Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

If you know me, you know I run cold--like, cold (which is not to say that I run in the cold--burr). A house set at 67 will leave me goose-bumped. Anything less and I shiver. I've learned to take sweaters to restaurants even in the summer (granny style). I usually wear two sweaters at my house in the winter. And let's not even talk about how cold grocery stores are because my lips might turn blue. Lucky for me we have a wood-burning stove that keeps at least part of our house deliciously warm. And lucky for me I like soup.

There are a few recipes for tomato soup on this blog. That simple little soup is my favorite. So I've got a roasted tomato soup--perfect for when you've got too many garden tomatoes or when you wind up with some blah tomatoes from the store (roasting brings them back to life). I've got a 7-minute pantry-friendly tomato soup. And I've got my "best" tomato soup--a tomato soup I consider to be of restaurant quality--fresh herbs, a little smoky, delicious. And today I've got another best soup. What?! You can't do that, right. Whatever. It's my blog. I can and I will. The fact is that today's soup is just as good and easier to prepare. It's a little different. It's not as bacon-smoky. Instead, it's creamy from something as basic and whole foody as cream cheese. It's got a nice dose of basil. And mine came out just a bit tangy from some lemon juice that was with my home canned tomatoes. That tanginess really amped it up for me. There's something about hot and tangy that just beats the cold like nothing in this world. Also, let me please emphasize that this soup is super easy to make. I hate to compare the two, or rather I hate to pick favorites on my own blog. They're like two slightly different, but still very attractive sisters. But let me say that today's soup--well, if the cold weather keeps up, I just might start taking baths in it.  

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
adapted from The 36th Avenue (and, yes, I totally un-skinnied this recipe)
serves 6-8
Prep time:
Cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $4.85
onion: .15, butter: .06, tomatoes: 3.00, cream cheese: 1.00, basil: .50, other stuff: .14

Note: Instead of water and bouillon, you can use chicken broth--homemade or otherwise.

1 small onion, finely chopped (like it's minced almost)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp butter
3 14-oz cans Italian-style diced tomatoes (or some home-canned tomatoes with lemon)
2 c water
2 tsp chicken bouillon granules (or cubes)
8 oz cream cheese
2 Tbsp pesto (or 1/4-1/2 C chopped fresh basil)
squeeze of lemon, optional

Chop up that onion. Chop it good (if you've got a decent knife, this adds about a minute of prep time and saves about 5 minutes of cook time).

Melt butter in a large pan. Add onion and cook for several minutes or until it begins to soften. Add garlic. Cook another minute, stirring.

Add tomatoes (with juices). Add water/bouillon. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Then reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.

When it's about done, add the basil (or pesto).

Put your cube of cream cheese in a blender and add 1 C of hot soup. Blend (and be careful--you don't want it to burst out of your blender and burn you).

At this point, you can just add that creamy puree to your chunky soup and have a chunky soup. Or you can puree the rest of the soup, which is what I did because my family likes creamy. I had to do it in two batches. And I must warn you when blending hot liquids--be careful. Most blenders have a little plastic thingy at the top that you can remove. Remove that--this allows the steam to escape. If the steam stays bottled up, it sometimes makes your lid pop off and sprays super hot soup all over your face, arms, and kitchen. This is bad. So remove the plastic thing if you can. Then put a dish towel over the top of the blender and blend.

Re-warm if necessary. Taste for seasonings and add salt and pepper if necessary. If you'd like this tangy (and, oh, I do) add a couple good strong squeezes of lemon.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Cheater Tomato Cream Sauce (still a whole food, still awesomeness)

The theme of December is going to be ease. Say it with me now: "Ease." Ah, doesn't that feel good.

Does anyone else look at Pinterest these days and think the whole world has gone insane? I mean, if I see one more list of interesting, magical, and otherwise clinically insane things that one can do with their elves, I'm going to have to die of parental magic-impairment syndrome. That, or be convicted of it in a court of law. Recently, I saw a post about someone who did something like the elf (which at least has the excuse of coming at an over-the-top-magical time of year AND supposedly inducing your children to good works by watching over their wee shoulders). Except that it was with plastic dinosaurs. And not at Christmas. The dinosaurs would do all kinds of crazy things like make messes and get into trouble--whee. It's great to be a dinosaur. This post concluded with some comment about how they (the parents) were doing it to keep their children's imaginations alive. Back in my day, imagination meant that you--the child--took your plastic dinosaurs and played games with them. Now apparently it means that your parents do random things with them in the middle of the night (which include, but are not limited to getting into bowls of goop, which the parents--presumably--will at some point in the day have to clean up--it kind of blows my mind). But I've digressed.

My point is that my kids will obviously have to live through a magic-less childhood. Not only that, but I am also going to tell you how to cheat on dinner.

Here's how you make this sauce. You take your regular spaghetti sauce. And you add a block of cream cheese. You heat it and mix it and let it melt. The end. It tastes delicious. And fancy. And it's an excellent compliment for pasta with bacon, sweet sausage, seafood, or--my favorite--mushrooms (see above). Normal sauce is great and all, but it's just too acidic to go well with quite so many flavors. This can be part of a ten-minute meal, but it doesn't taste like it. I love that in a food.

Cheater Tomato Cream Sauce
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cost: 2.50
tomato sauce: 1.50,  cream cheese: 1.00

1 can regular tomato sauce (or this delicious and easy homemade sauce)
1 8-oz block of cream cheese

Heat, mix, serve, eat.

PRINTABLE RECIPE--whatever--save yourself the paper; your elf probably made it into hundreds of tiny snowflakes anyway. He must be exhausted.

Butter Chicken

Let me tell you a funny thing about my husband. He doesn't like Indian food or Chinese food. Okay, that's not the funny thing. What's funny is that what he really doesn't like is food that is called Indian food or Chinese food. So if I say, "Hey I'm making this Indian dish tonight" I get that look--maybe you know the one--that look that says, "Really, woman, cause I don't remember that as part of our wedding vows." However, if I flop open a bag of chicken and add some tomato sauce, spices, a little cream, and serve it on rice, well then we're cool. "What's this," he might ask. And I say (trying to avoid eye contact), "Oh, it's just this little dish called, um, tomato-y chicken creamy stuff." And then he's like, "Okay." And then sometimes he's like, "It's a little spicy." But he just keeps eating. This is my life people. Lucky for me, butter chicken is actually called "butter chicken" (at least on all the Indian menus I've seen). I mean, how inocuous is that.

Him: "Whacha making?" 

Me: (able to maintain eye contact) "Oh, just some butter chicken." (innocent batting of the eyelashes)

Him: "Sounds good." 

Yeah. Because it is. Dang good. It's not too hard either. 

Butter Chicken

adapted from Mostly Food and Crafts

Serves 4

Prep time: 15-20 minutes

Cook time: 30-40 minutes

Cost: $4.70 (served with simple white rice and peas, this meal comes up to about $1.50-1.70/person, although portions are not teenager sized and prices are based off of Aldi.)

chicken: 3.00, butter: .30, onion: .15, tomato sauce: .75, yogurt: .20, all those crazy spices: .30

Note on marinade: I'm not a big marinator (not a word, I know). I usually just make the marinade right before and let it sit while I get the rice going. This might be even better if you marinate, but I never think about it far enough ahead. 

Note on sauce: You can use tomato sauce or tomato puree. If you use sauce, be sure to use less salt at first and then taste it and add more at the end if necessary. 

For the Marinade:

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp ginger powder

4 cloves minced garlic

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp lemon juice

3-4 medium chicken breasts, diced

For the Sauce:

5 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion, diced (or finely finely grated if you've got onion-haters among you)

15 oz tomato sauce

1/4 C plain yogurt

1 Tbsp garam masala

1 tsp salt

dash cayenne

Combine marinade ingredients and pour over diced chicken. Marinate if you actually thought about this more than two hours before dinner (and give yourself a pat on the back while you're at it). 

When you're ready to make this, heat a large skillet and dump the chicken and marinade into the pan. Cook chicken until browned, then remove it from the pan and set aside. 

Add butter to that same pan. Melt it and add onions. Cook until they're getting soft (five minutes). Add chicken, any accumulated juices, and the remaining ingredients (tomato sauce, yogurt, garam masala, salt, and cayenne). Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. It should thicken somewhat. If it doesn't, increase the heat at the end and let it boil for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan. [Quick tip: If you're rushed for time, turn up the heat at the beginning to boiling, but stir it very frequently. You're dinner will be done in 10-15 minutes instead of 30, BUT you will have to give it your full attention instead of just letting it sit and simmer.]

Serve over rice. You can add cilantro to the top, which is really yummy. You can also add some peas at the end of cooking. This is very yummy too. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

5-Minute Meal: Beans, Salsa, Chips (with optional really quick homemade salsa)

You guys know I occasionally rant about the idea of "fast" food, especially if it is considered "cheap" food. So, lucky you, I'm not going to rant today. But I will tell you this: This meal is every every bit as fast as any line or drive through I've ever waited in. And it's way better. And it's way cheaper. And it fills that need for fresh, yummy, quick, cool foods that I have in the summer. Because, let me tell you, in the summer I definitely get all food lazy. I won't say I don't want to cook because I still do sometimes. But I don't want to cook as often or as hot or as long. And when I eat I don't crave heavy foods (well, not too often).

 This meal is not, admittedly, entirely whole--at least not in its 5-minute form. I bought tortilla chips from the grocery store. Certainly if you wanted to you could whip up some homemade tortillas and go from there. But I didn't (see above about quick and cool). You can use salsa and re-fried beans from a can if you wish as well. They're still quite healthy. However. If you want, you can still make beans and homemade salsa very very quickly (well, with the beans--they're quick, but have to be done that morning). The beans are done in the crock pot, the salsa in the blender. Badabing, badabam.

And it gets even better (by which I mean, more adaptable).

The salsa can be made from fresh ingredients if you've got them lying about Or if you fail to think about dinner until 1/2 hour before and have no fresh veggies lying about, you can still make a very respectable (and better than store-bought) salsa using canned tomatoes.

And as one final smiley (personal) note about this meal. You guys know that my kids (mostly my oldest son) are super picky. So for this I got some ranch chips, which he loves, but I got a generic variety. And I made salsa (which he also loves if it's not chunky--smooth tomatoes are on his very short list of edibles). Only when I opened those generic chips, I'll be darned if they didn't taste EXACTLY like plain tortilla chips. And then I accidentally put in Hot Rotel instead of mild, and--oh boy--it was hot. And then I was sad. I thought that dinner was doomed to inconsolable bouts of whining and belly-aching. And then from the miraculous wells of miracle miracle-y-ness, my child absolutely loved that hot salsa, and liked the chips too. His sisters followed suite and soon everyone was porking out on hot salsa with swigs of milk in between. And then for the next week when we had friends over, my son would say, "You just have to try the salsa. It's awesome." Which I'm not sure has ever happened over a non-sweet item that I have made. And then he asked if we could buy a hot pepper plant for the garden. Moral of the story: We should go to the wells of miracle miracle-y-ness more often. And it was nice.

You'll need:
1 bag tortilla chips of some sort ($2.00)
1 can re-fried beans (or some homemade) ($.50--generic)
cheddar cheese ($.50)--we put this on the beans and then warm them
1 jar salsa (or homemade; see below) $2.00
we also had mangoes, which were cooling and delicious, but hardly essential $1.00 each

Which makes this a $6 meal. Except that we had tons of leftovers and ate them for at least 3 more lunches that week. And we still have some salsa left which I plan to use in some crock pot chicken. So it's probably closer to a $3 or 4 meal. To feed 6 people. Not bad. 

Potentially Pantry Salsa
makes about 26 oz.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cost: $2.65
tomatoes: 1.00, Rotel: 1.00, cilantro: .50, lime: .15

Note: We made this again tonight. My son helped me. Which made me realize how versatile this is--his system of measurement is a little, um, free form. So it got extra vinegar and less garlic and coriander instead of cilantro. And it was just awesome. So experiment away. Or feel free to mess it up a little. It'll be fine.

This can be made with fresh ingredients. I usually use what I have fresh and then hit the pantry for what I don't.

Note: I used Rotel, but if you'd like you can use two cans of diced tomatoes and then add 1-4 jalepenos.

1 14- oz can diced tomatoes
1 can Rotel
1 1/2 tsp vinegar
1/2- 1 1/2 tsp garlic salt or 1 clove garlic (wide range here; depends on how garlicky you like it)
1/2 tsp cumin
2 handfuls cilantro (yes, this is best fresh, but if you really really don't have it, try a few dashes of dried coriander--I used about 1/4 tsp)
juice of 1 lime (or a few squirts of the non-fresh stuff)
1/2 tsp salt (optional and you probably want to taste before you add)

Throw all in blender except cilantro. Blend. Add cilantro. Blend. (Note: The reason I don't like to blend the cilantro at first is that if it gets too blended, the salsa can get a brownish hue--tastes fine; looks weird.)

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder

Last year I went a little overboard during the holiday season. And not just with food. There were too many activities; there were too many presents; and, yes, there was too much food. It got to the point by the end of December where I'd see a dessert tray and think "Ug." But then I'd eat the desserts off the dessert tray, or at least sample them. Sampling usually works for me, but not when there are 10,000 things to sample, not when you're making cookies at home every other night, not when your kids are bringing candy home by the pocketful.

I gained 10 pounds from October to December. I rarely weigh myself and when I got on that scale after a couple months, I swear I thought it was broken. Nope; the one at the YMCA told me the same thing. I had never gained holiday weight before in my life and I wasn't so happy to be on the bandwagon. I believe there were many factors to that weight gain. I was blessed last year not to get sick, so there was never any kind of forced pause in my sugar plum eating. Foods that weren't normally around and don't normally tempt me were all over the place. I'm not a big candy eater, but if there's a bunch of candy around (think Halloween), I'll eat a piece or two each night--a piece or two I wouldn't have even thought about if it hadn't been there. I was attending too many food-laden activities. And I was making a bunch of sweet, wonderful food for this blog. I didn't think it would matter that much, yet it seemed to. Several months later, after I'd cut my sweets way back and lost my 10 pounds (or at least 9-ish of it), I made a treat. I noticed that before the treat was even in the oven, I'd already probably eaten a couple of servings in licking. That's not a big deal when treats are, well, a treat. But when you're making them constantly, it can kind of add up.

So--forgive me; I didn't mean for this to end up as a Holiday eating confessional--this year I wanted things to be different. I didn't want to look at my calendar or the presents under my tree or desserts on a tray and think "Ug" and then attend/unwrap/scarf them down anyway. I wanted to enjoy the season. I wanted to indulge infrequently enough that it actually felt like indulging.

So far this year, we've gotten sick 4 days after Halloween and I didn't host Thanksgiving, so we're on the right foot:). Tomorrow begins December and I hope to keep things on that right foot (minus the sickness if that's okay with you, universe).

To celebrate that, I give to you this super duper delicious and wonderfully healthy chowder. It's got a lot of good stuff going on. It's homey and warm and comfort-food-like. But without the two cups of cream (not that there's anything wrong with a little cream). It's veggie filled, yet inexpensive. It can be made with roasted summer vegetables in late summer, but here in the fall, it can be made well with canned foods. I got the recipe in the summer and was worried it wouldn't translate well to using canned foods, but it was delicious. In fact, it can be made almost entirely with canned foods if that's what you've got. Which means that it can also be a great pantry meal or the perfect thing to come home and whip up after a long day of shopping/sledding/serving/working.

Merry December.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder
adapted from Gluten-free Goddess
Serves 10-12
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25-30 minutes
Cost: $6.90 or about .70/serving
garlic: .05, onion: .10, corn: 1.00, sweet potato: .25, tomatoes: 2.00, coconut milk: 1.50, broth: 1.00, chicken breast: 1.00,

Note: I didn't have a sweet potato. I swear my kids must have thrown my bag of them out of the cart because I distinctly remember standing in front of them at the store and planning to put them in my cart. Consequently, I used an acorn squash. (I bet a butternut squash would work too.) It was good, but sweet potato would be better. However, my point is that any chunks of winter squash will do.

Another note: I used home-canned tomatoes. They are ridiculously good and their juices did a lot for the flavor of this soup. If using store bought, I recommend an extra big squirt of lemon juice and possibly a few extra shakes of salt (but taste it first) to bring out the best in your tomatoes.

1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp curry
1/4-1/2 tsp chili powder
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped (or if you're onion-texture averse like my husband, grated in the small holes of your grater, so it's a pulp)
2 cans corn, drained
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
2 15-oz cans diced tomatoes with juices (plain or Italian. I used home canned tomatoes and I have to say they were completely more awesome than store bought, but store bought will do)
1 quart vegetable broth
1 14-oz can coconut milk
1 breast of chicken (optional; you can make this vegetarian if you wish)
salt and pepper to taste
a squeeze of lemon or lime if you wish

Chop your onion and garlic. Cube your sweet potato and chicken (you can used leftover cooked chicken to good effect, or you can cook your chicken here. It's up to you).

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add cumin, curry, and chili powder. Stir until fragrant (30-60 seconds. Add onion and cook for 5 minutes or so. Add garlic and cook another minute. Add chicken if it's raw and cook until it's browned on the sides.

Add corn (without juices), sweet potato, tomatoes (with juices). Stir it up. Add broth.

Cover and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently until the sweet potatoes are tender and chicken is cooked through (about 20 minutes).

Add coconut milk and heat through. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add a squirt of lemon or lime if you wish.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Green Tomato Cake

I promised you a green tomato cake.

And then our family got sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick is ick. It wasn't very fun. We haven't all gotten sick like that at the same time before (admittedly, I prefer all at the same time to one person dropping every 4 days so that the sickness extends the whole month--that is THE WORST). The only one not sick was the 2-year-old (who started it all several days ago), and she was bored. Bored bored bored. Bored is underscored (and abhorred). 5 sick people and 1 bored 2-year old equals 1 bad time (don't you love how I mix poetry and math like this--it's what they pay me the big bucks for). Then throw in a minor surgery for the husband. That was us at the beginning of this week. We're better now, although--I think--a little tired. At least I am.

Nevertheless I come here today to deliver green tomato cake. Because green tomatoes do not last forever. They freeze. Or turn orange-ish red. Or rot. And you can not make green tomato cake with any of the above.

As I said in my green tomato muffin post, I kind of liked the muffins better--they were more complex and interesting to me and I didn't miss the extra sugar/frosting. That said, this cake was still awesome and would make the perfect baby shower, tea party, or whatever sort of dessert (whereas a greenish sort of muffin might not get quite the same applause), especially served warm with the topping (oddly, it's a lot like apple cake in that way). Also, my kids preferred the green tomato cake and I felt better giving that to them for a treat than 12 pounds of Halloween candy. So there you go.

Green Tomato Cake
adapted from Cooks (speaking of: I have gotten a couple of awesome recipes from this site with the absolute worst instructions ever. What gives?)
Makes a 9x13 cake
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 35-45 minutes
Cost: $1.30
butter: .50, sugar: .35, eggs: .20, tomatoes: free, flour: .20, other stuff: .05

1/2 C butter, softened significantly
2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 C green tomatoes, pureed
2 C flour (go on, make 1/2 C white whole wheat if you want; know one will ever know)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Topping:
1 C brown sugar
1 C water
1/2 stick butter
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp vanilla (don't forget like I did; it adds a nice something)
Note: I bet you could add some chopped pecans to this and add some more amazingness

Puree your tomatoes in a food processor or blender.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Add green tomato puree.

Add dry ingredients.

Mix it all up. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes.When a knife comes out clean, it's done.

When it comes out, go ahead and make your topping:

Whisk together all ingredients except the vanilla. Heat them, stirring fairly constantly until they thicken (it'll boil for a minute or few and then start to thicken). Remove from heat and add the vanilla (and maybe a shake or two of salt if you're feeling feisty).

Prick the top of your cake with a fork and pour the hot topping onto the warm cake.

Serve warm or cool.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Green Tomato Muffins

We trust each other, right? We might need to a little here. Because I realize that when I say "Green Tomato Muffins" you're not like "Move over, chocolate chips; I need to get me some of that action." I mean, well, maybe you are, but if you are you're just a little, well, probably not average. Anyway, I'm not going to compare these to chocolate chip cookies because that's kind of like comparing my post-baby body to Beyonce's or something like that. And we all know who's going to win in that contest (duh, me of course; I mean, that is what you were thinking, right?). Okay, we're just not going to compare them because. But do trust me when I say that these are excellent. As in very very good. As in could be eaten for breakfast, but could also be eaten for dessert. Also, they use up a lot of those tomatoes you brought in on that night of the first frost. For us, this was Wednesday. So at 9:00PM on Halloween night, I could be seen in all my weird neighborly creepiness out among my garden plants with a light on picking away. I'm glad I did. Because did I mention that these were excellent.

I adapted them from a Green Tomato Cake, which I will post soon hereafter. It was also good, but I gotta tell you that, between you and me, these were kind of my favorite. They didn't have all that glamorous extra sugar and frosting and all-purpose flour like the cake did, but I thought that they were more complex and flavorful and interesting--kind of like eye wrinkles (told you I had the best post-baby body).

Green Tomato Muffins
adapted from Cooks
makes 11-12 muffins
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Cost: $.90
tomatoes: free, butter: .50, sugar: .10, egg: .10, flour: .05, whole wheat flour: .10, other stuff: .05

Note: My only complaint about these was that they were a little delicate and the bottoms stuck to my muffin pan. Use muffin papers (or whatever the heck they're called) and you won't have to worry about this.

1/2 C (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
1 egg
1 C pureed green tomatoes
1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350. Line your muffin pan with muffins liners (or whatever the heck they're called).

Puree tomatoes. I put mine in a food processor to do this, although a blender would work too. I confess that I have no idea how many pounds of tomatoes equals 1 C as it was late and I didn't keep track. I say just puree what you've got and if you don't use all your puree, you can freeze in Ziploc baggies for later muffin cravings.

Beat butter and sugar until well combined. Add eggs. Add green tomatoes. Add dry ingredients. If you want you could add raisins or nuts, but I didn't.

Pour into muffin tin paper liner things and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Best Tomato Soup

I love tomato soup. Love love love it. Truth be told, it might--in all its simplicity--be my very favorite of all soups. It's the soup I tend to order at restaurants if I'm ordering soup and sadly, it's the soup I'm always a little more pleased about at restaurants than I am at home. Oh, sure, I love all the tomato soups I've posted. They're certainly 70,000 times better than anything that can come out of a can. But I just didn't have that one--that one that made me say, "Eh, I'm not dropping $5 for a small bowl of tomato soup today; I can just make it better at home." (This is what I find myself constantly saying at restaurants--not that I dine 5-star or anything.)

And then a couple of weeks ago, all that changed. I went to a sort of soup potluck at my church at the end of September. In the line-up was a dynamite tomato soup. But how, oh how (imagine some hand-wringing here) would I ever find the one who had made it. And then at the end of the evening, fate took me by the hand and, without even trying, she and I happened to pick up our soups at the same time. Not only that, but when I met her and started unabashedly grilling her about the contents of her soup, she said, "If you'd like, I have it in my email. I could just forward it to you." Yes, I'd like. She pulled out her phone and just like that the recipe was mine. I wanted to kiss her. Fortunately for my new friend (Hi, Kate--no, don't go; I swear I'm not a weirdo) and for all others present, I refrained.

This week I made it. It's perfect. It's simple. It can be pulled together in 30-ish minutes with only 10 of those being active minutes. So, sorry Panera (not really), but I guess it's time to move on (at least from your tomato soup; those croutons you put on top; I'm still seeking to master).

Best Tomato Soup
from Kate the Great (hi Kate--no, really, I'm not that weird and thanks for the recipe)
Makes: 6-10 servings
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 30-35 minutes
Cost: $2.15 (this is about $.21/serving)
butter: .25, bacon: .15, carrot: .10, onion: .10, garlic: .05, flour: .02, broth: free if its homemade; from granules, I'm guessing about .25, crushed tomatoes: 1.20, herbs: .03

And now, several notes:
1. If you don't have bacon, I bet lard instead of butter would still give that bacony undertone. That said, who has lard but not bacon.
2. I actually liked this even better before adding the cream and sour cream. If you don't add cream/sour cream, or reduce it substantially, you will need less salt, as the creaminess demands more salt. This is also a bonus to skipping the creams if you wish. Originally, I used 4 1/2 C water with 3 tsp Better than Bullion. After I added the creams, I needed another 1/2 tsp Better than Bullion. In short, if you skip the creams or reduce them a lot, you can probably use reduced sodium broth, or less chicken granules/bullion (or whatever it is you use) or you could use a homemade stock and not need to add as much salt to the mix. That said, some people might love the creamy additions--also they'll keep you full longer if this is a dinner (And don't get me wrong; I certainly liked them; I just liked the soup a wee bit better without them.)
3. If you don't have fresh herbs, just throw in 1/4-1/2 tsp of each as dried herbs.
4. I just used crushed tomatoes from a can, but I'm itching to try some of my home roasted pureed tomatoes. I think it'll be awesome.

4 Tbsp butter (unsalted)
1 slice bacon (just for flavor; you're going to remove this at the end)
1 spanish onion (this is a large, sweet, mild onion; I didn't have one so used 1/2 of a regular yellow onion)
1 carrot
4 cloves garlic
5 Tbsp flour
4 1/2 C chicken broth
1 28-ox can crushed tomatoes (unseasoned)
3 fresh parsley spring
3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
1/2 C heavy cream
1/2 C sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Heat butter and fry the slice of bacon. Lower heat to medium or low. Add onion, carrot, and garlic and cover, stirring occasionally until they're softish (about 8 minutes).

Whisk in flour and stir it for 1-2 minutes.

Pour in broth and crushed tomatoes.

Bring to a boil, whisking constantly

Throw herbs in soup.

Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove the herb springs and leaf. Let cool slightly and then puree or use an immersion blender.

If desired whisk in cream and sour cream. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Four Ways to Preserve Tomatoes

It's tomato time.

I get enough tomatoes from my garden to eat and sometimes even to roast, but today I went to my friend's super-duper-survive-Armageddon garden and picked many many pounds of gorgeous (how are they possibly that pretty?) tomatoes. And, you know, I like tomato sandwiches and all, but still...

Basically, there are 4 ways to preserve tomatoes. None are too crazy hard and some are downright easy. Here they are in order of laziness.

1. Roast. I love this method. It is super flavorful. It requires no special equipment. The end product tastes like Eden itself. And it's very versatile. You can just eat the roasted tomatoes, or add them to pasta or rice (or add them to a burger sometime; you'll be the burger gourmet among all your friends). Or use them for the base of a soup or sauce. You can puree them (which is my family's thing--the kids and Kip don't do "chunkies" alas) and use them to make incredible tomato soup or tomato sauce. You can also add onions, garlic, or whatever the heck you want when roasting. Once you've got your tomatoes or puree, you're going to put it in jars or Tupperware and freeze it. Often I use old yogurt containers for this purpose (just remember to label them, eh). I like a slow roast at 350-375. It'll take a couple of hours for a full pan and less time if you're pan isn't packed. 

2. Dry. This is easiest if you have a dehydrator. It's also easiest with Roma tomatoes or some sort of small variety, like Sweet 100's. You cut and seed your tomatoes, add some salt, and dry away. However, this is also a really good method for oven drying. They don't come out quite as dried, but are wicked good. Also, I tend to freeze my dried tomatoes. I'm always paranoid that I didn't get them quite dry enough and that I'll find them moldy halfway through winter. They don't take much space so I throw them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer.

3. Freeze. With this method you're going to pretend you're canning your tomatoes. You'll boil them for about 30 seconds, then plunge them into ice water to get the skins off. You'll mash or cut them. You can salt them if you wish. But then, instead of putting them in jars to process them, you'll put them in Ziploc bags or plastic containers and freeze them. It's a little easier and less kitchen-steaming than canning. Also, you don't need as much specialized equipment as you do with canning.

4. Can. Canning has a bad reputation for being a pain in the bruhahee. And it is a couple hours of juicy work. However, it's really not that bad. Especially if you're just canning a few jars for winter delight and not canning so that you can survive the winter. I usually just do a batch or two--a batch being the 5 or 6 jars that my big pot can hold. Which brings me to another topic. Canning does require a bit of knowledge and some equipment. You'll need a big old pot and something with which to pull the jars out. You'll need Mason jars, fresh lids with seals and the screwy lid things. Also, you're going to steam up your house a bit. Is it worth it? Yes. I hadn't had home canned tomatoes for years. And then, 2 years ago, we canned some at a friend's house. Oh my. They were so so much better than store bought diced that I really couldn't believe it. Here's a good site on canning (although I also add 1 tsp salt to my quart jars for flavor, and I don't wait for my tomatoes to cool off--I plunge them into ice water).

Work-a-Day Wednesday: 7-Minute Cream of Tomato Soup (Pantry Recipe)

Until last summer, I'd never attempted a homemade tomato soup. It seemed very frightening when you've been eating it from a little tin can all your life. But last summer I grew several tomato plants that actually produced--shockingly--more than 2 tomatoes per plant. So I made this and this. I even stuck some of it in Tupperware containers (fine, I actually stuck them in old 32-oz. yogurt containers; I'm cheap) and froze a few batches. It was really delicious. But it always required roasting tomatoes. This is great when you've got them coming out your ears and when you've got an hour to go before dinner time. But what about those dreary April days when you've got nothing fresh in the fridge and 10 minutes before dinner. I just figured we'd revert to the tin cans. It's not the end of the world, even if the ingredient list contains high fructose corn syrup and the ever mysterious "natural" flavoring and even if each 1/2 C serving contains a stunning 3 tsp sugar.

And then one afternoon I was at my friend's house and my eyes were opened. She made a super quick, completely pantry-friendly tomato soup from scratch. It's much more of a whole food soup (you're still opening a can, but this one is diced tomatoes with only salt added). Also, I don't even think I need to say this, but it tasted so much better than Campbell's ever did.

7-Minute Cream of Tomato Soup (Pantry Friendly)
Makes 2-4 servings
Prep and cook time: 7 minutes
Cost: $.97
(milk: .25, butter: .10, diced tomatoes: .60, other stuff: .02)

Note: In this recipe you can get away with reconstituted powdered milk if you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The soup will still taste great. I had regular milk and used that (most of the time these days it's just as cheap or cheaper than dry milk, so use it if you've got it).

Another note: This soup is soundly on the creamy end. Next time I might try reducing the milk by half (1 Tbsp butter, 1 Tbsp flour, 1 C milk for the roux) or doubling up on the canned tomatoes or using tomato puree instead to see what happens. For now, know that this soup is super good, but definitely cream of tomato soup.

One final note: If you've got Italian diced tomatoes, you can skip all the other seasonings and really cheat.

1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Tbsp flour
2 C milk
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
Italian seasonings to taste
salt and pepper to taste
dash onion powder
dash garlic powder

Melt butter in saucepan. Whisk in flour. Add milk and stir until it thickens slightly. Add diced tomatoes and seasonings.

Puree. I did mine in a blender, but an immersion blender would be nice.

Reheat if necessary. Garnish it with some basil if you don't want it to look as boring as the above picture. But don't garnish it with anything if you want your kids to eat it. The only kid-friendly garnish I've ever known is chocolate shavings. And somehow I just don't think that will work with this.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Oven Dried Tomatoes

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

So I've got a bunch of really ugly tomatoes ripening in my basement right now.

Which is why it was so perfect that I got Miz Helen's Country Cottage this month for the Secret Recipe Club. She hails from Texas and is thereby obligated by Texas state law to provide plenty of stick to your ribs kinds of meals/desserts (the brownie torte I'm going to make comes to mind), though hers tend to have plenty of finesse (and they're not all of the stick to your ribs variety). Like her oven dried tomatoes.

This recipe was especially appealing to me because--did I mention my ugly tomato situation--but also because I often dry my tomatoes in a dehydrator. That's all fine and good, but I've often wanted to do some that were accessible to the non-dehydrator-owning crowd. Perfect.

And you know, I liked hers even better. They weren't as thoroughly dried as their dehydrated counterparts (Miz Helen says they'll keep for 3 months in the fridge, but mine kept for 12 hours and were gone--2 pounds all mine), but because of the roasting they come out with this more complex, roasty flavor, which I LOVE.

I do have one note. Miz Helen says to leave them in the oven at 250 for 3 hours. And she says you can leave them up to 6 hours. But don't think this means you shouldn't check them at 3 hours, because you should. You might even want to check that at 2 1/2 hours. Or you should set the oven to 200. This is especially true if your tomatoes are not all sliced, um, exactly in the same thicknesses, not that I happen to know anyone who might slice her ugly tomatoes in such a careless way.

I checked mine at 3 1/2 hours and the outer ones and little ones were crispy and a little blackish around the edges. I happen to like blackish around the edges where roasted things are concerned and I ate those ones that night as a sort of tomato chip (mmm, tomato chips). The rest I ate the next day like this, and--oh--they were pretty much beyond amazing.

Oven Dried Tomatoes
from Miz Helen's Country Cottage
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours
Cost: nearly free, you ugly tomatoes, you

2 lb Roma tomatoes (they work best since they have the fewest juices and seeds; if you want to use another variety, you may want to remove some of the seeds/juices, though not all as they add to the flavor of the tomatoes)
olive oil
spices (Miz Helen recommends a whole slew as options--basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme. I thought that was a great idea, but went simple with merely salt and pepper)

1. You're going to remove the grody parts of your ugly tomatoes. Get it all gone. Good job.

2. Next slice them lengthwise. Try to keep your slices as uniform as possible, but don't stress if they're not.

3. Lay parchment paper on a baking sheet (do this or you will be beating yourself with a spatula later on).

4. Brush olive oil onto the top of the tomatoes.

5. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper (generously, people) and then with whatever other seasonings you wish.

6. Bake at 200 or 250 for 3-4 hours. Give them a check at 2 1/2 hours. If some are already dry and ready to come out, remove them and then put the rest back in to finish drying.

7. Allow them to cool and eat them plain as snacks or throw into a meal. They go great with pasta, rice, or salad.

How I Ate Mine should anyone care to know what one might do with oven dried tomatoes


1 C cooked spaghetti
1 generous Tbsp pesto
1-2 tsp cream
1 Tbsp Parmesan or Romano cheese
as many tomatoes as you can cram in there

Mix all together and eat.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Savory Green Tomato Relish

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

If you or your loved ones like relish (or salsa verde for that matter), I have the perfect solution for your green tomatoes. It came from Farmgirl Fare with some very small adaptations from me.

Many of her commenters said it reminded them or green salsa. This is true, although with the amount of vinegar listed, there's something distinctly relish-y about this. If you really want a salsa verde, I'd reduce the vinegar to 1/4 C or even just 2 Tbsp and maybe use lemon or lime juice instead of vinegar.

If you plan to can it, you'll want to use 1 C vinegar in order to make it nice and acidic and safe.

We used it in our taco pie the other day with a little red salsa and it was GREAT.

Savory Green Tomato Relish
adapted from Farmgirl Fare
makes 3 pints (we halved it since we are not huge relish eaters and I didn't want to can)
Prep and cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $2.00
(tomatoes: come on, they're free, onion: .15, red peppers: .75, apple: .50, jalapeno peppers: .50; other stuff: .10)

2 lb (about 12-16 romas) green tomatoes, cored and chopped (make sure they are hard green tomatoes)
1 lb (1 large) white or yellow onion, chopped
3/4 lb sweet red peppers (2-3), cored and chopped
1/2 lb tart cooking apples (1 large) such as Granny Smith, cored and chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 C apple cider vinegar (use 1 C if you plan to can; 2-4 Tbsp if you're going for a salsa)
1/2 Tbsp salt
2 jalapeno peppers, cored and seeded (Farmgirl recommends 4, but we're weak in the heat department)
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tsp ground cumin (optional)

Combine tomatoes, onions, peppers, apples, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a large nonreactive pot (such as stainless steel or ceramic) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to break down and it all seems thicker.

Stir in jalapenos, cilantro, and cumin and simmer for 5 more minutes. Put mixture in blender and blend until chunky (or use an immersion blender). Don't get it smooth.

This will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.

If you want to can it (I didn't so these are Farmgirl's instructions): Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process in boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Store in cool, dark place for up to a year.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Cream of Tomato Soup

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

I've really been in love with roasted tomatoes this year. They're especially nice now that temperatures are dropping low enough that turning on your oven doesn't feel like a sin. Also, the quality of my tomatoes has declined and many of them are being brought in to ripen on the counter, which makes roasting a good solution. Roasting can take a so so tomato right back into wonderful summer land. Add a little cream, and fall is officially on.

If you're in a pinch, you can drain a 28-oz can of whole tomatoes and roast those up.

Cream of Tomato Soup
adapted from smittenkitchen
Makes 2 servings
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour (but it's mostly inactive time as they roast)
Cost: $2.40
(tomatoes: 1.50, butter: .10, cream: .25, chicken stock: .50, other stuff: .05)

Note on tomatoes: You can use whatever kind of tomatoes you have. Romas are nice because they have fewer seeds and roast up really well.

Note on chicken stock: The salt in this recipe can go up quickly. If you've salted your tomatoes (which I recommend), use homemade or low-sodium chicken broth. If you don't have low-sodium, skip the salt when roasting the tomatoes.

6-8 Roma tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lb), cut into 1-inch pieces with seeds (or most of them) removed
1 Tbsp brown sugar
salt
4 shallots
olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp tomato paste (can be skipped and world won't end, but is nice if you have it)
2 Tbsp flour
1 can or about 1 3/4 C chicken stock (I used homemade)
1/4-1/2 C heavy cream

Cut and seed tomatoes. Toss in olive oil and layer on a baking sheet. Add shallots. Sprinkle with brown sugar and salt. Bake at 450 degrees until they lose most of their juices and start to color up. The color you're going for is dark red with a bit of brown. If you use track of time like I did, yours will really really color up and you might have to leave the blackened edges on the pan, but your life will go on anyway and this will turn out fine.

Once you pull your tomatoes out of the oven, heat butter in a saucepan until melted. Add tomato paste. You can also add some pepper, cayenne, allspice, or paprika if you like one of those in your tomato soup. Add flour and whisk until thick and a bit bubbly. Add chicken stock and whisk until combined. Add tomatoes and any juices that can be scraped off the pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes so all the flavors meld. (I did this; however, if you're in a hurry, I bet you could reduce this time and still turn out a good soup.)

Allow to cool for a couple minutes, then add to a blender (or use an immersion blender). Add cream and warm over medium heat. At this point, you can stir in a bit (1/2 Tbsp) of lemon juice or red wine vinegar if you feel it needs to be brightened up a bit. Adjust seasonings. Note: If your soup is still too thick, add a bit more stock and all should be well.

We ate ours with grilled cheese and it was good.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Vegetable and Ricotta Stuffed Pepper Boats

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Until a few years ago, I just couldn't stand peppers. At all.  They were one of the few vegetables that just didn't work for me. I tried to love them. After all, they were so very very pretty. I'd try them every year or so when I saw some lovely slices on someone's vegetable tray. And every year I thought, "Nope, still not working for me." It got to the point where I thought they were destined to be picked off of my supreme pizzas forever. And then one summer, it happened. We were at a friend's house, she had a plate of red, yellow, and green pepper slices. I was starving. I pulled off a red, gave it a bit of dip. It was sweet--sweeter than I remembered. I had another and another. I tried a yellow. Soon enough I was porking out on them dip-free and I was eager to get more. I started buying them after that--just occasionally when I was in the mood. And then, one day, they made their way into my garden. There's no going back after that. It's too much work not to love them. (I'm feeling a marriage analogy coming on, but I'll try to limit my marriage analogies to my discussions involving brownies, and maybe cookies.)

I still love the reds best. And although the greens and I have made peace, we're still not, like, BFF. Not this year at least.

This summer I've been using my lunches to try to work my way through some of summer's bounties. In the midst of eating my way through a large zucchini and more than a windowsill full of garden tomatoes, my friend gave me some of the prettiest banana peppers ever--some were still pale, some had turned orange, and some were red enough for party lipstick. Would that we all aged as well as peppers do.

So I made stuffed peppers. Only these couldn't possibly stand upright, so I laid them down and made pepper boats. I know; I know; I'm completely brilliant. I just can't help myself sometimes.

Seriously, though, there are several advantages to the banana boats as opposed to the average stuffed pepper:

1) They take less time in the oven because they're skinnier.
2) They're less messy to cut up and eat.
3) When you sprinkle cheese on the top, you have more surface area for more cheese. I ask you, do you need more reason than this? I don't.

Vegetable and Ricotta Stuffed Pepper Boats
Makes 4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Cost: Guys I'm struggling here as most of my vegetables have been free, so this is a bit of a guess: $1.57
(zucchini: .15, tomato: .35, onion: .02, peppers: no idea really; I've honestly never purchased them; let's say: .40, ricotta: .50, feta: ..15)

Note: One of the great things about stuffed peppers is that you can substitute whatever you have. (In fact, I kept mis-typing this to read 'stuff peppers' which can be uncannily accurate.) You can use whatever fresh veggies you've got. You can sub cottage cheese for the ricotta. You can sprinkle it with any cheese that milks your cow (although I like something with some punch like sharp cheddar, Parmesan/Romano/Asiago, or feta). You can use couscous, rice, or quinoa in place of some or all of the ricotta. You can add bacon or sausage or ground beef if you wish to de-vegetarian this. Bread crumbs, sure. Paprika on top, why not? Hot peppers instead of banana; you're brave, but go for it. And, yes, you can even use just a regular old bell pepper. The point is that, if you like peppers, these babies are tough to mess up. They're even tough to uglify. Who doesn't love that in a food?

Another Note: I prepare the filling and just make one pepper at a time for lunch. So I make my pepper and then I put the leftover filling in the fridge so I can use it the next day to stuff another pepper for lunch.

One final note: While I'm preparing the filling I like to throw the (de-stemmed, de-seeded) pepper I'm going to use into the oven while the oven heats and while I prepare the filling on the stove. This way it cooks a bit before I put the fillings in and the whole thing cooks a bit faster.

Okay, this is really really the final note: It is possible you could skip sauteing the vegetables and just mix everything up, stuff the pepper, and then cook it a little longer in the oven. I think it goes faster with the stove to oven method, but if you've got plenty of wait time for things to cook and less hands-on time to be standing at a stove, this might be a great option for you. I've got to warn you, though, that I haven't tried it. If you do and it works as well as I think it would, let me know, would you?

4 banana or other long peppers
1/2 C diced zucchini
1/8-1/4 C sliced onion
1 tomato, diced
1 C ricotta cheese
2 Tbsp feta cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Lay your peppers down and cut a generous sliver our of the side facing up. (Leave the stem in tact so your filling doesn't leak out.) Cut out the seeds and any ribs that are in your way.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a frying pan. Add zucchini and onion to hot oil and saute until the onions are clear and tender. Add tomatoes and salt and pepper. Cook another minute more until tomatoes are warm.

Put this vegetable mixture into a bowl. Add ricotta. Taste and adjust your seasonings. Stuff the peppers and sprinkle with feta cheese.

Bake in oven at 400 for 10-15 minutes.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Fried Green Tomatoes

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day or less.

This is the part of the show where I pretend once again that I am from the south. The even-more-ironic-than living-in-southern-Indiana part of that is that I actually learned to make fried green tomatoes when I lived in southern California. Which is one of the beautiful things about the internet.

When we lived in SoCal (also, can people older than 30 use the term "SoCal" without sounding like idiots?), we lived in the dessert where we owned a slightly ghetto condo with an itty bitty plot of garden-able land surrounding its side. Don't get me wrong--I have great memories of that small plot of land. It was there I began my life as a gardener. At least it was there that I planted the most beautiful rose of my life (purchased at a yard-sale type sale from a sweet elderly Latin man), where I learned you could grow herbs and cook with them, and where I planted a singular tomato plant which grew enormously huge and was filled to the absolute brim with tomatoes--green green tomatoes that utterly refused to ripen. I realize now that it was probably the result of the entire lawn/garden area being automatically watered every morning and night. Or because I had not plucked back the greenery of the plant, thereby allowing it to become so monstrous that it was sucking all the everything away from the fruit that needed to ripen. Or merely because my gardening stars had decided to visit different galaxies that August. Whatever the case, I had a bunch of green tomatoes--not orange-ish, not pink--but hard green tomatoes.

I am sad to say that I didn't pick them off and make a green tomato chutney or green tomato chili or green tomato pie, but cooking was nearly as new to me as gardening then, and the only association I had with green tomatoes was the title of the movie, "Fried Green Tomatoes" (a movie that, for the record, I've never even seen and for which I don't even know the plot). So I went to our trusty computer with its then, er, "trusty" dial-up internet connection and I looked up a recipe for fried green tomatoes. And I made them. And, oh mama, they were just as eye opening to me as okra would be a few years later. Those southerners, they know a thing or two about summer vegetables, ripe and otherwise.

A few tips for fried green tomatoes:

Note: Some of this stuff is a matter of personal preference, so don't be afraid to experiment.

1. Many recipes tell you to dip your slices into egg or milk/buttermilk or both before coating with the flour/cornmeal. Tonight I tried several methods and found that just frying the tomatoes with nothing wet on them worked just fine. The taste was slightly different (the ones I dipped in buttermilk were somewhat tangier), but only slightly. Still, you may wish to experiment with dipping. I myself am lazy so I think I'll be skipping the milk bath in the future.

2. I much much much prefer thinnish slices of tomato. They come out nice and crispy. Maybe I have a potato chip fettish that I don't know about. Some people online prefer the slices thick. I tried this tonight and did not like it much at all. The outside is still crispy, but (and truly I'm embarrassed to say this) there's just too much tomato on the inside and the texture contrasts--crispy outside, slightly mushy inside--were not pleasing to me in the least.

3. Many recipes call for a combination of flour, cornmeal, and bread crumbs. I believe I mentioned that I'm lazy, so you shouldn't be surprised when I say that less seemed better to me, so I skipped the bread crumbs. I do feel like the flour helps to keep the outside from falling off in the frying; otherwise I might just skip it too since the cornmeal is where the flavor is.

4. Be absolutely sure to get the tomatoes thoroughly coated in the flour/cornmeal mixture. Thoroughly. Like, if I see that the seedy middle is still uncoated, I sprinkle some of the flour/cornmeal in. I like them crispy, I say, crispy.

5. While they're cooking or just after they've come off the stove, I sprinkle more salt on them. It makes them yummier. (It is becoming clearer by the moment that I really do have a potato chip fettish.)

Fried Green Tomatoes
serves 2
Cook time: 15 minutes
Cost: nearly free in the summer
(flour: .03, cornmeal: .05, oil: .08, tomatoes: .25 or free)

3 smallish green tomatoes (You want them truly green, not ready to turn to orange; they should be firm)
3 Tbsp cornmeal
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
a few dashes of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
vegetable oil for pan-frying

Heat a skillet (I used cast iron) to medium and add the oil. I just give it a good coating ( a millimeter or two of oil). No reason to float the tomatoes in oil. Let it get hot while you slice and coat your tomatoes.

Combine flour, cornmeal, cayenne, salt and pepper. Slice tomatoes into thin slices (not paper thin, mind you, although that really might work if you, too, have an un-addressed potato chip fetish), but about 1/4 of an inch thick or less.

Put tomatoes in oil (careful you don't splash). They should sizzle just a bit, but not burn or smoke or otherwise go nuts. Cook tomato slices on one side until golden, then flip. You want them to cook slowly enough that the inside of your tomatoes gets done and crispy. It should take a couple minutes and they'll start to smell good. At that point check them and give them a flip with a fork if they're golden.

When both sides have cooked, drain on paper towels.

I think these are great served alone, but you can eat them dipped in hot sauce or mayonnaise or any kind of dip that melts your little summer heart.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Tomato Sandwiches

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day or less.

Today's post is more of a memory than a recipe.

I grew up watching my mother eat tomato sandwiches in the summer. Mom doesn't love gardening, but she does love fresh tomatoes. Growing up we would often have garden tomatoes.

Tomato sandwiches are one of those foods that seem gross to a kid at first. But when your parent enjoys them as much as my mom did, well, eventually you come around. And you're so glad you did. Because tomato sandwiches with garden tomatoes--they're something special. Don't ask me why they're not gross. Any other time of the year, a tomato sandwich just seems like a sandwich that forgot the rest of its toppings, but in the summer, those tomatoes are singing their own song. And they don't need anybody else to sing it with them. I actually like tomato sandwiches best with tomatoes just picked so that they're still a little warm. The mayo and salt get kind of warm and melty and it's like eating summer itself. Of course you can get this effect by toasting the bread as well. And of course, a sun-warmed tomato is not a necessity for a good summer sandwich. All you need is a good fresh tomato, some bread, some salt, and a bit (a generous bit if you're me) of mayonnaise. Don't try to duplicate them in the winter. You'll just grode yourself out.

Everyone should have a good virgin tomato sandwich for starters, but if you're in the mood to dress the sandwich up a bit, it dresses up well. I like it with a good sharp cheddar. Fresh basil with or without a bit of olive oil goes nicely too. And I'm betting a slab of mozzarella wouldn't do you wrong (I haven't tried it yet, but I've got my slab of mozzarella waiting for me in the refrigerator). And do I even need to say how blessed a BLT is with summer tomatoes.

Let me know how you like your tomato sandwiches. The raccoons may have consumed all of my beautiful corn, my squash may be refusing to produce, but I've got tomatoes coming out my ears.

Tomato Sandwich
serves 1
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cost: a few cents for bread and mayo

2 slices bread
several fat slices of tomato (I like thickish slices in one layer on my bread)
mayo for generous spreading on both sides of your bread
salt and pepper--don't skimp

Toast your bread if you wish and make a sandwich. Eat it nice and slow. The juice and mayo will drip onto your fingers. Embrace this fact and lick it off. Remember: tomato sandwiches are fleeting. Enjoy them when they come.

Roasted Tomatoes: Soup

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day.

Okay, remember the roast tomatoes from yesterday--the ones used to make a really great spaghetti sauce? Well, keep thinking about them. Because I still had a ton of tomatoes. So I decided to make homemade tomato soup. This has been on my list of things to do for a very long time.

A friend mentioned this Roasted Tomato Soup from 101 Cookbooks. I made it. It was really great. But I couldn't help noticing that it started out a whole lot like the pasta sauce--tomatoes, garlic, and onion tossed in olive oil and roasted for a nice long time. The difference is that after you puree the vegetables, you add water or broth (maybe with a glug of cream, I mean, um, cough, skim milk) until it's the consistency you want it.

And so I propose "Roasted Tomatoes: Three Ways":

1. Roast them and eat them simply with chicken or rice or pasta.
2. Roast them and make them into pasta sauce by pureeing them and adding basil, oregano, a bit of sugar, a bit of vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Roast them and make them into soup by adding broth or water (and/or cream/milk) until it's the consistency you like, then adding salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle on some homemade pesto if you're in the mood for tomato nirvana.

As for me, I've taken to roasting my extra loads of tomatoes, pureeing them, and freezing them. Yes, it does make the house kind of hot if you do a few batches, but it doesn't make the house any hotter than canning would. And come winter, you little ants you, you'll pull those tomatoes out and the grasshoppers will come calling. Unless the grasshoppers are my kids, in which case they'll demand that you open a can of something in order to classify your tomato product as food. Which is fine with me because I can totally eat it all.

Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day.

Let me say 2 things about this sauce:

1. It was completely awesome in every way. Seriously, I'm ready for another batch, hot oven be darned. The flavors are so much more complex and full than with a skillet sauce.
2. My older kids wouldn't touch it. Would. Not. Touch. It. No, it wasn't chunky. No, there wasn't spinach hidden within. But it was orange-ish as opposed to the dark red of the store bought tomato puree.
3. It was super easy.
4. It is an absolutely fabulous way to use up lots of tomatoes--like when you have too many to eat, but not enough to can.
5. Yes, this is more than 2 things. It's a problem I have with lists. They always end up longer than I think they will. Please tell me I am not alone in having this problem.

Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce
Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1-1 1/2 hours
Cost: It's practically free if you're using garden tomatoes. If you're buying them, try to find them for $1.00/lb and this would cost about $2.50 (although I do have an herb garden, so I'm not counting those fresh herbs)

2 lb Roma tomatoes (other varieties will do as well and we mixed and matched a bit, but Romas are nice for sauces because they have few seeds)
1 onion (white or yellow)
8-10 garlic cloves (sounds like a lot, but the roasting mellows them significantly)
4-6Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil (didn't have so skipped)
pinch red pepper flakes (Note: I bet if you've got an extra pepper lying around you could chop it up and roast it instead of using the red pepper flakes)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Position rack in lower third of oven.

Core tomatoes, slice lengthwise into quarters and scoop out the seeds. (Seeding them really isn't as pesky as it seems in this case and it really yields a nicer finished product. If you miss a few it's not the end of the world, but you don't want an excessively seedy finished sauce--at least we didn't.)

Peel onion and slice it or cut it into 1-inch chunks.

Peel garlic and give it a smash with the flat side of a knife if you wish.

Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, oregano, dries basil and red pepper flakes in a bowl and give them a few tosses. (Of course I just put mine on the pan to toss since I am lazy.) Sprinkle with a bit more olive oil if necessary. Sprinkle generously with salt (it's going to give it just the loveliest flavor when it roasts) and pepper.

Spread vegetables evenly on a baking sheet (I used a jelly roll pan) and roast for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. (Note: You can turn up the heat a bit and rush this a little, but don't try to rush it too much; the slow roast is what gives it the nice, complex roasted vegetable flavor.)

Give them a stir a little over halfway through.

Remove from oven and let it cool for a few minutes (unless your husband needs to leave for work in, like, 20 minutes). Then put it in the blender or food processor (get all those yummy sauces off the pan and add them). Add sugar and vinegar and blend until smooth. Add the fresh herbs and pulse it for a few more seconds. (Note: If your family likes chunky sauce, reserve part of the vegetables and just put them in with the herbs and give them a few pulses.) Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Sun-dried Tomatoes

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on $10/day.

Let me start by saying there's no sun involved in my drying process. Today it was approximately 78 million degrees outside with 100 trillion percent humidity. You walked outside and felt like you were swimming. In fact, if I leave the dried tomatoes on the counter for too long instead of throwing them in an air-tight container, I feel like they begin to rehydrate from the water in the air. 

But just because we don't have dry air doesn't mean we don't have tomatoes. About this time of year, the little ones start coming out of my ears. They're fun for snacks and salads, but eventually, eventually, it gets hard to be excited about them. They drop to the ground, unloved, and decompose. Unless you have a brilliant idea like I did last year: cut the little boogers in half and dry them. 

Sun-dried tomatoes are super pricey. Drying them is super easy. This seemed like a win win. 

Last year it was Sweet 100's. This year it's these little yellow pear shaped ones. I get them from my garden and my CSA. The thing is, yellow tomatoes are fun and all, but they're not really my favorite. Apparently, I like a more acidic kick. Which is one of the great things about drying. It takes a mild tomato and concentrates all of its flavors. Even if you don't eat them to the point of mouth soreness like I do, they're delicious on pastas and in other recipes. They're a little piece of summer in the middle of winter. And although we're swimming through humidity right now, there's going to come a time when we can all use a little piece of summer in the middle of winter. 

After you've cut your tomatoes in half, sprinkle them fairly generously with salt (sprinkle them enough so that they're good to eat before drying--punchy, but not crazy salty). If you've gotten them too salty, they'll burn your mouth up when dehydrated. However, the salt is a really wonderful accentuator (of course that's a word; why do you ask?) for the tomatoes. It's especially nice if you like to snack on them.

Line the halved tomatoes on your dehydrator and set it for about 135 degrees. Yup, if your oven goes that low, you can do them in there too.

It's going to be several hours. Mine tend to take between 8 and 16 hours to dry, depending on how big the halves are. I always check after 8 hours, pull off the ones that are done, let them cool, and put them in a sealed bag with the air squished out. I repeat this every 4 hours or so until they're all done. You don't want them getting crispy dry and you don't want them juicy at all. They should be chewy throughout. If they're nearly done and it's bedtime, just turn your machine off and then turn it back on in the morning. 

I use a Nesco American Harvest Dehydrator that was a gift from my mother-in-law. It's awesome. If you're looking for something a little cheaper, they've got them on sale at Aldi through Tuesday (in these parts) for $19.99, but I don't know how good they are, (although I bet they're good enough for tomatoes and herbs).

To store them, put them in a tightly sealed Ziploc bag, with as much air as possible squeezed out. They'll keep like this for several weeks, but I always throw them in the freezer to store them for the long term. I know that sounds a little weird since I just went through the hassle of drying them. And I assure you that dried they will last for a while just sitting in a bag on your counter top (provided it's sealed with very little air). But the freezer just guarantees that they last longer. It extends their life and preserves the nutrients even longer. It protects them from bugs and other pests. And it acts as an extra safety just in case I didn't get quite enough of the moisture out. Why take a chance? They take an itty bitty amount of freezer space and that way I don't have to worry about them.

The Skinny on Sun-dried Tomatoes:

1. Rinse and dry your tomatoes.
2. Cut smallish tomatoes in half (larger ones you'll want to cut in small pieces).
3. Salt or sprinkle with any other herbs you wish.
4. Place on food dehydrator with none touching or overlapping.
5. Set dehydrator to 135 degrees and dry for 8-16 hours or until tomatoes are chewy throughout. Check tomatoes throughout drying and remove those that are done before the others.
6. Remove from dehydrator and let cool.
7. Place in Ziploc bag and seal tightly with as little air as possible left in the bag.
8. Store for several weeks on the shelf or right on through the winter in the freezer. (I like to double bag the freezer tomatoes.)
9. Eat on pastas or as snacks when the dreary cold days of winter leave you longer for sunnier times.

PRINTABLE INSTRUCTIONS