Miscellaneous Food Stuffs

Sometimes, I make something or eat something that is really, really good - but I wasn't planning on blogging about it. I often manage to snap a picture or two, and I wanted to share with you some of the tasty morsels I've had but haven't written a full blog post about.

Epic Canning Adventure: Homemade Ketchup, Tomato Sauce, and Green Tomato Relish

Tomato Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Relish, Relish, Ketchup!

Last year I had the pleasure of going to Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark, CA, and picking Roma tomatoes for a mere 25 cents per pound over Labor Day weekend. It was amazing both how many tomatoes I got for so little money - and how little food I got from so many tomatoes!

Roasted Fig and Mascarpone Tarts

Fig season is at hand! I've been wanting to buy figs for awhile now but the price tag (usually at least $5 for a basket) kept me at bay.

Gazpacho

This is my second attempt at making gazpacho in as many weeks. The first one had potential, but the recipe called for the tomato mixture to be pureed, then strained. After straining the soup, it was so thin it resembled a juice more than a soup. Without the vegetable puree to add texture, the flavor seemed lacking as well. I was disappointed to say the least, but when I had a friend over for dinner this past weekend, I decided to try my hand at this chilled soup one more time, to accompany a side of Asparagus and Red Corn Salad.

Asparagus and Red Corn Salad

My friend Dave came over for dinner on Saturday. I didn't want to use the oven at all, so I decided to make a couple of cold sides to accompany a main dish that could be cooked on the stove top.

Pad Thai Sauce with Marinated Pork, Grilled Vegetables and Rice Noodles

Please excuse the terrible lighting. By the time I finished cooking it was dark outside :(

I love Pad Thai. LOVE IT. But I've never been able to match the flavor of homemade Pad Thai with restaurant Pad Thai. According to the ninety bajillion recipes I've looked at online, this is because I don't have any tamarind paste.

Tamarind paste helps authentic Pad Thai achieve the sour/sweet taste that makes it so addictive, but even though I live a reasonable distance from Thai Town in LA (the largest concentration of Thai people anywhere in the world outside of Thailand!) I can't find tamarind paste anywhere in Santa Monica. Someday I will force Nate to go to Thai Town with me so I can raid some of the grocery stores there.

I love grilled vegetables...

In the mean time, I found a recipe for Pad Thai sauce without tamarind that claims, "The original pad Thai didn't contain tamarind at all (the makings of pad Thai being brought to Thailand via the Chinese)."

OH HAPPY DAY.

The sauce is sour, sweet, and salty, and though it doesn't taste exactly like the take-out Pad Thai I'm used to, it was delicious!

I served the sauce with rice noodles, grilled pork chops marinated in soy sauce, honey, and garlic, and grilled peppers, eggplant, and green onions. The garnish of lime wedges, peanuts, and cilantro helped liven up the appearance AND flavor of the dish. I heartily recommend this recipe, and it has Nate's seal of approval too.

Pad Thai Sauce

1/3 C Chicken Broth

3T Rice Vinegar

Juice of 1 lime

3-4 T Brown Sugar

2T Fish Sauce

1T Soy Sauce

1/8 tsp Pepper

1 tsp chili-garlic sauce

Whisk all ingredients together. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly reduced; add cooked noodles and let simmer in the sauce for a couple of minutes to soak up the flavors; add vegetables. Serve on a plate garnished with lime wedges, crushed peanuts, and cilantro. 

Delicious grilled eggplant, peppers, and green onions. I want to marry my grill pan (DON'T TELL NATE)

Hungarian Pepper, Paprika Chicken, Orzo and Romaine Salad

Sometimes it's just too hot to turn on the oven. In my probably-fire-code-violating apartment that doesn't have a vent over the stove, it's too hot to turn on the oven, or use the stove top for more than 20 minutes, for most of the summer.

I end up making a lot of salads for dinner, but they can get boring after a while. So, when I got back from my vacation and saw that Nate had gotten a bag of brightly colored, sweet Hungarian peppers from the Farmer's Market, I was excited. After some extensive web searching I found a recipe that seemed promising. I had to turn on my grill pan and boil some orzo, but other than that there was no cooking involved. I even skipped the side of toasted baguette that the original recipe includes, because even the toaster oven is too much to handle when it's hot out (or...in). 

The result was a tangy, filling, and interesting salad that satisfied my hunger pangs, taste buds, and imagination. What more could a girl ask for?

Hungarian Pepper, Paprika Chicken, Orzo and Romaine Salad

Recipe from the LA Times

Chicken tenders are rubbed with garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper, then grilled. When the chicken tenders are done, take them off the grill pan and add the peppers, cooking until they are crisp-tender and have some grill marks. Squeeze half a lemon over the chicken and peppers and set them in the fridge to chill.

The orzo is cooked with sauteed onions and chicken broth until tender. Drain and drizzle with some white wine vinegar. Let chill, then toss with a head of chopped Romaine lettuce. I added about 1 T olive oil and the juice from 1 half of a lemon to the lemon/orzo mixture. 

Make a bed of the lettuce/orzo mixture, then layer the chicken, peppers, and a sliced tomato on top. 

The result is tasty, healthy, refreshing, and best of all - COLD!