in, and so far he’s taken me through the most basic building-block segments of the course—knife skills, stock, sauce. There’s a lot of talk about mother sauces: they’re the foundations, the recipes that, though they might be very good on their own, become baseline ingredients for other, even better sauces.

While I don’t spend a lot of time making sauces, I consider roasted bell peppers to be a mother recipe—make a big batch and see how many different uses you’ll find. The simple sweetness of them, stowed in the fridge with a splash of vinegar, some olive oil, a slivered clove of garlic, and some roughly torn herbs, livens up any number of dishes:

• Tossed into a salad
• Chopped fine and stirred into drained ricotta cheese, for a dip (or a filling for lasagna or homemade ravioli)
• Tangled atop crisped, oiled slices of Italian bread for a super-fast antipasto
• Combined with olives, capers, and roasted eggplant for a slightly fancier antipasto
• Added at the last minute to a quick pasta sauce (or mix some in with your favorite jarred brand)
• Spooned atop simply grilled fish or chicken breast
• Scattered onto a pizza
• Minced and mixed into meatloaf or burgers
• Sautéed with onions, then piled atop grilled Italian sausages
• Layered inside your favorite sandwich (I like them with turkey pastrami, of all things)

Well, you get the idea. The thing about roasted peppers is, they’re shockingly easy to do. Sure, you’ll get your hands dirty peeling them, but as far as the actual cooking goes they’re virtually foolproof. I mean, c’mon, the whole point is to burn the skins! Pretty hard to mess that up, you know? And when you’re done, you can lay out a plate as pretty as this and accept the oohs and ahhs of an impressed audience, as if you’ve really done something amazing. And truth be told, you have.



Marinated Roasted Peppers
Serves anywhere from 2 to 20, depending on how many you make and how you use them

Bell peppers—red, yellow, orange, green [though personally, I’m not too fond of the green ones, hence their obvious absence from my platter]
1 clove garlic, slivered
Olive oil
Vinegar of your choice [I used balsamic, but you could use virtually anything that’s not too harshly acidic]
Fresh herb of your choice [I used basil this time, but thyme, oregano, and parsley also work beautifully]
Salt & freshly ground pepper

Turn on the broiler.

Line a jelly roll pan (or rimmed cookie sheet) with aluminum foil. Cut peppers in half and remove core, seeds, and membrane. Place peppers cut side down on the prepared pan and place as close to the fire as possible. Let them broil 5-10 minutes, until the skins are blistered and blackened—you may have to move them around a bit to expose all the sides. Remove from the broiler and put in a bowl; cover tightly with saran wrap or aluminum foil—the idea is to steam off the skins.

When they’re cool enough to handle, peel them one at a time over a bowl that has an air-tight lid—do it over the bowl to catch any juices. Slice the peeled halves and add them to the bowl. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to several days.

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Quick Weight Watchers Update

I lost 2.8 pounds!

I've missed every meeting since my Exile in Fatville post--for a variety of reasons, all legitimate--so I was a little nervous. Usually missing meetings does not lead to good results. But I actually managed to stay fairly focused on what I was eating, and hit the gym five times a week.

Phew. I'm still not even back at the five pound mark--my grand total is now 3.2 lbs since last December--but at this point I'll take what I can get.

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A Greekish Orzo-Tomato Salad

And again, it started with the tomatoes. I came back from the farmer’s market this afternoon with six beauts: two each of yellow, regular ol’ red, and Cherokee purples. As usual, I had no idea what I planned to do with them, but I did know that tomorrow morning I’m getting on a scale at Weight Watchers for the first time in a month—our ongoing family stuff has mostly taken place on weekends, which meant foregoing my Saturday morning meetings. Dinner needed to be mostly carbs, and filling, and eaten on the early side. Yeah, I’ve got ways to manipulate the scale: Don’t eat much animal protein the day before (it takes longer to digest than carbs); don’t eat much past 9PM; stay away from salty foods (no Chinese food or pizza) the day or two before; drink a lot of water the day before and not so much the morning of; hit the gym before the meeting; and so forth. But I digress. We’re talking about dinner here, and the desire to come up with something healthy and different from all the dozens of tomato meals we’ve already eaten this summer. I’m not sure what made me do it, but I poked my head in the freezer, and lightning struck.

A package of kalamata-and-artichoke flavored chicken sausage!

Suddenly visions of Greek salads were floating in my head, reminding me of the years I lived among the Greeks in Astoria. Generous chunks of juicy tomatoes. Crisp cucumber. Oregano. Olives. Orzo—ok strictly speaking that doesn’t go in a Greek salad, but this is my kitchen, ok? I added a couple of other nontraditional items: Marcona almonds, since I had them and I like them. Pecorino cheese instead of feta, since I can’t stand the latter (and S is none too fond of it either). A few spears of vinegar-poached eggplant, leftover from the other day—which were good, but not good enough to blog about separately. If you’re curious, the recipe’s in Lidia's Family Table, which I love to read and haven’t cooked from nearly enough. Oops, another digression. By now you get the picture—this recipe’s pretty flexible; practically anything from the Mediterranean world would work.

Essentially, it’s a Greekish pasta salad. Oh, my, it was good.

A Greekish Orzo-Tomato Salad
Serves 3-4

½ pound orzo
½ small red onion, finely diced
1 package chicken sausages
2 perfectly ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 cucumber, quartered vertically and cut into small chunks
12 kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
6 spears vinegar-poached eggplant, cut into chunks [from Lidia's Family Table]
Handful of Marcona almonds, halved
Feta cheese, crumbled [Or use Pecorino, as I did]
Juice of 1 lemon
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
Dried oregano

Cook orzo according to package directions. While it’s cooking, soak the diced red onion in ice water for at least ½ hour—it’ll take off some of the raw-oniony bite. When the orzo is done, rinse well with cold water to bring it to room temp.

Prepare sausages according to package directions—I cooked mine in a nonstick frying pan with a little olive oil for about five minutes a side, then sliced them and browned the slices for 30 seconds or so (but that’s because I like things more browned—you don’t have to do that second part if you don’t want to). Set aside to cool.

Put ALL the ingredients into a huge bowl, toss, and serve.

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Variations on a Theme: Two Salads with Cucumber, Tomatoes, and Herbs

Lately I’ve been struggling with a certain ennui regarding the overwhelming abundance of tomatoes at the farmer’s market. On the one hand, I feel I should be sampling every variety, scarfing down the juicy, rosy globes while the getting’s good, but on the other hand . . . eh. They’re just not exciting me. This might be part of a larger malaise, one which a wise friend of mine has identified as being calendar-related. As she put it: “August is like February—it is the month that highlights all of the most difficult aspects of the season: the weather, the languor, the inability to get anything done, the heat.” I’m pretty sure I’m suffering from all of it, which combines with some other frustrations and concerns to yield an indifference to, of all things, tomatoes.

And yet, I still buy them by the bushel. The other day I came home from the market with nine tomatoes in four varieties, plus two pints of sungold cherry tomatoes. What was I thinking? I have no idea. I simply can’t be bothered to try anything terribly daring. But it turns out that in August, the height of the tomato season, it’s pretty hard to be unsuccessful when preparing a tomato-based dish. One night I combined them, diced small, with diced cucumbers, toasted pine nuts, and an entire bunch of finely chopped parsley. And last night I served them cut into wedges with sliced cukes, de-fanged slivers of raw onion, basil, and mint, with a balsamic vinaigrette. Both were deeply satisfying—although I must admit I preferred the second salad. The first one was a little too much like tabouli, but without the toothy bulgur I like so much.

So here are the recipes, although they’re both so simple “recipe” might be a misnomer:



Parsley Salad with Cucumber and Tomato
Serves 2

1 bunch Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
2 ripe tomatoes, seeds and internal membranes removed, diced small
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded, diced small
2 T. pine nuts, toasted and cooled
Juice of ½ to 1 whole lemon (depending on your taste)
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Put all ingredients in a bowl, and let it sit for a while before serving. See, I told you it was simple…



Tomato, Cucumber, and Onion Salad
Serves 4

For the salad:
½ onion, sliced very thin
6-8 tomatoes of various shapes and colors, cut into wedges
2 cucumbers, washed and sliced into rounds
Small handful each of fresh basil and mint, roughly chopped

For the dressing:
½ clove garlic, minced
1 t. Dijon mustard
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1 T. fig balsamic vinegar
1 T. balsamic vinegar
3 T. olive oil
Salt & pepper

Put onion in a small bowl and cover with ice water; let soak at least ½ hour. (This will make the raw onion less offensive to eat.) Drain, and put into a large salad bowl with the other salad ingredients.

Combine the dressing ingredients in a small Rubbermaid container and shake until it’s emulsified. Taste and adjust seasoning until you’re happy with it. Pour over the salad, toss, and let it sit for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

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Broiled (or Grilled) Ravioli

And now, it’s time for another installment from my husband and guest writer, S:

As I wrote in my prior guest appearance, I was raised on Italian food. Well, mostly spaghetti, with wonderful homemade sauce. About once every two months, my mother would make ravioli, which was a real cause for celebration. Round or square, it didn’t matter. We all loved it. And it was always cheese only; never with meat! The world had yet to discover the variety of fillings ravioli could contain. (Or maybe it had—but South Jersey definitely hadn’t.)

In my adult life, for no particular reason, I rarely eat ravioli and never make it. It has little to do with whether it’s fattening or not or what kind of filling is in it. I suspect if my mother made some the next time I visited, topped with her great sauce, I’d dig in, but otherwise I don’t think much about it.

Then about two years ago, I was mixing the sound for a Food TV cooking show called “Ciao America” hosted by Mario Batali. He went from city to city, finding the best and most idiosyncratic Italian food around. One perfect example was t-ravs, the name for breaded, deep-fried ravioli as it is enjoyed in St. Louis. As are a lot of the other meals Mario indulges, it’s incredibly unhealthy and looks delicious. Since I would spend upwards of ten hours mixing a single 23 minute episode, I’d watch and re-watch the same tempting food being cooked to perfection. I rushed home with the t-rav recipe and my wife humored me just once. And it didn’t live up to my imagination, which is either a sin or a blessing, depending which side of the medical profession you’re on. And so ravioli once again faded from my field of vision.

Until recently, that is. When Debbie and I went back to Maine, she said that this time we’d have to eat at Sul Mare, a restaurant not far from our lovely cottage. Unfortunately, the experience was almost completely negative. Most of the food was simply weak: too salty or uninteresting or whatever. A real letdown. The highlights were the service (we said we didn’t like our main courses early on; they were apologetic and charged us only for the appetizers) and the grilled ravioli appetizer.



It was fresh smoked mozzarella ravioli, grilled and served over luscious slices of grilled eggplant. It was heavenly, down to the grill marks. Debbie and I decided that when we got home we’d give it a shot.

It was OK for a first attempt, but not a home run. Debbie bought some porcini ravioli, made locally, which is a great place to start. We cooked it, broiled it [editor’s note from Debbie: We have yet to pull out our mini-Weber grill this summer, I’m ashamed to say, so we just used the oven], and served it with sauce. (We didn’t serve it over eggplant.) True, it had a slightly crunchy and almost smoky feel to it, but I don’t think we’ve cracked the code. Debbie liked it more than I did.

Please, take a gander at our exact process and let us know what you think. What did we miss?



Broiled (or Grilled) Ravioli
Serves 6 as an appetizer, 3-4 as a main course

1 package of fresh or frozen ravioli of your choice
Tomato sauce, warmed [homemade is best, but your favorite jarred sauce will be just fine, too]
Freshly grated parmesan cheese
Chopped basil or Italian parsley

Boil a couple of quarts of water, lightly salted. Add the ravioli, a couple at a time, stirring in between to keep them from sticking to the bottom. Cook according to package directions. Drain well—the more moisture you can remove the better the final result. Turn the oven to Broil [or if you’re not as lazy as we are, fire up the grill]. Place them on the broiler pan and put in the broiler for 5-7 minutes, or until the ravioli skins start to brown and blister. Turn them and broil for another 3-4 minutes, or until the flip side is browned, too. [If you’re using a grill, brush or spray both sides of each ravioli with olive oil before putting them on the grill, and cook as described above.] Serve over a layer of warm sauce, with parmesan and fresh herbs if you like.

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A PSA for Brooklynites: NEVER USE BROOKLYN LOCKSMITH, AKA SPEEDWAY

Feel free to pass this on to anyone and everyone—these people have really pissed me off, and it’s time to use the power of the Internet…

Two weeks ago the front-door lock broke and we were literally trapped in the apartment, so I called Brooklyn Locksmith out of the yellow pages (they also do business as Speedway, on the very next page in the phone book). Although I requested a brand-name lock—and admittedly, at the time I didn’t know much more than Medeco or Baldwin—the man they sent installed something called a MaxTech, and charged me more than $300 for it (plus $75 to break the old lock, plus tax = $405). The lock looked pretty shoddy, as did the box—it had no paperwork of any kind with it, no warranty or anything, so I quickly jumped online and Googled the model number. Would you believe Google came up with ZERO hits? It’s such a no-name, generic lock that not a single online vendor carries it. Even without the model number, I couldn’t find any ratings, nor the company’s own web site. At this point I was convinced it was a piece of junk, so I fought with him to get the bill reduced—that $405 is after a 10% “discount.” I seethed, knowing I’d been taken, but I didn’t know what else to do. Apparently I’m not as savvy a consumer as I think I am.

The other day S noticed that the lock was already loose in the cylinder, and since then I’ve done enough research at hardware stores to be absolutely certain that I was defrauded—everyone assures me this lock should not have cost more than $50, plus a reasonable installation fee. I called Brooklyn Locksmith several times over the course of the day today, asking to speak to the manager, who—no surprise—was never there. Finally, the secretary assured me that the manager himself would come to look at the lock this afternoon. She swore that they were only interested in my satisfaction. Instead of the manager, though, the original worker, Shahar, rang my bell just after 6PM. Shahar tightened the lock with a drill and insisted that everything was all right, and refused to replace the piece of junk with a Marx or some other trusted name brand. He was just an employee, he said, and I should call his manager, which I immediately tried to do. Guess what? He wasn’t in. The man I did speak to, who wouldn’t give his name, laughed at me and hung up when I told him I wanted a new lock. S and I have been forced to spend another $60 to buy a REAL lock at the hardware store, which we’re installing ourselves. I’m disputing this with American Express and I’ve filed a complaint with NYC’s department of consumer affairs, but I’m still shaking with anger. Clearly these cheats are not honest businessmen, and are only out to take advantage of people who are vulnerable in an emergency. If you’re ever in a situation like mine, save yourself a LOT of grief and don’t call Brooklyn Locksmith, or Speedway. They’re nothing but trouble.

Oh, and for the record, they seem to have an awful lot of phone numbers so I’ll include them all here. DON’T CALL ANY OF THEM:

718-969-3535
718-969-3636
718-591-7622
718-591-3121
800-852-8996

That is all. And remember: Spread the word!

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Corn, Zucchini, and Tomato Pie

On Thursday we were summoned, via an emergency phone call, down to south Jersey again. The family emergency continues, sadly—I don’t mean to be so oblique about it, I’m just struggling with the appropriate way to write about recent events. At some point soon I do intend to fill you all in on what’s happening. For now, though, I’m finding it much easier to focus on the food, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

After a few days of takeout and quickly-eaten restaurant meals, we returned home to a kitchen full of recently-acquired, though no longer particularly fresh, seasonal produce: corn on the cob, big, juicy tomatoes (one of which had exploded and begun to ferment in the horrific heat of our airless, sun-flooded kitchen), zucchini, all on the verge of being useless. If you’ve been reading Words to Eat By regularly, you’ll have noticed that I’ve been cooking with these ingredients A LOT lately—naturally I have, it’s late summer, when they’re all abundant and at their peak. But frankly, I’m getting a little tired of them, especially in combination. I’ve sautéed them, salsaed them, roasted them, eaten them raw. The thought of building yet another dinner out of these three ingredients had me a little nonplussed. But I couldn’t very well just throw them away, and—I’m serious—it didn’t look like they could wait another day. So I trolled through my cookbooks, tried to Cook with Google, and finally turned to the always-interesting database that is Epicurious.

That’s where I found the idea for this lovely casserole. I tweaked their recipe a bit, as I always do, and was quite pleased with the results. The crunchy parmesan-bread crumb topping somehow transforms these simple vegetables into a substantial main course. Paired with a salad, it was another wonderful, healthy, all-vegetable dinner. S and I both had seconds, and the leftovers were great cold the next day.

We are now officially out of corn, tomatoes, and zucchini. But on Wednesday I’ll be hitting the Union Square farmer’s market, and I’m sure they’ll find their way into my shopping bags yet again.



Corn, Zucchini, and Tomato Pie
Adapted from Epicurious
Serves 6

3 T. olive oil, divided
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
kernels from 3 ears of corn
2 medium zucchini, cut into matchstick pieces
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon each fresh basil and mint, chopped
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into ¼-inch slices
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Heat 1 ½ t. olive oil in a skillet, and caramelize the onions. In a 13 by 9-inch ovenproof baking dish, combine the onions, corn, zucchini, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, the herbs, and ½ t. more oil, tossing to coat the vegetables.

Cover the vegetables with the tomatoes. Sprinkle with the remaining salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, combine the cheese and the bread crumbs. Sprinkle the mixture over the tomatoes and drizzle with the remaining olive oil. Bake the pie for 30-35 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. Remove it from the oven, and let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

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Food Is Love: Cold Cucumber Soup

S has been having a hard time recently—the family emergency I mentioned last week was his, and it continues—so I wanted to do something to cheer him up. Many times (well, more than a few) he’s mentioned his fondness for cold cucumber soup, its velvety crispness, its refreshing chill. Problem is, one of the main ingredients is yogurt, and as I’ve told you all a thousand times I’m not too good with dairy. In fact, I hate it. That yogurty tang…shudder. So, selfish wife that I am, I’ve never even considered finding a recipe. But the other day I really wanted to cheer him up, and we all know there’s no better way to do that than with food, right? I’d just picked up a clutch of cucumbers at the farmer’s market, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I browsed through my cookbooks and found two promising recipes: one from the Daily Soup Cookbook, which sounded interesting—using no heat at all—but called for heavy cream (uh, no thanks), and one from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which had fewer ingredients but did call for a little time in front of the stove. I opted for the latter, mostly because of the cream, and it took a scant twenty minutes to pull the whole thing together. I was very pleased with myself.

Until, that is, S tasted it. I’ve never tasted cold cucumber soup of any kind—did I mention I don’t like yogurt?—so I didn’t know what was “right” for S’s expectations. He was thrilled to see that I’d made it for him, but grudgingly admitted it was a little bit bland. I wasn’t surprised, actually, since the recipe is really very basic. Turns out the cucumber soup of his dreams is the one he buys from Daily Soup, so if I’d just used their recipe to begin with I’d have hit a home run. Considering that their recipe uses the same ingredients as Bittman’s plus a few more, I figured it would be worth a shot to doctor the already-finished soup and hope for the best.

It worked! S really liked the end result, and I now know how to make a mean cold cucumber soup. Still haven’t tasted it, though…

I’ll give you the recipe as I made it, which is sort of a weird amalgam. Next time I think I’ll go the Daily Soup route and skip the cooking entirely.

Cold Cucumber Soup
Adapted from How to Cook Everything and the Daily Soup Cookbook
Serves 4

2 medium or 4 small cucumbers, unpeeled
1 t. salt
2 T. butter
1 small onion, minced
4 cups chicken stock
1 T. fresh herb of your choice [basil would work, or parsley, or the evil cilantro]
Fresh ground black pepper
1 T. fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves
2 T. sugar
2 t. ground cumin [depending on the herb you use, you may want to leave this out]
¼ t. cayenne
½ cup plain yogurt

Cut a few thin slices of cucumber for garnish and set aside. Then cut the cukes in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Chop them coarsely and sprinkle with 1 t. salt. Set in a colander and let drain while you proceed with the recipe.

Place the butter in a medium saucepan and turn the heat to medium. When it melts, add the onion, turn the heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about five minutes. Add the stock and the herbs.

Rinse the cukes and add them to the soup. Cook over medium heat for five minutes. Cool slightly, then puree in a blender, along with pepper, lemon juice, garlic, sugar, cumin, and cayenne. Taste and adjust seasoning, then chill.

When you’re ready to eat, adjust seasoning again, then stir in the yogurt. Garnish with reserved cucumber slices and serve.

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Summer in a Bowl: A Quick Sauté of Corn, Tomato, and Zucchini

Just because we had some chicken the other night, it doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest in having all-veg dinners whenever possible. And as long as there’s such an abundance of good stuff out there, it’s so freakin’ easy to do. One of our favorite dishes last summer—it’s hard to imagine, but it was before I started Words to Eat By—was a simple sauté using cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and corn kernels fresh off the cob, all cooked very fast over high heat and tossed with a shower of herbs at the end. The sweet corn, the lightly acidic tomatoes, the mellow squash, and the bright herbal ‘splosions…mmm, heaven. Summer in a bowl, I tell ya. And it’s quick as can be—the prep takes all of five minutes, and the cooking another ten. Throw together a salad while the zucchini’s cooking, and you’ve got dinner on the table in fifteen minutes.

And another thing: this dish is wonderfully versatile. When I don't have small tomatoes, I'll use diced red peppers instead. The herbs can be whatever floats your boat. Even the zucchini could be yellow squash or green beans or who knows what all. Essentially, the only ingredient that doesn't change is the corn: To me, that's the heart of the dish. Swap that out and you've got something else entirely. I'm sure it's delicious, but it's not summer in a bowl.

A Quick Sauté of Corn, Tomato, and Zucchini
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side

2 t. olive oil
1 small red onion, diced fine
3 small zucchini, cut into small chunks
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, left whole
Kernels from 3 ears of fresh corn
Salt & pepper
2 T. fresh herbs of your choice, chopped [I used parsley and basil tonight, but I also like mint and sometimes thyme]

In your largest nonstick frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until softened. Add the zucchini and turn heat to high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until zucchini softens and begins to brown, about five minutes. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until they look nearly ready to burst, about three minutes more. Add the corn, salt, and pepper, and cook for a minute. Add the herbs, stir, and turn off the heat—the idea is really to just heat the corn through; it doesn’t need much cooking when it’s fresh.

And that’s it—put your summer in a bowl and start eating.

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Reintroducing Meat in a Most Delicious Way (With 3—Count Em, 3—Recipes)

Our Week of Vegetables ended abruptly with a phone call from S’s brother Friday morning, summoning us to south Jersey for a family emergency. It appears that everything’s going to be all right, but after a tense drive down in summer Friday traffic and a few hours spent with family, we weren’t exactly picky about our dinner that night. And last night we wolfed down some prepared food at Whole Foods before hitting the road to come home—my rotisserie chicken and steamed vegetables was healthy, but it wasn’t meat-free. I really enjoyed our vegetables-only experiment, and I was pretty sure I’d dropped a few pounds (I missed my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday, so I won’t find out for another week), but now that the spell is broken I decided to go ahead and cook up a little chicken tonight. Who could it hurt? It’s still entirely virtuous (though you’d never know it if I didn’t point it out), and the menu I concocted makes the most of New Jersey’s famed produce: corn, peaches, and tomatoes.

Since I had an open can of chipotles in adobo, I decided to give things a vaguely southwestern bent. I don’t cook this kind of food very often—mostly because the idea of eating cilantro makes me gag, and nearly every southwestern recipe calls for it in some measure—so I made it up as I went along. Authentic it’s not, but it is tasty: Grilled Chipotle-Lime-Tequila Chicken, served with Corn-Peach-Pappadew Salsa and Not-Fried Green Tomatoes.

Quite the hyphenated dinner, no? Whatever the punctuation, it was a lovely, fresh-as-can-be summer supper, and a memorable way to reintroduce animal protein to my kitchen—and that salsa was so good that after tasting it for seasoning, I had to force myself to put down the spoon and walk away; otherwise there would’ve been none left for dinner!

Recipes for all three dishes after the jump...



Grilled Chipotle-Lime-Tequila Chicken
Serves 3-6, depending on how hungry you are

Marinade:
½ cup fresh lime juice
2 chipotle peppers from a can of chipotles in adobo, seeded [if you like it extra-spicy, leave in some seeds]
1 T. adobo sauce from the can
1 shot tequila
1 t. honey
2 T. olive oil

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves [I use kosher, hence the lack of salt in the recipe—if you don’t, you’ll want to sprinkle the chicken with salt at some point]

Put all the marinade ingredients except the oil in the bowl of your food processor and whir them around. With the machine running, drizzle the oil through the feeder tube. The mixture will be a disturbing shade of orange. Taste the marinade—if it’s too hot for your taste, add a little more oil. Pour over the chicken in a non-reactive bowl or a Ziploc bag. Refrigerate for at least ½ hour and up to several hours (it gets spicier the longer you leave it).

When the time comes, drain the chicken and broil it, grill it, or cook it in your George Foreman grill.

Corn-Peach Salsa
Serves 6

Kernels from 2 ears extremely fresh corn (if it’s not perfectly fresh, you’ll have to cook the corn first, then cool it)
1 ripe peach, peeled and diced fine
½ small red onion, diced fine
10 pappadew peppers, diced fine [I used pappadews because the chicken it’s going with is quite spicy—if you want a spicy salsa, too, substitute one small jalapeno, minced]
Juice of ½ lime
8 mint leaves, chopped
Fleur de sel

Combine all ingredients except fleur de sel in a bowl and stir. Refrigerate for ½ hour or more to let the flavors meld. Just before serving, sprinkle with fleur de sel.

This salsa should probably have some cilantro in it, so if you’re crazy enough to like that dirty-dish-water-tasting weed, go right ahead and swap it for the mint.

Not-Fried Green Tomatoes
From Cooking Light
Serves 2-3

¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup yellow cornmeal
¼ t. salt
¼ t. black pepper
Dash of sugar
16 (½-inch-thick) slices green tomatoes (about 3 green tomatoes)
1/3 cup fat-free milk
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°.
To prepare the green tomatoes, combine flour and next 4 ingredients (flour through sugar) in a shallow dish. Dip tomato slices in milk; dredge in flour mixture. Lightly coat both sides of tomato slices with cooking spray.
Place a baking sheet in oven; heat at 400° for 5 minutes. Remove from oven; immediately coat with cooking spray. Place tomato slices on preheated baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes, turning after 15 minutes.

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Tomato Tomato Tomato (A Week of Vegetables)

Yesterday was Day 3 of A Week of Vegetables. (I didn’t write about Day 2 because it consisted largely of leftovers from Day 1. Plus, I had a bizarre visitor springing out of the “fertile playground” [thanks, Santos!] above my kitchen ceiling, so I didn’t feel much like cooking.) But by Day 3, I was used to seeing that now-shriveled weed, and it was time to have some fun with tomatoes.

I started a new freelance gig yesterday, which lucky for me is just a few blocks from Union Square and its famed farmer’s market. On my way home yesterday, I stopped to check things out, and brought home two pints of fat blueberries, three lovely-ugly purple-red heirloom tomatoes, and two pints of orange Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. (The blueberries don’t have anything to do with our story, dear readers, and only serve as a momentary distraction. You might call them a blue herring.)

When I got home, I tossed the cherry tomatoes in a baking dish with a chiffonade of basil and some sliced garlic and roasted them quickly, until they burst, and then set them aside to cool—those molten nuggets would melt the roof of your mouth if you ate one right away.



Adam over at the Amateur Gourmet made something similar recently, to serve over pasta. That’s one of my favorite uses for this simple preparation (it’s also wonderful as a side with a not-too-fussy chicken or fish dish), but last night it felt like too much of a potchke, as my mother would say. I made plain couscous instead, figuring the saucy juices from the tomatoes would go well with something so dry. Next I sliced the heirlooms medium-thick and arrayed them on a plate, topped them with torn basil and mint leaves, and drizzled all with tart-sweet fig balsamic vinegar.



When that was done I pulled out Saturday night’s remaining gazpacho to take off a bit of the refrigerator’s chill—if you serve it too cold, it dulls the flavor. By the time S came home a little while later, our Tomato Tomato Tomato dinner was just about ready. (Sounds so much nicer than John Belushi grunting "cheesboorga cheeseboorga cheeseboorga," don't you think?) All that was left to do was stir the tomatoes and the couscous together, gently, so as not to deflate the golden beauties entirely.

It was a wonderful feast—quick, healthy, and very, very satisfying. And since the oven was on for barely 20 minutes, I didn’t even break a sweat.



Roasted Cherry Tomatoes with Couscous
Serves 4

Olive oil cooking spray
2 pints cherry tomatoes, stemmed and washed
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
Handful of basil leaves, slivered
Salt & pepper
1 ½ cups uncooked couscous

Preheat oven to 450. Spray a large baking dish with the cooking spray and add the tomatoes, garlic, and basil. Give them a good spritz with the spray as well, and toss with salt & pepper. Roast for 12-15 minutes, just until most of the tomatoes have burst.

Meanwhile, make the couscous according to package directions (usually it’s an equal amount of water and couscous—bring the water just to a boil with a little salt, add the couscous, and turn it off to sit covered for five minutes).

Just before serving, gently combine the tomatoes and the couscous—you don’t want to stir too vigorously or the tomatoes will turn to mush. If you like, add a little more fresh basil.

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Flora Update

As Cathy from My Little Kitchen so wisely suggested regarding my, er, unusual growth, I contacted the Cornell Agricultural Extension. Steve Reiners, Associate Professor in Horticultural Sciences, was kind enough to reply:

Dear Debbie,

I have to admit, I have never seen anything like that.

Seeds have an amazing way of finding ways to germinate. How the seed got in the ceiling in the first place is a good question. It may have worked it's way in through a small hole, carried by the wind or rain. It may have been brought in by a mouse or squirrel to keep as a food source. It may have been sitting there for many years and it was not until it received the right amount of moisture could it germinate. I'm a little surprised that it grew downwards as normally it would grow upright as it searches for light. Perhaps there was already a hole in the ceiling that allowed light to come in and that's why it pushed through.

As far as a health concern, the plant would not be a problem. The bigger concern is the conditions that allowed the seed to germinate. Warm temperatures with plenty of moisture is great for seeds but also great for mold growth. I am not an expert on mold in homes but I would be concerned about the possibility that you have mold in the ceiling and I would urge you to get that checked out by a professional. I have no idea if they would need to remove the ceiling to do that or just parts of it. There may also be lots of other seeds and plant material up there so that should be checked out.

Somehow, I doubt my landlady's going to spring for an expert to come over here and check for mold--I'm pretty sure this whole building is a giant mold factory, given all the leaks we've had over the years (and how long it takes to get them fixed.)

Sigh.

On the other hand, here's what the plant looks like now:



It's dead! It's dead! We're just waiting for it to fall off. I'd cut it down, but I'm afraid it would wake up the roots or something and who knows what might happen. (OK, I guess I'm still not entirely convinced it isn't some alien life form.)

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