Frightfully-Good Tomato Sauce

This is what our tomatoes looked like in July. Cute and plump and smooth, they were. We ate them like plums, one after another. We speckled them with sea salt. We poured Sriracha-sauced libations in honor of the tomato deity--if there is one. We were straight-up, tomato-eating fools in the back yard.

Summer ended. We stopped hanging out in the backyard. Snacking on tomatoes ceased. Instead, when I arrived home from work, I rushed to pick tomatoes as they blushed or while they were still green. They piled up on the window sill as they ripened. 

Most were fine but mishapen. Several became quite overripe. A few were blemished, cat-faced horrors. I was clinging to the romance of sauce from homegrown tomatoes, so I used these mostly good, but past-their-prime tomatoes for sauce. Some of the fruits were frightful, but I managed to make sauce that was frightfully good. 

Mise en place--the shallot, garlic, pepper, rosemary, and bay leaves

 Saute the aromatics (shallots, and garlic) in olive oil. Season with a pinch of salt and cracked pepper.

Parboil tomatoes for 5 minutes or until you see the skins begin to wrinkle; stop the cooking by removing tomatoes from the boil with a slotted spoon and placing each in a bowl of ice water. When they are cool enough to handle, hand-peel each tomato and place on a clean cutting board. Chop roughly.  (Try to save the juice that runs out of the tomatoes. You'll want to add it to the sauce.) Discard tomato stems.

Puree tomatoes in a blender until all chunks of tomato disappear (or puree less for a chunky sauce). Add puree and Crema di Balsamico to a 10-inch sauce pan. If you can't find Crema di Balsamico in your local gourmet store, Amazon offers several brands. 

Add herbs and spices and simmer for 30 minutes. Add rest of salt and more cracked pepper. Stir periodically. Remove bay leaves before serving.

This Frightfully Good Tomato Sauce makes enough for 4 servings of pasta or for saucing 4 servings of fish. 

Printable Recipe

5 Benefits of The New Fair Trade Finder App

Image used with Permission from Fair Trade U.S.A

(October is Fair Trade Month. I was invited to download and review the Fair Trade Finder App by a representative of Fair Trade U.S.A. I received no payment or gifts.)


I'm an app head. I have apps for finding farmer's markets, zeroing in on organic produce, and ferreting out safe food. Healthy and environmentally conscious noshing and dining are second nature to me. I haven't focused much, though, on buying Fair Trade Certified products. That's about to change now that I've downloaded the new Fair Trade Finder App from Fair Trade U.S.A.

The Fair Trade Finder App encourages purchasing that supports farmers and workers in developing countries to receive a fair wage for their products and labor. Fair Trade Certified farmers and suppliers get support to increase sustainable farming and profitable business practices. After downloading and using the free app for the past week, here are the benefits I've realized:

1. You don't have to have a smartphone to use the app. Fair Trade U.S.A made this new app available on Facebook as well as downloadable through the iPhone and Android markets. Once you "like" the application on Facebook, you can search for or add Fair Trade products based on your location (enter zip code or city name). Available products are indicated by location "pins" that show an image of the product and its location.  

Image used with Permission from Fair Trade U.S.A

2. You can search for Fair Trade Certified products anywhere in the world. As you would expect, Fair Trade products are plentiful in large cities, but I saw pins on the map that indicated tea and coffee available in Vancouver, Honolulu, and London. With this app, you can search the planet for Fair Trade Products and recover detailed maps with street names. The map moves when you move, which shows you how much closer you are to the product you seek.

3. You can add products to the app. My favorite food store, Mom's Organic Market, has a variety of Fair Trade products. I added the Adina Iced Coffee drinks as well as the store location to the app. (I had to sign-in to Facebook first, so I assume that you must have a Facebook account to add products.) 

Image used with Permission from Fair Trade U.S.A

4.  You can search for specific types of Fair Trade products. I didn't know there was such diversity among Fair Trade Certified products. Besides tea, coffee, and sugar, there are Fair Trade Certified wine and spirits, apparel and linens, fruits and vegetables, flowers and plants, nuts and oils, honey, chocolate, beans and grains, and even sports balls. You can search for these products with the app. (I noted, though, that locations for bottled teas and coffee are plentiful. There are fewer pins for the other products, but that will likely change as users add products.)

5. Your purchase helps to change lives. I think that organizations are realizing that cell phones make it easy to support causes. If the Fair Trade Finder App lets you know that Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream contains milk and cream (without synthetic hormones) from family farmers, then you just might pick that flavor. Then again, it's chocolate. Enough said.

A Day at the U.S. Oyster Festival

I've been waiting for a chance to get out of the kitchen and blog about a unique and celebratory event with foodie-worthy eats, entertainment, contests, and crafts. I found it at the U.S. Oyster Festival in Leonardtown, Maryland this weekend. The 2011 festival, October 15-16, is the 45th-annual event. I've lived in Maryland for 28 years and am a bit ashamed to say that I had never heard of this festival until two weeks ago. I will make up for missing this event for more than a generation by going back for the next 28 years.

 When we arrived at the festival (I wrangled my husband and teenaged son into going), I headed straight for the oyster-shucking station. My family went looking for the bands. At the shucking station, folks could buy a bowl of unshucked raw or scalded oysters. After laying eyes on the thin, flat-tipped knife that shuckers used to open the oysters, I decided to photograph an expert instead of risking my own fingers. I inhaled sharply each time my subject (above) pried the knife into an oyster. If that had been me, my hands would have been cut into lace. 

Clearly, though, the risk pays off.

I searched and found my kind of oysters.

 I saw the festival's Oyster King... (Photo by Maggie Hines)

and learned how oysters protect Maryland's Chesapeake Bay.

Then, I took an oyster stew break.

We were front and center for the musical entertainment.

 I took another break for Rockfish Tenders: greasy, but tasty.

There was a line for grilled oysters, so I went to the crafts exhibit and found edible crafts. 

 Of course there were waffle cones...

and brewskies.

It was a mellow, food-filled day. I missed a few things: the National Oyster Shucking Contest, the National Oyster Cookoff, and the deep-fried Oreos, but I enjoyed just hanging out, eating seafood, listening to music, and enjoying the blessedly beautiful weather.

Organic Tortilla Chips in 10 Minutes

These homemade chips were too easy and too tasty not to blog about them. After a maddening search for a sunflower-oil-free bag of tortilla chips (my husband has allergies), a benevolent employee at Mom's Organic Market led me to the frozen-food aisle. There she showed me a package of organic, sprouted corn tortillas. "Why not make your own tortilla chips without sunflower oil?" she asked.

It was a great idea. Here's what I did: I thawed the tortillas in the refrigerator the night before making the chips. I used one package of corn tortillas and sliced them into triangles, brushed them with canola oil, and placed them on a cookie sheet (prep was about 3 minutes).

I pre-heated the oven to 400 degrees. After 3-4 minutes, I gently turned the chips with a silicone spatula and let them bake for 3 more minutes. (If the chips seem to be browning too fast, turn down the heat to 375 degrees.) After removing the chips from oven, I sprinkled them with sea salt.

You don't have to use sprouted corn tortillas. Plain corn tortillas will work beautifully. Serve your homemade snack with your favorite salsa!

Asian Barbecue Seitan Salad

 I love the Food Network show Chopped. Lately, I've been purchasing one ingredient-X food product during my weekly grocery shopping jaunts. I want to play in the kitchen. I don't want to be reminded that I'm getting dinner on the table every night of the week. So I do things that will incite me into cooking, like pretending that I'm a contestant on Chopped--where contestants are given unfamiliar, difficult , or plain ridiculous ingredients (like smoked oysters and cheese spread ). Chef contestants are under time pressure to cook a "Five-Star-worthy," exceptionally creative dish.

It's Play Time

My most recent "Chopped" play-time-in-the-kitchen was with Seitan. This ingredient-X wasn't new to me (although I had never eaten it). I usually don't buy it because it's made from wheat gluten, and I have a son with autism (many parents of autistic children avoid wheat gluten in their child's diet). However, our son was asleep and my husband and I were craving a late-night dinner. Something light. I decided it was time to "do a Chopped dinner" (as my husband calls it). Here's what I did:

Not A Recipe--A Concept

I consulted Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and found the entry on seitan, which is made from high-protein wheat flour, water, flavorings, soy sauce, and Kombu, a mineral-rich sea vegetable. I didn't want a recipe. I wanted a concept.  

My "Chopped" Basket

My Chopped-style basket ingredients were seitan, organic lettuce mix, roasted red peppers, and Asian barbeque sauce. Not very intimidating or difficult ingredients, except for the unfamiliar seitan.

The seitan, also known as "Wheat Meat," can mimic the texture of chicken and beef. Mimicking the  flavor of either depends upon how seitan is seasoned.  Knowing that I would add salty barbecue sauce, I seasoned both sides of the seitan chunks only with white pepper. I grilled the seitan on the stovetop, but it stuck mightily to the pan. Like a Chopped contestant, I quickly adjusted. I peeled the seitan out of the pan and transferred it to the oven. What I wanted was a bit of crunch and caramelization on the seitan.

I knew roasted red peppers would add color and tang to the salad. The Asian barbecue sauce, I drizzled on sparingly. Otherwise, I would have drowned the lettuce.

The seitan salad turned out to be attractive, I thought, and especially with the addition of toasted sesame seeds.

The salad was pretty delicious. Here are the ingredients if you'd like to replicate this dish:

Asian Barbecue Seitan Salad

12-ounce container of seitan

1 thinly sliced roasted red pepper (from a jar or freshly roasted)

Asian or Korean barbecue sauce

White pepper

1 10-ounce package of organic salad mix, rinsed

Toasted sesame seeds (buy the pre-toasted seeds)

Directions:

Remove seitan from liquid and season chunks with white pepper on both sides. Pan fry or grill the seitan in hot canola oil until it browns and caramelizes. (It won't brown completely, so take care not to let it burn.) Remove seitan from pan, place in a small baking dish, and drizzle the seitan with the barbecue sauce. Top seitan with peppers and place in 400-degree oven for 10-15 minutes. 

Remove barbecued seitan from oven and let it rest and become warm. Spoon seitan carefully over salad greens. Sprinkle seitan with toasted sesame seeds and serve. (Serves 2-3)

Pescetarian Bookshelf--Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food

   

I'm experimenting with a periodic post that I'll call Pescetarian Bookshelf. In these posts I'll review non-fiction books, magazines, and cookbooks related to seafood and vegetarianism. Let me know what you think about this post.

Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenburg (Penguin Press, 2010)

       As far as I'm concerned, Paul Greenburg's book will mean for fish ecology what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring has meant for the environmental movement. Greenburg presents portraits of salmon, bass, cod and tuna--four familiar fish that North America and much of the world has eaten for generations. These fish are served on the world's plate as comfort food, fast food, pantry staples, sushi and more. And they now have an uncertain future as wild fish.

       I frequently skip book introductions, but this author engaged me in his by recounting his boyhood tracking of the large-mouth bass that teamed in a pond near his home. As Greenburg grew into young adulthood, his bass hunts spiraled away from the pond to bigger bodies of water in response to the increased scarcity of the fish.

Perceived Abundance
        In his introduction, Greenburg connects his boyhood fishing experience to every chapter that follows. His early innocence about a fish-plentiful ocean that belonged, partly, to him (because he claimed it) is perhaps similar to our innocence about the ocean's perceived abundance. I responded early to the movement for sustainable seafood. I stopped buying Atlantic salmon (nearly 100% of it is farmed). I buy cans of certified sustainable tuna and now avoid raw tuna as an ingredient in my sushi. I severely limit cod as my go-to white fish. But until I read Four Fish... I still thought that there were areas on the planet where these fish still thrived almost undisturbed.

Awareness First Step in Sustaining Wild Fish
        What I took away from Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food was awareness that mega-fishing corporations that trawl the ocean bottom and take spawning fish and juveniles along with market-worthy fish are contributing to ocean depletion. Our great, great grandchildren's enjoyment of tuna, which migrate across the whole ocean, depends upon the world's countries agreeing not to fish tuna into extinction. Sustainable and ecological fish culture, support for artisan fisherman, and fisheries regulations are a start in preserving healthy oceans and fish.

(The illustration and photo in this article are courtesy of Microsoft, Inc.)