Tag Archives: recipes

Natalia’s Refrigerator Pickles (prep in 30 minutes, eat in 24 hours)

11 Aug

 

 

Refrigerator pickles are kind of like entry-level preserving for those of us who aspire to be like Martha Stewart, but don’t have the time, patience or domestic staff.

I started making them last year with a bumper crop of CSA pickles and zucchini and had so much fun, instant gratification and praise that I have kept going. I actually entered them in the Long Island Fair last fall, but the jar cracked and put me out of the running (wardrobe malfunction of the foodista variety). I will try again next year (so don’t even think about trying to enter this recipe on your own!).

These are a really popular item at BBQs and nice hostess gifts for wherever you are going to have dinner. By all means play around with the ingredients; I think turmeric is crucial, but leave it out for a more pure dill flavor.

And really, they don’t take more than 30 minutes to get in the jars if you arrange your ingredients ahead of time. Use labels to keep track of ingredients and Best By date (they keep about 3 months in the fridge).

Natalia’s Refrigerator Pickles

2 lbs medium Kirby cucumbers, sliced (I prefer spears, but you can also do rounds. Zucchini can also be substituted. Do not eliminate turmeric if using zucchini)

1 medium onion, sliced thin

6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed (1.5 cloves per jar)

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp whole mustard seed

1 tsp turmeric (This stuff stains! Careful!)

Several sprigs fresh dill weed

4 whole dried bay leaves (1 per jar)

1 1/3 cups brown sugar

13 TBS distilled white vinegar (approx ¾ Cup)

13 TBS white wine vinegar (approx ¾ Cup)

1.5 Cups water

  1. Divide cucumber and dry ingredients (except sugar) evenly between four quart jars with lids.
  2. Stir together brown sugar, vinegars and water.
  3. Pour vinegar mixture into the jars, screw on lids and shake well to combine. (Don’t worry if there doesn’t seem to be enough liquid to cover. The contents shrink after a day)
  4. Cover and chill. You can start eating them after 24 hours and they will keep up to three months in the fridge. Eat the onions too!

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Chickpea and Tahini Salad

8 Aug

Regular readers know my love for chickpeas. I love my Gingery Marinated Chickpeas (Greta Garbanzo https://hotcheapeasy.wordpress.com/?s=greta+garbanzo&submit=Search,) but decided it was time to freshen up my outlook.

Thus, this Chickpea and Tahini salad…perfect to accompany summer BBQ or Mediterranean buffet, an excellent side dish to just about anything, and best of all, easy! I made this a few hours ahead, and the little bit that remained made for great leftover snack lunch!

Chickpea and Tahini Salad

2 29 oz cans of garbanzos/chick peas/ceci, rinsed and drained

½ red onion, sliced thin

2 ripe tomatoes, seeds and gel removed and chopped

1 Tbs cilantro leaves (can go to two if you like) chopped fine

1 Tbs mint leaves (can add another Tbs if desired) chopped fine

4 Tbs tahini

4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced super-fine

4-6 Tbs lemon juice

2 Tbs water

Salt to taste

Place chickpeas, onion, tomato, cilantro and mint in a bowl

In a separate bowl, whisk tahini, garlic, lemon juice and water until blended

Toss dressing in salad. Salt to taste.

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Slow-Roasted Grape Tomatoes (For pasta, bruschetta or sandwiches)

3 Aug

Here is more to do with those gorgeous tiny tomatoes that are so abundant and sweet at this time of year!

I’ll give you the link for the original recipe which I didn’t have time to do completely. I saw it in The New York Times recently, but didn’t have time nor basil to prepare the special oil, so I modified to suit what I had at home, basically eliminating a step and that’s the recipe you’ll find below. Here’s the original  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/health/nutrition/26recipehealth.html

My version is lovely summer fare – bright and sweet and yet with depth. It also requires very little work and I did it successfully in the toaster oven, limiting the heat index in my kitchen! You can serve it on crusty bread or over pasta, but I popped a fair few into my mouth just as they were….
Slow-Roasted Tomatoes with Italian Seasoning

1 pint grape/cherry/Sun Gold tomatoes

1 pinch salt

1 pinch sugar

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1-2 Tbs Italian herbs/Provencal herbs

Preheat oven to 300°F. Line an oven dish with aluminum foil and spread tomatoes in a single layer. Sprinkle with sugar and salt, then coat with olive oil. Sprinkle with herbs and roast for about 30 minutes, so that tomato skins are crinkling and splitting, but not fallen apart. Cool and serve on garlicky toast as bruschetta, as sandwich spread or mixed into hot pasta.

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Spider Dogs – a kid-cool way to grill hot dogs

1 Aug

Hot dogs are quintessential BBQ and camp favorites – easy and convenient, tasty and filling. But we stepped the fun up a notch at our latest beach camping adventure with a recipe culled from a most excellent camping prep book called Camp Out! The Ultimate Kid’s Guide by Lynn Brunelle.

Called Spider Dogs by Brunelle (and Octo-Dogs by us when we are making them at the beach)  they are skewered hot dogs skewered, sliced and cooked so that they become eight-legged spiders (or in our recent case of camping: octopii).

Your kids will really dig them, you will raise your cool quotient and they are still as easy as throwing a few dogs on the grill.

 

(Note: There is quite the fire storm about the relative healthfulness of hot dogs. Nitrates and nitrites may or may not be bad or good for you…I really don’t know. We use Applegate Organic hot dogs, which apparently have as much nitrite and nitrate as conventional brands, but are made with organic meat and “natural” curing sources. Does it make a difference? Who knows? But Leandro likes them. I find the whole thing confusing, so I can’t offer solutions, but here’s a New York Times article that can at least explain the source of the confusion: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/business/02hotdog.html?_r=2&ref=health)

Grilled Spider-Dogs

Packaged hot dogs

1 skewer for each hotdog

You’ll want a hot grill going for this.

Stick a skewer halfway through each hot dog lengthwise.

Carefully cut the free half into quarters, lengthwise.

Lay the sliced ends of the hot dogs on the grill. The slices will curl back away from each other as they cook. When the sliced end is cooked and curled, carefully remove the dogs from their skewers, skewer through the cooked end and slice uncooked half into quarters lengthwise. Lay the uncooked ends of the dogs on the grill and cook until they are also curled back and you have a spider (or octo-) dog!

You may also like:

A Camping Week Come A Cropper – And What We Cooked

Spaghetti A La Carbonara for camp stoves

Spanish-style Tortilla adapted for camp stoves

Quesadillas adapted for camp stoves

Aglio Olio et Peperoncino (simple garlic and hot pepper pasta dish) for camping

Better Scrambled Eggs for a Camping Trip

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Asian Stir Fry Sauce (this time with vegetables and your choice of noodles or rice)

27 Jul

One of my favorite prepared sauces comes from Sang Lee Farms in Cutchogue, on the North Fork of Long Island http://sangleefarms.com/. Their Asian Stir-Fry Sauce is all organic and adds incredible Asian pop to stir fry dishes, without the annoying cloying sweetness and goopiness of other seasonings in a bottle.

However, I run out of it pretty fast, so I am in the process of trying to recreate it at home. I haven’t quite got it, but this version is very yummy and does the job pretty damn well. When I hit exactly the combination I want, I will make larger batches, but for now, the amount in this recipe will season a couple of pounds of vegetables – enough for two to four people, depending on what you serve it with.

We used soba noodles (Leandro’s request, cause the curly noodles and Japanese writing on the package caught his eye and he absolutely loved them). We also had enough left over to drizzle over some cold chicken wraps I made the next day (and which will be the next post, haha!).

Do you make your own stir fry sauce? Please add your ideas in comments in this post!

Soba noodles make a worthy (and fun) accompaniment to stir fry veggies

Asian Stir-Fry Sauce

¼ Cup soy sauce or tamari (preferably low-sodium)

½ tsp crushed garlic

Scant ¼ tsp sesame oil

¼ tsp grated ginger

½ tsp lemon juice

Mix ingredients together and refrigerate overnight if possible.

When you are ready to cook the dish, begin preparing a cup or two of white rice or a package of soba noodles or other pasta of your choice, following package instructions.

Vegetables

2-2.5 lbs mixed stir-fry vegetables, cut into ¾ inch pieces (we used onions, carrots, some leftover chard stems and a beautiful purple pepper, all from Restoration Farm, plus broccoli from the supermarket)

Generous ½ tsp sugar

Heat the  vegetable oil in a 12 inch skillet with a heavy bottom, until just rippling and just beginning to smoke. Add vegetables and sprinkle the sugar over, coat with the oil and cook, stirring frequently, for about eight minutes, looking for caramelization on the vegetables. Lower the temperature to medium if you get a lot of sticking.

Push vegetables to the side and add a tablespoon of the stir-fry sauce , stir to heat, then mix with the vegetables. Add two to three more tablespoons as desired, being wary of making it too salty.

Serve over rice, noodles or pasta.

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Asparagus, Tomato and Hummus Wraps

25 Jul

I love asparagus and red pepper and especially love them with hummus. The following recipe is an easy wrap that tastes delicious and feels virtuous going down. It is easy to assemble, quite portable and looks very nice when you serve it (or eat it with shameless gusto in front of your admiring colleagues at the lunch table). The slightly charred tomatoes really give it a depth of flavor you will like, especially in this season when they are abundant and ultra-sweet.

But first: a confession.

Ready to roll

It has been a very, very long time since I made my own hummus.

When I lived in Puerto Rico and there wasn’t any readily available, I made my very own, very yummy hummus using (expensive) tahini from the health food store. Today, I have to admit, I buy the Sabra stuff from Costco in big tubs; it’s my In Case of Emergency Break Glass (or plastic seal) lifesaver for surprise guests or a snack for watching the news before dinner with my folks. One day I will go back to making my own (and of course I will tell you all about it and look forward to any recipes you would like to share), but for right now, Sabra is a shortcut I feel pretty comfortable with.

In this recipe, I give the ingredients to make four or five wraps, but you may want to double the vegetables so that you can have some as an appetizer and make the wraps for next day fare.

 

Wrap and go

Asparagus Wraps

1/2 lb asparagus spears, bottoms snapped off and set aside for stock/another day

1 red pepper, top and seeds removed, sliced long

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil, plus a smear of olive oil for the skillet (only if sauteing the peppers_

½ pint small tomatoes (grape, cherry, Sungold), halved

1-2 Tbs hummus per wrap (about 1 Cup)

4-5 wrappers of your choice (tortillas for example)

If roasting the asparagus and red pepper, preheat oven to 400°F. Coat vegetables in olive oil and roast 20 minutes, turning once or twice, until fairly tender. You may also simmer the asparagus for five minutes in water instead and follow skillet instructions for red pepper.

In a skillet, warm each wrap until soft and pliable and keep warm on a plate, covered (may also be heated in microwave, following package instructions).

In the same skillet, warm a bit of olive oil on medium to cook the red pepper (if you haven’t already roasted it) until tender. Add the roasted vegetables and the raw tomato halves to the skillet and cook on high about three minutes, until the tomatoes look slightly charred and softened, shaking the pan frequently. Go back to the wraps, smear one half of each with a tablespoon or two of hummus. On the half that has the hummus, place a few vegetables. Roll up and serve, or pack up for an excellent work lunch or beach snack.

 

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Heat Wave Solution: No-cook Pasta Sauce – with tiny tomatoes!

23 Jul

Oh this heat wave is tough. I’ve been cooking as little as possible, trying to limit turning on the stove and oven and trying not to eat food that is hot and heavy. Simple wrap sandwiches of veggie spears and hummus, apple slice dipped in hummus, cherry and Sungold tomatoes just popped into my mouth straight from the fridge.

This is a go-to no-cook pasta sauce that, yes, requires you to cook the pasta, but is fresh and cool going down. It’s done in an instant, and takes full advantage of the sweet little tomatoes and basil that are starting to hit their stride right about now. This sauce ends up with a silky sweetness that is almost buttery, but there is no dairy involved – unless you choose to add cheese…

Here’s wishing you a cool weekend!

Cool pasta for hot days

Raw tomato sauce for pasta

1 pound pasta (penne or other short pasta preferred)

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 pint cherry/grape or Sungold tomatoes, cut in half (the sweeter the better)

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup basil leaves, chopped

Salt to taste

(Grated cheese for serving, optional)

Prepare pasta according to package directions. Drain (reserving a few tablespoons of pasta water, just in case) and place in large serving bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients (including pasta water if the mix seems too dry). Serve with optional grated cheese.

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White Sangría Two Ways (Pimm’s or Limoncello aka: Limon-hello!)

22 Jul

The weather here in the Northeast has been so hot that TV reporters all over the country are frying eggs and heating pizza in the sun. That’s amusing enough for the evening news, but in my house we prefer to do something with more practical applications.

That would be…experimenting with white sangría!

What could be more refreshing after a day of debilitating heat than fruit, wine and a bit of fizz? Sangría usually takes brandy, but I didn’t have any so I broke out a couple of specialty bottles and we (Maryanne, Ashley and I, mostly Ashley) played around with them until we reached a happy, effervescent and refreshing place, safe from the suffocating claws of the heat wave.

Try these two recipes on for size. Pimm’s is a caramelly British alcoholic beverage that makes me think of big hats and horse races. Limoncello is a sweet-tart Italian elixir I first met when I lived in Rovereto, at the foot of the Italian Alps.

Note: we did not add ginger ale or sugar, except to the rims of the glasses as we found the drinks sweet enough as is, but feel free to add as desired!

Refreshing and ever so pretty!

White Sangría, Two Ways (Pimm’s or Limoncello)

First, cut up fruit as follows:
1 apple, chopped into small pieces
1 peach, chopped
1 orange, chopped
1/2 lemon, chopped and with peel removed

 Place fruit in pitcher.  Then add the ingredients for ONE of the following:

 Ingredients (Pimm’s version):

3 ½ cups dry white wine (pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, vinho verde, verdejo)
2 tablespoons Pimm’s
1 orange, sliced into thin pieces for the garnish                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Splash seltzer/ginger ale (optional)
½ cup sugar (enough to coat the edges of serving glasses)

Ingredients (Limoncello version):
3 ½ cups dry white wine
2 tablespoons Limoncello (Limon- “hello!” after a few glasses)!
1 lemon, sliced into thin pieces for the garnish                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Splash seltzer/ginger ale (optional)

Stir and pour over ice.

For the Pimm’s sangria: lay the sugar in a plate, dampen the rims of the glasses and dip in the sugar to coat. Garnish serving glasses with a slice of orange
For the Limoncello sangria:  Garnish serving glasses with a slice of lemon

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Fast track Spanish-style tortilla (camping friendly, no potatoes)

22 Jul

I love me some camp stove scrambled eggs, but it is not hard to step up the game a bit and make something fancier and more satisfying, even in the minimalist camp kitchen. The following recipe makes for rocking outdoor breakfast/brunch eggs: a cross between an omelette and a tortilla.

This is where you learn that it doesn’t have to have potatoes to be a tortilla…this one celebrates the zucchini season, but amps up the wow factor with a bit of spicy chorizo. It does justice to that big appetite that the outdoor life gives you, but cuts cooking and prep time in half.

(Love that fresh local flavor: my eggs come from Makinajian Poultry Farm in Huntington. It is hard to mess up eggs when they are that good)

Take your omelette to a new level....

Shortcut tortilla for camping

6 eggs, lightly beaten

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

½ medium onion, peeled and diced

½ medium zucchini, diced

3-4 oz Spanish (hot, dry) chorizo, peeled and diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Set aside the lightly-beaten eggs in a large bowl.

Heat half the olive oil until fragrant in an 8 or 9 inch skillet, then add onion and zucchini and sauté until tender. Remove from heat and stir vegetables into the egg mixture.

Wipe skillet (leaving a bit of grease) and add chorizo, cooking at medium until it begins releasing its oil. Then add to egg mixture and allow to rest five minutes. In the meantime, wipe the skillet and add remaining oil. Heat the oil on medium high until fragrant and add egg mixture, seasoning with a bit of salt and pepper.

Once the bottom of the egg mixture begins to set, shake pan to loosen and lower heat to medium. Cover and cook five minutes or until the whole egg mixture looks mostly set. Uncover and place a flat plate on top of the egg mixture and carefully turn skillet over so tortilla comes out. Slide tortilla back into the skillet and cook the other side till set. You may flip it several times until completely set.

Flip finished tortilla out of pan and onto plate. Allow to cool somewhat before cutting into wedges and serving.

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Zesty Zucchini and Sizzling Squash with lemon and oregano

21 Jul

This is a simple seasonal recipe that highlights the flavors and freshness of summer (and can be done in a jiffy at a campsite).

Summer squash refers to vegetables such as zucchini and yellow squash, that look like gourds, but have thin, tender skins. Right around this time of summer backyard gardeners start to harvest so many of them, they will be giving them away. This is a fast and easy way to take advantage of the bounty without working too hard!

How this dish looked at our campsite on the beach

Sauteed Summer Squash with Oregano and Lemon

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion, peeled and diced

2 medium summer squashes (yellow/zucchini), quartered lengthwise and sliced

Tsp dry oregano

Juice of half a lemon (you may add by teaspoon to taste)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a skillet at medium high until liquid and fragrant. Add onions and stir to coat. Add zucchini and stir to coat. Lower heat and cook until just tender, about 5 minutes. Add oregano, lemon and salt to taste and cook until flavors are blended, just a minute or two, longer if you want it very tender. Serve over rice, with pasta or just on its own.

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