Fresh Tomato Soup

My mom and her friend Moira have been making this fresh tomato soup at the height of the season for as long as I can remember. We've always had a surplus of tomatoes from my Grandpa's farm and this is one way to use lots. My mom never makes just one recipe, she doubles or triples the recipe and freezes the soup for a touch of summer in the cold winter months that follow.

The soup is very fresh tasting and really tastes like a bowl of tomatoes at the best time. I love the freshness and delicious flavors with a little Parmesan melted on top. If you have too many tomatoes, make this, you won't regret it.

Ingredients:

Blend these together in the food processor:
4 large carrots, peeled
4 stalks celery
3 medium onions

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1 green pepper, diced by hand
14 large ripe tomatoes, peeled
1/4 C. olive oil and 1/4 C. butter...or 1/2 C. olive oil
1/2 C. finely chopped fresh parsley (use food processor)
1 bay leaf
18 leaves fresh basil (more or less according to taste)
salt (according to taste), approximately 1 T.
freshly ground pepper to taste
Grated fresh Parmesan cheese - for serving

Directions
Heat oil (and butter) in heavy pan. Cook carrots, celery, onion, and green pepper in oil 20 minutes. Add tomatoes, bring to a boil, and continue cooking over moderate heat 25-30 minutes. Stir in parsley, bay leaf, basil, salt, and pepper. Cook 5 minutes. Blend slightly with immersion blender. Serve hot, sprinkled liberally with Parmesan cheese. This recipe freezes well.

Pork Chops with Pineapple Salsa

Last week the grocery store was having an amazing sale on pork. I was able to procure 3 center cut pork chops for the low low price of $2.50! Total! Even though I had just purchased pork, I got those chops anyway. The best part was that they were not even close to their date or anything, just a great sale!

After a few days of not really doing much cooking do to a ridiculous amount of leftover roast beef, I finally looked up recipes for my chops. A recipe from epicurious sparked an idea in my mind for a pineapple salsa match to my chops. In the end, I kind of made up the recipe and it was pretty delicious. I recommend this recipe to all you pork chop and pineapple lovers out there. And I suppose you might be able to use something like mango instead.

Ingredients

3 Center cut pork chops

salt

English prime rib rub or other favorite seasoning

2 limes

1 serrano pepper

1 pineapple

2 t olive oil

1. Chop your pineapple into bite sized pieces. Zest some lime into a bowl and add pineapple pieces. Chop the serrano pepper removing seeds and pith and add to the bowl. Squeeze the juice of one lime over the pineapple. Stir and refrigerate at least 10 minutes.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat.

3. Salt and season the pork chops on both sides

4. Cook chops in the heated pan about 3 minutes per side until cooked through. After the first side is brown, add the zest and juice of your remaining lime.

5. In the last two minutes, add some of the juice from your salsa and some of the pineapple.

6. Serve warm with the pineapple salsa spooned over pork.

Pork Chops with Peaches & Whipped Potatoes

For the first time ever, I have made mashed potatoes that actually taste like mashed potatoes! I can not tell you how awesome this is. These potatoes are both easy to make and quick to make and also delicious. However, they do use olive oil instead of butter and the flavor of my particular olive oil is really distinct, but I still found these potatoes delicious.

The pork chops I bought were much thicker I guess than I was supposed to use because it took them far longer than six minutes to cook through. I also thought that that the peach topping was just okay and probably would've been better if it was a peach syrupy thing (like cinnamon apples) instead of just peaches and onions. However, those particular peaches were perfectly ripe and delicious regardless.

This recipe is from the Everyday Food Magazine, September 2011

Ingredients:

2lbs russet potatoes, peeled & cut into 1 inch pieces

salt & pepper

2 T + 1 t olive oil

1 C whole milk

4 bone-in pork chops (I only made two)

1/2 onion, diced small

2-3 firm but ripe peaches cut into wedges (nectarines or plums can be substituted)

Directions

1. In a large pot bring potatoes to a boil in salted water. Boil until fork tender about 8-10 minutes. Drain, return potatoes to pot. Mash with a potato masher until there are no big chunks. The method for mashing with a potato masher is to press and turn so that not only do you mash but you don't collect too much potato through the slits. When mashed to desired fluffiness, add milk and 2 T olive oil and whisk together. Add salt to taste and keep warm.

2. Meanwhile, in a large fry pan heat remaining 1 t olive oil. Add pork chops and cook until brown and cooked through about 6 minutes turning once (mine took at least 10 minutes). Remove from pan and keep warm on a plate.

3. In the same fry pan add onion and cook stirring occasionally until translucent. Add peaches and cook about 3 minutes. Season with salt & pepper. Serve peaches atop the pork and potatoes on the side.

Tamales

Last weekend, I attended an early morning tamale making class. The class wasn't in a kitchen, it was held in the dining room of a family Mexican restaurant in the Silverlake neighborhood. I was surprised when we arrived to find over 30 people attending the class.

Everyone sat around the restaurant with their bowls of pre-soaked masa and added ingredients and assembled tamales as instructed by the teacher. Tamale making is a 2+ day process normally because first you have to soak the masa in water, then you have to soak the corn husks in water and you have to prepare your fillings before you can even think about adding spices and starting the assembly and then it takes time to cook them afterwards. In order to fit the class into two hours, the restaurant staff did all the prep work ahead of time.

We sat down and massaged oil and spices into our masa making sure it was evenly distributed. Then we took one soaked corn husk and ripped it into strips (the ties) and we took the others and spread a very thin layer of masa all over. After that we placed a small bit--like 1 T of filling in the center and tried our hand at folding, rolling and tying the tamales. Then my friends and I had breakfast while we waited the additional hour and a half for the tamales to steam.

I had one of my tamales the next day and the other two later and while they were delicious, the workmanship was less than stellar (I have a picture but it is so gross looking I will spare you)--I would make them again but only if I had a whole bunch of friends with me and it was the fun of the making rather than the precision of the final product that mattered.

You have to try this

It is tomato season. I love tomatoes from tomato season. They are sweet and juicy and totally different from your average store-bought tomato. The best ones come from my Grandpa's farm or from your average home-grower. Unfortunately, I can't get tomatoes from Indiana in CA, so I have to deal with the farmer's market instead--which is still delicious.

This time though I couldn't wait for the Farmer's market so I went to whole foods and paid the premium for mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes. Then I also bought some fresh mozzarella balls--I wanted burrata but was unable to shell out the $12 for it, so I stuck with this brand that was only about $4. I also purchased some lite rye wasa for the structure.

This is so delicious! The textures, the flavors the deliciousness. IF for some crazy reason you aren't a total tomato fan, don't try this. But for everyone else, make it now.

3 small balls fresh mozzarella (burrata preferred, buffalo approved)
2 sheets Lite Rye Wasa
1 small packet salt
1/2 cup heirloom cherry tomatoes or 6 slices fresh farm grown in season tomatoes

1. Slice cheese and place on wasa. Add sliced tomatoes and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Serve immediately. Repeat.

Pasta with Proscuitto and Orange

Joey was playing around with this Epicurious ap the other day and decided to choose the ingredients next to each other alphabetically--orange and pasta. There were only a mere 6 recipes in the results, but one struck his fancy and we decided to give it a try.

The pasta recipe was quick and easy and really quite delicious. You could easily use a substitute for prosciutto and then this recipe would be cheap as well!

The orange added a nice fresh flavor and was not overpowering. I would make this again!

Tagliatelle with Prosciutto and Orange
12 ounces egg tagliatelle or fettuccine (preferably fresh)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
2 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, torn into 1" pieces
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Season with salt; add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until 1 minute before al dente, about 2 minutes for fresh pasta, longer for dried. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup pasta water.
Meanwhile, melt butter in a large heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add prosciutto; sauté until browned, about 3 minutes.
Add reserved pasta water, orange juice, half of zest, and cream; bring to a boil. Add pasta; cook, stirring, until sauce coats pasta and pasta is al dente, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in cheese and divide among warm bowls.

Marinated Flank Steak Tacos

I bought some flank steak planning to make these kebabs with a spicy pepper sauce. But then I used the jalapeno and pasillo pepper in that chili I made earlier this week. I still had a serrano but I just wasn't into it anymore. The seasoning on that flank steak was nothing and so it was all riding on the sauce.

So instead I decided to make the Pioneer Woman's marinated flank steak for nachos--but then instead of nachos make tacos. I made this decision at the store days after reading the Pioneer Woman's recipe. I decided to change it a little and get a little Mexican beer for the marinade. In all honesty, I read somewhere about the beer in the marinade--reading that if you did a dark beer it would make the taste bitter. I wasn't positive this was in the pioneer woman's recipe but I hoped it was. It wasn't. I used it anyway.

Original Recipe

Revised recipe:

Ingredients

1 can chipotle peppers in adobe sauce

2 limes

1 Cup or so Mexican beer like dos equis but I definitely used an off brand

2 T olive oil

2 cloves garlic, peeled & smashed (Just smash them with a heavy pot and the peels will come off)

handful cilantro, stems & leaves

1 flank steak (about 2 lbs)

For Serving:

corn tortillas

salsa

onions

cilantro

cabbage

queso fresca

1. In a mini chopper or blender combine can of chipotles and sauce, garlic, cilantro and lime juice. Blend. Add beer (i didn't measure) and olive oil (i bet you could skip it cause you used the beer). Blend

2. In a large ziploc bag place the flank steak, place in 2 bags if you can get it to be all flat. Cover steak with the marinade and turn to coat. Close the bag. Place in the refrigerator all day or overnight (I made mine in the morning and cooked it about 12 hours later).

3. Preheat the grill to very high heat. Grill meat about 4 minutes per side for medium rare (unless your steak is thicker in the middle, if so a little longer). Chop into small pieces and serve as tacos with desired toppings.