Hot, Cheap & Easy

How to Blanch, Blend and Freeze Paste Tomatoes for Raw Sauce

14 Sep

Yay! Home-grown paste tomatoes!

Don’t they look lovely? My paste tomatoes (from seeds saved from Restoration Farm)

Boo! Not enough time or energy to make paste!

Pull them out of the water as soon as they split

Yay! Shortcut!

We’ve finally got some joy out of our backyard garden. Three raised beds (the fourth strawberry one doesn’t count because it is not expected to produce in the first year) and all we got was garlic, decent peas, decent lettuce, some kale, ONE zucchini…and a lot of failed everything else.

Live action! Padushi uses hi immersion blender to finish the job

Live action! Padushi uses his immersion blender to finish the job

Therefore I am inordinately happy about the fact that I have harvested a couple of pounds of paste tomatoes, with more greenies getting pink on the vine.

So…here’s the easy way to deal with the ones we’ve picked on a Thursday night, near collapse from the workweek and doing a million other things at the same time. Didn’t bother cooking them down. The raw fresh taste will still be there in the winter!

FREEZE! or use immediately….

Raw Pureed Paste Tomatoes for Freezing

1) Get a big pot of water on the boil.

2) Get a bowl of ice water ready.

3) rinse the tomatoes (if you must).

4) drop tomatoes in the boiling water.

5) as they split, pluck them out and plunge (I love the word plunge) them into the ice water,

6) when they cool, pull the peels off.

7) chop, dice, or run through a mill or processor.

8) use or store or freeze.

DONE!

Tags: cooking, food, preserving, saving tomatoes, summer recipes

Comments 11 Comments
Categories CSA, Food, gardening, Preserving, Vegan, Vegetarian

Your Opinion: A Back-To-School Welcome Gift

13 Sep

This is what my first-grader brought home from school on the first day of school.

Background: It is not clear whether the bag of candy is from his teacher or was a whole-grade gift or a whole school gift. Someone clearly spent a lot of time, energy and money putting it together. It is a well-meant back-to-school gesture. And to end the first week, the teacher requested a piece of washed and cut fruit from each child to make a Friendship Fruit Salad.

What do you think? What does your school district or school do about sweets and snacks?

I would love to hear your thoughts on school, food, and kids (and how parents handle it all!)

Tags: candy, kid-friendly foods, school food, snacks

Comments 20 Comments
Categories Food

The Easiest Watermelon Snack Ever!

10 Sep

Thanks to my beloved, handy-dandy, double-sided melon baller from Pampered Chef (the other end hulls strawberries and cores tomatoes) my big first-grader now has a new favorite way to snack. He just pulls a quartered watermelon out of the fridge, sets it down in front of himself on a napkin and starts cutting in. He sometimes makes many at a time and puts them in a bowl and sometimes just pops them directly as he scoops them. Independence never tasted better, nor made a mother happier….

Little hands can easily manage this task.

Ah! Summer fruits!

Tags: healthy snacks, kid-friendly food, watermelon

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Food, Vegan, Vegetarian

Meatballs for Good Friends (and a full freezer) Part 1 (with cheese)

9 Sep

NOTE TO READERS: It is apparent from the number of visitors to yesterday’s meatball recipe that you love meatballs! Here is a reblog of a fancier recipe (that is not much harder, also freezes well and is baked!)

Hot, Cheap & Easy

(Three hundredth post!!!!)

Cooking a nice meal for both parents and kids does not have to involve making two separate dinners.Well, not exactly, anyway.

I confess to getting cold feet halfway through my prep and making myself a safety net, so let’s say this time I made one-and-a-half meals, but in the process, I really stocked the freezer for the new semester.

I made some “fancy” meatballs and some basic ones (that recipe later in the week) for a Single Mothers By Choice-three-family dinner here at home last weekend…pasta, meatballs and red sauce…can you really go wrong? My friend, Pam, brought the salad fixings, and Kim brought a sinful dessert (which one pretends is for the kids, but is really just as much for the growns) and everything went swimmingly! And everyone liked both fancy and plain.

View original post 305 more words

Comments 7 Comments
Categories Uncategorized

Cocktail Meatballs (Fry for Now or Bake for Later)

8 Sep

The school year has started for me (for those who don’t know, in my other life I am a college professor of English as a Second Language) and will start for my FIRST-GRADER (!?!) on Monday.

I love a little army of meatballs. I do them in my fancy toaster oven!

I like to start the semester with the first two weeks of my lesson plans prepped, photocopies made and ready-to-go, and….my freezer full of home-made dishes that I can pull out in a heartbeat and serve with an easy starch and a steamed vegetable. The older my son gets, the more activities we have outside school, and the harder it gets for me to get to the gym. When dinner’s already ready, I am more relaxed and have fewer excuses to keep me from the treadmill.

Cooked! Meatballs are one of my favorite things…

Meatballs are one of our favorites. If you bake them, you can freeze them. Then, you have loads of options, Drop them in tomato sauce to defrost and make delicious pasta gravy. Just heat them up and serve with rice or buttered noodles or pesto. Make a meatball hero. Serve to unexpected guests with toothpicks as an attractive appetizer. Yes, meatballs in the freezer make life much easier. So here they are, simple to make (the little guy helps with the smashing and meatball making) and yet very, very tasty.

Fry-babies

Continue reading →

Tags: cooking, food, freezeable, kid-friendly foods, meatballs, recipes

Comments 9 Comments
Categories baking, Comida Criolla, Entertaining, Food, meat, Party Snacks, Recipes

400th Post – A celebration because YES, I have ripe tomatoes!

7 Sep

This is my 400th post, which seems to be quite a lot. It’s funny how much energy you can manage to put into the things you love. Even when you don’t have any energy to spare.

Another view….

So I am not going to say much, just show you my paste tomatoes, which are lighting up a summer that was otherwise dark with failed crops….

And more to come…provided we keep a few steps ahead of the blight!

Thanks to all of you for your visits and comments, It is terrific to know that there are so many kindred spirits out there gardening, cooking, eating….I would love it if you would take a moment to tell me what some of your favorite posts or recipes are!

Your friend in food,

Natalia

(P.S. that is not blossom end rot on that ripe one in the background…just a funny ripple in the skin. Whew!)

Tags: gardening, tomatoes

Comments 6 Comments
Categories farming, gardening

Easy and Delicious French Toast

6 Sep

French toast was a special treat when my brother and I were small. The very name seemed elegant and the stacks of golden bread looked so beautiful and the maple syrup was so heady and rich. Who knew it was as basic as bread dipped in egg and fried?

French toast is happy food!

So, much to the delight of a certain six-year-old, I took advantage of my first day off of the semester (L’shana tovah to all of those celebrating the new year this week) and made some for breakfast yesterday, with (shock,horror) white sliced bread that I had in the freezer simply because they were giving it away at the Stop & Shop and I couldn’t bear to let it go to waste!

I cut off the crusts in a familial reflex (that’s what my parents used to do) but I realized that I didn’t have to! At any rate, the crusts became the bread crumbs for my meatballs later, so no matter.

So, basic French toast. An easy treat! Would love to hear how you dress up yours (click here for an cool story on Burning Man French toast).

The sliced apples were a big hit with the French toast, dipped judiciously in the maple syrup and cinnamon.

French Toast

1-2 Tbs butter

3 eggs

¼ Cup milk

8 Slices of bread

Maple syrup

Cinnamon

Melt the butter in a skillet at medium to medium high.

Beat the eggs and milk together on plate or bowl that is wide enough to accommodate a slice of bread, but won’t spill over.

Dip each slice of bread in the egg mixture just before placing in the skillet (do not soak the bread). Cook about two minutes on each side. Serve with maple syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon or your favorite topping.

Tags: bread, breakfast dishes, cooking, eggs, food, French toast, kid-friendly foods, recipes

Comments 12 Comments
Categories Food, Recipes, Vegetarian

Don’t Throw Them Out! Easy Sauteed Beet Greens

3 Sep

So I’m at the Greenport farm stand with Vinny, buying fresh local stuff for our Caribbean cooking extravaganza (see chipotle jerk slow cooker chicken if you haven’t already) and just for dinner in general. Vinny selects some beets for grilling which is new for me and therefore very exciting. But I am not distracted enough by this to miss the shocking fact that Vinny has told the nice woman at the farm stand to go ahead and cut off and discard the beet greens, which she does.

Beets are available year-round, but are best from June to October and that’s when the beet greens are best too!

“Wait!,” I say, when I find my voice. “You are not gonna take those?”

“What do you do with them?” asks Vinny.

And he is drowned in words, as I and the nice woman at the farmstand tell him — at the same time — how delicious they are and how good for you and how easy to prepare. Vinny is always game for a new adventure, so we take the greens back with my promise that I will show him how to do them.

This veg adds color and texture to your plate. They have their own natural saltiness.

Beet greens, which should be removed about an inch above the root as soon as you have a chance, are full of folate, phosphorus, zinc, and a bunch of other good nutrients They are low glycemic and filling, and for more on the nutrients, click here. While beetroot will keep in the fridge, beet greens should be used quickly. They are super tasty and make for a fast vegetable side. Plus, you pay for them! Why aren’t you using them?

The greens, which admittedly cook down to nothing, were a big success and Vinny also kept reminding me to put it up on the blog. So here it is! (for a fancier recipe that incorporates roots and greens, click here)

I like to mash mine into bolied yuca or boiled potato with olive oil…and that’s just what I did after taking this photo.

Sauteed Beet Greens

1 bunch beet greens (cut from beets about an inch from the root bulb)

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic (or ½ Tbs) minced

Salt to taste

Chop the greens roughly (or not, if you like a longer leaf), removing the tougher stalks. You can roll them up and slice strips too. Thoroughly rinse and spin the beet greens.

Heat the olive oil and garlic in a skillet on medium, letting the garlic get golden without toasting. Add beet greens, stir to coat and cook on medium until completely wilted and tender (you may need to add a Tbs of water if things get too dry). Salt to taste and serve.

Tags: beet greens, cooking, food, recipes, side salads, vegetable ideas

Comments 10 Comments
Categories CSA, Food, gardening, Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetarian

Grilled Pineapple Chipotle Black Bean Salsa

2 Sep

Grilled pineapple is one of the joys of summer grilling. Searing thick slices of juicy pineapple brings out their sweetness and gives them a more rounded flavor.And when you have leftovers, you can dice them and add them to salsa for a sweet-tart surprise that marries so well with smoky, spicy chipotle and bright red onion,(you can use fresh raw pineapple too).

This is what pineapple looks like off the grill.

I also like to add black beans and corn kernels — both of which tend to be around in our summer kitchen.

I made this a few weeks ago and forgot to take a picture until it was too late.

You can mix and match as you please and play with the proportions…this is basically a good way to use up an extra scoop of this and teaspoon of that. I will be experimenting with grilled peach salsa soon and will let you know!

This finished product. Delish!

Pineapple Chipotle Black Bean Salsa

¾ Cup diced fresh pineapple (grilled, if possible)

¼ Cup black beans, cook, and preferably seasoned

2 Tbs minced red onion

½ tsp sauce from chipotle in adobo

¼ Cup diced green pepper

salt

Mix all ingredients except salt in a bowl. Salt to taste. Serve with tortilla chips or as a topping for Southwest style cooked meats.

Tags: black bean salsa, comida criolla, cooking, corn ideas, food, grilled fruits, pineapple, recipes, salsa

Comments 8 Comments
Categories BBQ, Entertaining, Food, Grilling, Party Snacks, Recipes, Side Dishes, Super Bowl, Vegan, Vegetarian

Blackberry Muffins: Moist and Tart and Sweet

31 Aug

We finally made it down to the berry fields at Restoration Farm for blackberry season and boy am I glad we did!

No butterflies were harmed in the making of these muffins

The little guy picked and popped the berries directly into his mouth (“Oh Mom, these are so good! Try this one!) and ran up and down the rows and climbed up and down the compost pile, while I picked the juiciest and blackest berries and dropped them into my paper bag, and chatted with Donna “The Chicken Lady/Social Commentarist” in the cooling breeze of the late afternoon. One of my favorite things about going to the farm and volunteering my labor (which I don’t do as much as I should once the summer kicks in) is talking while you work. The folks at the farm are so interesting and warm and funny, and weeding occupies the hands, while it frees the mind to wander and the ears to listen and the mouth to chat.

Allison — our long-time CSA partner — picks her berries.

Berry-picking does much the same thing. Once you soften your touch to only take the berries which fall off into your hand with the gentlest of tugs — if you tug at all — you find a rhythm as old as time and the conversation comes easily. So does silence.

Taking with my not-particularly-smart-but-loyal phone. Not such a bad shot, no?

For someone like me, who always has to be getting something done, it is a great relief to be able to have my hands occupied in dignified work, while sharing with friends. I also learn a lot about what to do in my own garden when nothing is going right. And the little man identifies the birds: swallows and mockingbirds and the occasional red-tailed hawk wanting a go at Donna’s chickens. The hawks cause quite a bit of excitement in Mr. Mini-Audubon. And the chickens, of course, who scurry under the coop.

Treat these berries gently and use them immediately!

So, we collected just under a quart of warm, sweet, soft berries that needed using immediately. Since back-to-school is right around the corner, my fill-the-freezer-frenzy has begun. Mini-muffins make for a perfect lunchbox snack, so that is where I went. Continue reading →

Tags: back-to-school, baking, baking with kids, blackberries, food cooking, muffins, recipes, snacks

Comments 6 Comments
Categories baking, CSA, desserts, farming, Food, gardening, Recipes, Vegetarian

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