Roasted eggplant and tomato soup

Cold, wet weather requires soups with a bit of heat.  Of course, we're still full on the summery vegetables (or rather botanical fruits culinary vegetables) here in central Maryland - and we had a lot of eggplant and peppers to use up, but ratatouille or pasta just didn't seem right on a day that required fleece jackets and rain boots.  I was also in the mood for something flavorful, but still kid-friendly, without requiring twenty pots on the stove in addition to the soup pot.  So I preheated the oven, got to work with a vegetable peeler, and listened to the rain pounding on the roof.  If I lacked the kids, I would have added a seeded chile pepper of some type.  If my husband lacked me, he would have added two, with seeds intact.  Take from that what you will.

Ingredients:

2 medium sized traditional eggplant, peeled and cubed

5 Roma or paste tomatoes, peeled with a vegetable peeler (I swear this works)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon cloves

 2 bay leaves

4 cups vegetable stock

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F.

Toss eggplant, tomatoes, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and salt into a roasting pan, combine well.

Roast botanical fruit culinary vegetables until very soft and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

Sweat garlic and onion in remaining olive oil in large stock pot over medium-low heat until translucent.

Add cumin, coriander,  cayenne pepper, cloves, and bay leaves.  Increase heat to medium high, fry spices 1-2 minutes, until fragrant.

Add roasted eggplant and tomatoes.  

Stir and let cook down 1 minute.

Add stock and bring to a boil.

Let soup simmer 15 minutes.

Remove bay leaves.

Blend with an immersion stick blender, food mill, or blender working in batches.

Serve hot.

Tomato and corn casserole

My husband hates casseroles. Too bad. I like this one, and its one of the few ways to get him to eat fresh corn (he hates corn on the cob).

Tomato and corn casserole

Ingredients
5 ears corn, cut off the cobb
2 large tomatoes, cubed
4 garlic cloves, smashed
3 pieces whole wheat bread, torn
1 cup buttermilk
salt to taste
pepper to taste

optional - 2-3 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Method
Toss corn, tomatoes, bread, and garlic together.
Salt and pepper,
Place in casserole dish.
Pour buttermilk over mixture.
If desired, cut butter into breadcrumbs and place on top for a crust.
Let sit at least 30 minutes in refrigerator (can be left overnight - 18 hours).
Bake at 400F for 45 minutes, covered, last 15 minutes uncovered if using crust.*

*Never put a cold dish in a hot oven. If you are placing the dish directly from the refrigerator, put it in a cold oven, then turn on.

Tomato leek sherry sauce

It actually almost feels like fall could be around the corner.  Actually, who am I kidding, it only almost feels not completely like we are roasting in the fifth circle of hell.  A request was made for lasagna, but despite my general love of garlic and basil, I was just not in a mood for the garlicy, acidic sauce I usually throw on my lasagna (and every other pasta).  Last night we also reminisced about the first meal J ever made for me, spaghetti with a mushroom sherry sauce.  Of course, he tried to make it again on our anniversary, burned the sauce, I think also the pasta, and destroyed a lovely carpet all at the same time.  Best laid plans and all that.  

We had some tomatoes and leeks left over from our Gorman Farm CSA share, that needed to be used up before they went off.  I decided to make a simple ricotta cheese lasagna with a sauce using up some of the left over vegetables.  I tried to convince J that some squash would be lovely inside the lasagna, but he resisted.  This sauce worked well with this autumn-y feeling lasagna, and would be very nice over pasta and squash, or a lasagna made from slices of squash when one feels the unnatural need to play around with the low carb thing. 

Anyway, back to the food.  I'm a big fan of fresh tomato sauces, and I don't like to seed my tomatoes (I actually like the texture and flavor of the seeds.  August in Maryland means tomatoes - and a lot of them.  J's issue with the CSA every year is that inevitably, we get deluded with tomatoes in August, and after a couple nights of pasta with fresh tomato sauce, he's bored and has heartburn.  I could be industrious and can tomato sauce, but I'm not that organized.  For this sauce I used large beefsteak tomatoes, since that's what we had.  It worked well, though I would be more likely to choose a plum tomato if I was actually going out and buying things specifically for the sauce.  The tomatoes used had a good bit of sweetness and not that much acid - as always, taste, taste, taste the produce and adjust according.  

Tomato leek sherry sauce

Ingredients:

3 large tomatoes

4 small to medium leeks

1 small onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

Salt

Pepper

Method:

- Boil water in a small pot, deep enough to dunk each tomato and keep it fully submerged.  

- Prepare a bowl with cold water and ice, or set up a colander under a source for running cold water.  

- Score each tomato with a shallow "x" knife cut at the bottom.  Place tomato in boiling water for 1 minute, until the skin starts to peel away.  -- - Place tomato in cold water for 1-2 minutes, or rinse under cold water.  - Peel off skin with fingers.

- Repeat until all tomatoes are skinned.

- Heat olive oil and butter over medium-low heat in a large saucepan or pot - I use my enameled cast iron dutch oven for this.

- Peel off outer layer of leek, rinse well, cut off stem and dark green parts.  Slice white and light green parts of leek thinly, then rinse again.  Leeks tend to get a lot of dirt.

- Dice onion.

- Place onion and leek into pot, stir, cook over medium-low heat about 5-10 minutes.

- Dice tomatoes, discarding stem area.

- After making sure that the leek and onion mixture is fairly translucent, toss in tomatoes, 2-4 teaspoons of salt, and 2-4 teaspoons of pepper.  

- Increase heat to high and wait for mixture to come to a boil.

- Add half a cup of decent sherry - I used Harvey's Bristol Cream.

- Reduce heat to medium, cook another 5 minutes.  

- Taste.

- Add salt and pepper as needed.  If the tomatoes are really acidic sugar might be necessary.

- Blend sauce with either a stick blender or in a blender.  BE CAREFUL not to splash and burn.  Sauce should be more orangey or pink than red.

- Taste.

- Add salt and pepper if needed.

- Serve or use in the recipe below.

Lasagna with tomato leek sherry sauce

Ingredients: 

Tomato leek sherry sauce (recipe above)

1/2 package fresh lasagna noodles or half pound dried lasagna noodles, prepared according to box directions.

8 ounces whole milk ricotta

2 tablespoons hazelnut oil (really worth it, but if you don't have it, use olive)

8 ounces shredded mozzarella / Italian blend cheese / pizza cheese

Salt

Pepper

Method:

- Preheat oven to 350F.  

- Mix ricotta and oil until smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste (2 teaspoons each is my suggestion).

- Spritz a bread pan with nonstick spray or spray oil (this keeps me from pigging out and eating a half pan of lasagna for lunch the next day).

- Layer a bit of sauce on the bottom of the pan.

- Lay prepared noodles down to make a one noodle thick cover.

- Layer ricotta mixture over noodle layer.

- Repeat noodle / ricotta layers until noodles and ricotta are exhausted and/or the pan is full.

- Pour remaining sauce on top.  Jiggle so it gets into the layers.  

- Top with shredded cheese.

- Bake 45 minutes.

- Let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

Caprese Pasta

This is an easy, quick dinner that's perfect for August's tomatoes.  If you're in a real hurry there's no need to cut or chiffonade anything, just tear and toss - the heat will get everything to mix a bit, and you can always squish with a spatula.  I made this with fresh linguine - the Wegman's house brand - but it can be made with any pasta type or shape.  My kid likes long noodles, so I tend to use those, but I think this would be great with penne or similar short pasta.  If I was feeling adventurous, I would make my own pasta and serve with that, but the refrigerator case is a great substitute.  Balsamic would be nice here, however, I wasn't thrilled with the brown visual, so I used lemon juice as the acid.  This is a one dish weeknight meal or a nice pasta course for a longer meal (reduce serving size).  A nice green salad would complement this well.  My husband thought I should serve it with steak.  I'm not sure why, except he likes steak.

Ingredients:
3 servings pasta of your choice, cooked.  Here, I used a 13 ounce package of fresh linguine - part of it was reserved for plain buttered noodles, so about 9-10 ounces were used here
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of very fresh garlic, cut in half
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 large bunch basil, stems removed, chiffonaded (this just means cutting finely into ribbons)
8 ounces fresh mozzarella balls, cut in half (or not)
Juice of one half lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Cook pasta according to package directions.  Aim for al dente.
Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large saucepan or frying pan (not cast iron) over medium low heat.
Add garlic and toss to coat with oil.
Cook garlic over medium low heat until it becomes soft.
Increase heat to medium.
Toss in tomato halves and basil.  Stir.  Cook about 2 minutes until heated through and tomatoes are very soft.  Basil should still be bright green.
Toss in mozzarella balls and lemon.  Cook another 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the mozzarella starts to just ooze.
Taste.
Add salt and pepper to taste.  This will need a bit of salt.
Remove from heat.
Warm serving bowl - either in the microwave or by pouring in boiling water and pouring out.
Add pasta to serving bowl. 
Pour over tomato mixture.  Toss.
Serve immediately.

This week's CSA

This week's CSA consisted of peaches, blueberry bread from the Breadery, some I believe delicata winter squashes, peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, red potatoes, basil, marojam, and thyme. And of course eight ears of corn.

We ate some of it today. The fruit is likely to be eaten out of hand. The rest is still a mystery.



Tonight's dinner used last week's CSA ingredients - the baby zucchinis. I made some easy stuffed zucchini. Omit the parm and this may actually be healthy.

Stuffed Baby Zucchini
Ingredients
6 baby zucchinis
1 small/medium tomato
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
Parmesan cheese

Method
Oven to 350 F.
Tip and top zucchinis. Cut in half.
Remove inside of zucchinis with a melon baller. Roughly chop insides.
Place outsides in a baking dish.
Chop tomato.
Over medium heat, saute garlic in olive oil until it is golden. Add zucchini guts and tomato.
Cook until tender, season to taste.
Stuff zucchini halves with mixture.
Top with Parmesan cheese, to taste, if desired.
Bake until everyone's ready for dinner, say 20 minutes.




I made some lemon-thyme rice. Totally simple.

Lemon Thyme Rice
Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice
2 spritzes olive oil
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cups water
Juice of 1 lemon
About 2 teaspoons thyme leaves, after they are removed from the stem
Additional thyme to garnish

Method
Medium heat.
Add olive oil, garlic, saute until golden.
Add rice and salt. Cook about 1 minute.
Add lemon zest.
Add water.
Add lemon juice.
Heck, toss in a lemon if you like!
Add thyme.
Raise heat to high. Bring to boil.
Low heat, cover, cook 20 minutes or until done.
Add additional thyme to taste.



I boiled some corn. We're drowning in corn - and I'm the only one who likes it in this house.


Some butter was delivered today. It made a nice picture, though it sort of looks like vanilla ice cream here. Which I would sort of like for dessert. Which I don't think we have. Sad.



Okay, this picture sucks. But it's a simple mozzarella and tomato salad. The mozzarella is from South Mountain Creamery, delivered today.

Oakland Mills Farmer's Market, the Tree from Hell, and tonight's dinner

I normally love trees. Today I don't. Yesterday I woke up to a thirty-foot present - the tree in our backyard, straddling the fence with the common area - had shed an enormous branch. The branch fell through our yard, the common area, and the next door neighbors yard. Today we cleaned it up. Luckily we have awesome neighbors, and they ended up staying to dinner. But in order to earn our meal we were half eaten by mosquitoes and engaged in massively painful work. Yeah, it really sucked. Days like this are when I curse home ownership. When I lived in my apartment, I never had to worry!



But before that, Human # 1 and I went to the farmer's market in the Oakland Mills Village Center, also known as the shopping center with the ice rink. I'm not going to pretend that this farmer's market is anything on the scale of the I-83 Baltimore farmer's market, or the Waverly market, or the Arlington Courthouse market, any of the other large local markets. But it is nice, it does showcase local folks and local food, and it's close. I do hope more producers and more consumers start attending, however.


We bought some sorrel, or rather African sorrel. If you've never tasted this before, the best way I can describe it is as a salad green that's super flavorful and vinegary, almost as if the dressing is inside the leaf. It's pretty cool, I highly recommend it. I want to visit this stand again next weekend, the farmer had bitter balls, which can be used to great effect in Bengali Indian cooking.



Also got some heirloom tomatoes, as it's still August.



These tomatoes were pear shaped, and not ginormous like some of the others we have had recently.



Also bought some okra. A lovely veggie that has a bad reputation, in my mind at least.



Did you know that in British English, an okra is called a ladyfinger? I just learned that last night. The human members of my household were at my parents, to steal their truck then have them feed us. It's extremely convenient being a stone's throw away. I'm not sure how, but we were talking about Italian cookies, ladyfingers. At some point, my husband asserts that where he comes from, ladyfingers are fireworks. My mother then asserts that where she comes from, ladyfingers are okra. Of course, my dad immediately asks where she comes from - she asserts somewhere that uses British English. Of course, 33 years ago my parents married, then moved into an apartment in Wilde Lake. And before that my mom lived all over Asia, with a plurality, but not majority, in India. So I'm pretty sure she's asserting that British English is used in Howard County.



Seems a but bigger than a lady's finger to me. Man I need a manicure!



It's a sweet onion. It's pretty.



I'm pretty sure all recipes start with "saute some garlic and onion in olive oil." Maybe I should use this as a stock photo.

Anyway, back to the meal....


Tomato Salad
Ingredients:
Tomatoes
Salt
Olive oil

Method:



I quartered the tomatoes and lightly salted them, then let them drain their water out. I'll do something with the tomato water in the morning.

I then tossed them into a dish, and glugged maybe a half tablespoon of olive oil over them.


Summer Okra and Tomatoes or Fresh Bindi Masala
Take your pick on the ethnicity you want to cook from. Then do what I did. Or do something totally different. Dude, it's okra and tomatoes, this isn't rocket science.

Ingredients:
4 sprays olive oil
Half a sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lb okra, cut into rounds
2 medium tomatoes
Olive oil
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp corriander
4 tsp tumeric
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat at medium-high.
Saute onions and garlic.
Add spices, cook about 2 minutes.
Add tomatoes. Let them sizzle and stop dripping juice.
Add okra.

Cook until okra doesn't fight back. It should still be brightly colored, though.



Along with the tomato salad and okra we had some cornbread, as well as black-eyed peas and rice.



Black-eyed Peas and Rice
Ingredients:
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon corriander
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons tumeric
1 bay leaf
2 cans black-eyed peas, drained.
1 cup white rice (can use brown, adjust water and cooking time)
2 cups water or stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat.
Add spices, saute about 2 minutes.
Add black-eyed peas. Cook a bit. Taste.
Add rice and water/stock. Bring to a boil.
Cover, turn heat to low, let cook until done (20 minutes, or more depending on the type of rice used).
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

My house was an absolute mess, but it was nice to have people over despite that. The neighbors also brought over beer and dessert. Always a good thing!