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07 Oct Tomato Chutney…

Tomatoes are late this summer (okay, sure it’s officially fall, but I live in San Francisco, so summer just started) and, oh, happy day. My house has been swimming in marinara and all things tomatoey. One fine Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I can home from the farmers market with a backpack filled to the tippy top with heirloom, organic cherry tomatoes. I quickly got to work slicing them all in half – a fair amount getting laid out on trays for the dehydrator (have you had dehydrated cherry tomatoes? So sweet and goooood!!) and the rest tossed into a huge pot for making chutney.

I spliced together a bunch of chutney recipes. I didn’t want anything too sweet, but rather a nice combination of sweet and savory. The key to the final product below is the panch puran. As far as I can tell, it means “five spices” in Bengali. I found a few different versions of panch puran, each using a different mix of spices. The formula below reflects what was already in my cupboard (warning: the recipe measurements makes ~1/2C, but you only need a few tablespoons for this recipe, so either reduce the amounts to make just what you need, or be excited to find other ways to use the leftovers).

This is the perfect project for a day when you’re settled in at home, as the chutney takes a while to cook down. (You could potentially do this in a slow cooker, but the lid will make it harder for the liquid to evaporate and for the chutney to thicken up.)

What I especially love about this recipe:

Its adaptability. In other words, it’s completely to taste. Want it sweeter, increase the molasses or add some honey; want it spicier, add more chili pepper; etc.
Molasses. Blackstrap molasses is the darkest type of molasses. Whereas sugar – regular old white table sugar – is completely void of nutrients, molasses is the nutrient-dense liquid byproduct of the process of refining sugar cane into table sugar. Molasses is rich in manganese, copper, iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium. In addition, it is a good source of vitamin B6 and selenium.
No additional sweeteners.
Simple. Six ingredients. Okay, more if you need to assemble your panch puran, but once that’s done and you have a stash of it, you’re all set.
Makes the house smell sweet and spicy (but not cloyingly sweet, the way curry can get).
Versatility. Pour over a log of goat cheese for an appetizer; use as a spread on a sandwich; use to dress up sauteed greens and whole grains; serve on pasta for a twist on “marinara”; use instead of salsa on a veggie quesadilla; etc.

Tomato Chutney

~12 C tomatoes, quartered (halved, if using cherry tomatoes)
~1 C raisins (I prefer golden raisins, but dark raisins work fine)
~1/4 C molasses, or more to taste
1 small chili, fresh or dried
2 generous pinches of sea salt, or more to taste
3 T panch puran (1/4 C fennel seeds, 1 T each crushed cardamon pods, sesame seeds, mustard seeds and corriander seeds)

1. In a large pot, toast dried chili (if using fresh, slice in half lengthwise and clean out seeds and membrane, unless you want the chutney hot-spicy) and panch puran for a few minutes, until the spices become aromatic.

2. Add the tomatoes and salt and bring to a simmer. Cover to expedite the initial break down.

3. Once the tomatoes have broken down – should be very, very juicy in there – add the molasses and raisins. Start conservatively with the molasses and add more as the chutney begins to cook down and thicken. Ditto for salt and panch puran (although, I don’t think you’ll need more of the latter).

4. Simmer with lid off and reduce tomatoes (and the juices) to at least half the current volume. This will take some time (e.g. my “quickest” batch reduced for 6 hours). You’ll have to decide how thick you want your chutney.

5. The skins of the tomatoes will shrivel off the flesh of the fruit as it cooks down. If you want a smoother chutney, use tongs to pull out the skins. It’s tedious work and I only do it until I get bored, largely because it’s tedious work that bores me and because I like the extra texture that the skins give to the chutney.

6. Makes around 6 half-pints worth of chutney. I canned them in sterilized jars and a water bath (clearly the pic below was taken for a much larger batch). I love canning! I love the process and then being able to revisit favorite sauces throughout the year. You can also freeze extras you don’t end up using right away.

10 Apr Spring Time For Pumpkin Seeds…

Pepitas are one of my favorite ways to give a salad a little something extra. They’re easy to find – Trader Joe’s carries both raw (used in the recipe below) and roasted with salt (which are actually really salty, if you ask this salt-lover). And that extra isn’t just a nice little crunch: 1/4 C of pepitas will knock you back 186 calories, but you’ll get 8g protein and a good source of magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, iron, copper, vitamin K and zinc. And, really, all you need is 1/4 C to punch up a hearty salad for two (three, if you have an even heartier main planned).

Spring Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese and Pepitas

2 large handfuls organic baby spinach
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced and cut into bit-size pieces
1 C (heaping) yellow heirloom grape tomatoes, sliced length-wise
1/2 C blueberries
1 shot glass of raw pepitas
2 oz goat cheese, crumbled
Lemon Vinaigrette, to taste

In a large bowl, combine first four ingredients, toss to combine. Then add cheese and a splash of the vinaigrette. Toss to combine, taste and adjust dressing as desired.

Lemon Vinaigrette

3 T fresh lemon juice
1/4 C olive oil
1/2 t dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, pressed
generous pinch sea salt
3 T water

Combine all ingredients in a jar. Cover securely. Shake until well blended. Taste, adjust seasoning, add more water or oil for desired consistency and acidity. The taste is fresh and citrusy, keeping the salad feeling light, even as the goat cheese gives it some creaminess.

15 Oct Roasted Tomato Soup, The Other Way…

Remember these?

Before I dive into another great way to enjoy tomatoes, I thought maybe a reminder about their nutritional bang would be nice. According to Michael Murray (The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods) tomatoes are an excellent source of Vitamins C, K, B6, pantothenic acid, niacin, folic acid, biotin, dietary fiber and, last but not least, carotenes, especially lycopene, which has been shown to prevent disease — e.g. heart disease, cataracts, macular degeneration, and breast, colon, lung, skin and prostate cancers. The redder, the more nutritionally-packed. Processing tomatoes — e.g. juicing, cooking — actually releases more of the beneficial lycopene from the plant cells. Also, eating tomatoes with a little bit of healthy fat (e.g. olive oil) can improve nutrient absorption.

As promised, here is soup number two – which is probably the easiest thing I’ve ever cooked. In fact, I pretty much made it up as I went along while in the middle of a private cooking class (thanks for being such a wonderful taste tester, Sandy!) – took me a little farther into the transition to fall by adding some roasted butternut squash. I also topped it with an avocado “salsa” which gave it an extra bit of brightness.

Roasted Tomato and Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash butt (peeled, cut in halve and de-seeded)

1 huge – no, I mean HUGE – heirloom tomato, variety of choice

olive oil

1-3 C vegetable broth or water

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 avocado, diced

1 small tomato (something hearty, like a Roma)

1/4-1/2 small onion (more or less depending on how much spice you want in your topping)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Very lightly oil squash and tomato slices, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper (obviously, you don’t really need a huge tomato – a couple of simply larger tomatoes will do – but it’s a great excuse to buy a really gigantic beauty). Bake for ~40 minutes, checking every 20 minutes just to see what’s what. They’re ready when thickest part of squash is easily pierced with a fork (some caramelized browning on the rim of the butt halves is a good sign too) and the tomato slices are broken down and caramelized (but not tooooo much, ’cause you’ll never get the tomato off the parchment paper if you let it burn to a crisp). Clearly, remove tomato if it’s done way before your squash (especially if you’re using a couple of smaller tomatoes vs. one giant one). When squash and tomatoes are roasted to perfection, or close enough, remove from oven, let cool slightly, unless you have silicon fingers, then give the squash a rough chop. Put squash and tomato in blender and blend. Add vegetable broth as needed to get desired consistency. I used the left over water from boiling corn – it was lighter than vegetable broth but more interesting than just water. Add salt and pepper to taste.

You could conceivably do this with raw tomatoes and roasted butternut squash, but I love the depth that roasting gives the tomatoes. Okay, set blended soup aside.

For the “salsa” (I really don’t know what to call it – salsa? relish? garnish? topping?), dice onion, tomato and avocado (since the soup was pretty orange with the squash and the type of tomato I used, I chose a Roma for the garnish to give maximum contrast – plus it was tasty) and combine in a bowl. Sprinkle with lime juice (half a lime should do) and a little salt, if you’re that kind of person.

Pour or ladle soup into a bowl and add a generous spoonful of salsa to the top. Be delighted by how gorgeous it is. I really can’t describe how deee-lish-ous this was. Sweet and creamy, with a little crunch from the raw onion in the garnish/salsa/topping thing.