Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Chewy, fruity, tomato candy!

There are some recipes I feel silly posting.  This isn't so much a recipe as a technique, and it's so easy it's ridiculous.  That's okay.  I had to research to find the best way to make oven-dried tomatoes, so I'll share what I found.

Used half in a salad.  What to do with the other half?

Smaller is better:  I used a pound of grape tomatoes, kind of like baby roma tomatoes, but any cherry, grape, or other small tomato will do.  I used olive oil, but grape seed or other lightly flavored (or herb-infused) oil will do.  Last, I used a lot of kosher salt, but other recipes I saw call for garlic cloves mixed in with the tomatoes, or sprigs of thyme or rosemary.  I'm sure those would be delicious!


As for storage, they have been in my fridge for two weeks now, covered in olive oil, and they taste great.  I probably wouldn't count on them to last a month, and I plan on eating the rest this week.  Then again, I've been saving them - they're so tasty, it's hard to restrain myself and not eat them all at once!


Oven-Dried Tomatoes


Ingredients:

• 1 pound cherry or grape tomatoes
• olive oil
• kosher salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  Cover a baking sheet in tin foil.
2. Wash tomatoes and slice in half lengthwise.  Place all the tomatoes cut-side up on the baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil.  Salt somewhat heavily.
3. Bake for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.  You know they're done when they're nice and shriveled.

Cheaper and tastier than store-bought, for sure!

Use these right away, or store them in the refrigerator in a jar, covered with olive oil.  When you are down to your last ten or so, use the tomatoes and the oil in the jar to make a sundried tomato vinaigrette.

Baked Plums with Ricotta, Honey and Almonds

Baked plums with ricotta, honey, and almonds

I love summer fruit - so juicy, so fragrant!  But those little guys are fragile and a few days in your produce drawer can make them squishy and bruised.  If you have peaches, plums, nectarines or apricots that have seen better days, bake them in the oven!


This technique is easy as can be and works for any stone fruit.  Feel free to experiment with the spices you use when you bake them, and again with what you serve them with.  I served my plums with ricotta, and it was a nice, neutral palate for the sweet-and-sour tastes.  If your plums are really sweet, try it with Greek yogurt; if your plums are a little more sour, go for vanilla ice cream.  Don't like nuts?  Crush up some ginger snaps or amaretti.  You can dress these up and serve them at a dinner party, or do them on the grill instead of in the oven for your next barbecue!


Baked Plums with Ricotta, Honey and Almonds


Ingredients:

• 4 plums (or peaches or nectarines or whatever you have)
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons honey, plus more for serving
• 1 cup ricotta
• 1/4 cup crushed almonds, or other nuts, or cookies

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Wash the plums, then cut in half and remove the stones.  Place all plum halves, cut-side up, on a foil-lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle with pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon, and drizzle with honey.  Bake for 20 minutes.



Fresh from the oven.  Love that color!

2. When cool enough to handle, you can easily remove the skins if you want.  I like them, and they add fiber, so they stayed on for my family.  To serve:  Place 1/4 cup ricotta in a bowl, along with 2 plum halves and some crushed nuts or cookies.  Add a shake of cinnamon and drizzle liberally with honey.

Chicken Satay Skewers with Peanut Sauce

Summer is here, time to get grilling!  While I love barbecue chicken, it's nice to mix it up a little.  Time to try some Thai!

When trying a new recipe, I like to read as many different versions of it as possible, online and in cookbooks, and then synthesize my own.  For example, about 75% of the recipes I read for the chicken marinade included yogurt, so I decided to use that as a base.  Only 25% used coconut milk, and since I didn't have any in my pantry, and since it was in the minority of recipes, I decided to exclude it.  If you have a favorite cookbook that you trust, or a favorite online resource that never steers you wrong, by all means, use their recipe to the letter the first time you make a dish, and change it next time to suit your tastes.  But I sometimes I like to formulate my own recipe, knowing the preferences of my family and the ingredients in my fridge.

So here goes, my attempt at Thai Chicken Satay Skewers.  And you know what?  They came out really well!  My husband did the grilling, my family did the eating, and everyone liked them.  Synthesis:  Success!

Chicken Satay Skewers

Ingredients:

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (use powdered if you don't have fresh)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
• juice from 1/2 lime
• 10 wooden skewers, soaked in water for 20 minutes before grilling

Directions:

1. Slice chicken thighs into 1" strips.
2. Mix together everything else and stir in the chicken pieces.  Let this marinate in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
3. When the grill is hot and the skewers are soaked, thread the chicken onto the skewers.  Grill for 5-8 minutes per side.  Serve with peanut sauce and fresh cilantro.

Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce (or more to taste)
• juice from 1/2 lime
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil, or 1 teaspoon grape seed or other mild-tasting oil

Directions:

1. Blend in the food processor.  That's it!  If you want a thinner consistency, add more coconut oil, or water if you like.  

We had a few skewers left over.  They made an excellent salad the next day!  I chopped the chicken and tossed it with salad greens and chopped bell pepper.  To turn the peanut sauce into salad dressing, I thinned it out with grape seed oil in the food processor, and added a little more lime juice.  

Spaghetti Stew

Is it glamorous?  No.  Is it beautiful?  Heck no!  But spaghetti stew is comfort food at its finest, and one of the tastiest ways to use up those singletons.


What's a singleton, you ask?  A singleton is one zucchini in your veggie drawer.  A singleton is one tomato, getting softer each day, in your fruit bowl.  A singleton is one veggie, or a small portion of food, that you can't make anything with on its own, but is still useful.  The trick is to find uses for your singletons before they get buried or hidden in your fridge and they go bad.


Spaghetti stew can be made almost entirely of singletons.  That's what mine is:  except for the bag of carrots and the celery, every other vegetable was a singleton, aging but still good.  I made a pot of elbow macaroni to mix in with the kids' stew, but my husband and I ate it as-is, with a little parmesan cheese.  So good it doesn't even need the noodles!  And despite the name, I recommend shorter pasta over spaghetti, because you want everything to be bite-sized.  Macaroni, ziti, rotelle, you name it. 


Is it pretty enough to serve to company?  Probably not.  (Go with the pork chops for that.)  But if you want something thrifty, tasty, and healthy (minus the pasta, it's all veggies and lean protein), this is the stew for you!


Tell me - what do you do with your singletons?

All you singletons, time to mingle!

Spaghetti Stew


Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces (approximately - you just want all your veggies about the same size - smaller than bite-sized, but still big and chunky)
• 1 pound ground beef or turkey
• 2 tablespoons oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 carrots, sliced into thin coins
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, any color, chopped
• 1 zucchini, sliced into thin half-moons
• 1 tomato, diced
• 4-8 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 jar marinara sauce, or 2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup red wine

Directions:

1. In a very large stew pot or Dutch oven, sauté the onion and meat in the oil.  Brown the meat and season with salt and pepper.  Add the garlic and stir so nothing sticks or burns.
2. Add the rest of the veggies.  If you are still slicing as you go, add them in order of cooking time:  carrots first, since they are hard and take longer to cook, then the softer veggies.  Stir in the dried herbs.
3. Add the tomato paste and stir to combine.  Add the marinara and wine and stir.  Cover, turn down the heat to a simmer, and let cook for about 30 minutes.  You want the veggies to be cooked through but still retain their shape and some firmness.

Serve with lots of grated parmesan.  You can serve this over pasta, or with big slices of bread.  We're watching our carbs, so we ate ours with a side of roasted broccoli, and of course, the rest of the red wine!

Green Beans with Bacon

I'm a terrible menu planner.  I do it all backwards.  I go to the store and buy things that look good, and then come home and don't know what to make with them.  Case in point:  a big bag of really beautiful frozen green beans.  Trader Joe's has them right now:  vibrantly colored haricots verts, the young, skinny French green beans, at a terrific price.  I couldn't resist.  But then I put them in the freezer and couldn't decide what to do with them.  When in doubt, turn to bacon!

The finished dish reminds me of pasta carbonara.  It tastes salty and rich, but it doesn't pack the caloric punch of spaghetti.  And to make things even easier, I used canned Parmesan cheese.  I know, gross, right?  For some presentations, only freshly shaved cheese will do, but in this recipe, it fits the bill.  By all means, use fresh green beans and high-quality cheese, but I guarantee, even with these short cuts, this is a side dish your pickiest, veggie-hating friends will love!  

Green Beans with Bacon

Ingredients:

• 2  or 3 slices of bacon
• 1 pound frozen haricots verts
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (or more to taste)
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

1. Dice the bacon and fry in a very large pan or Dutch oven.  When done to your liking, remove the bacon to a bowl, turn off the heat, and leave the bacon grease in the pan.
2. While the bacon is cooking, put the beans in a covered microwave-safe dish and add 2 or 3 teaspoons of water.  Read the cooking directions on the back, and subtract 2 minutes.  Mine said to cook them for six to eight minutes, and I cooked them for four minutes, stirring halfway through.
3. When the beans are done - you want them undercooked - add them to the pan with the bacon grease and sauté over medium heat for 3 minutes.  You want them to still be firm, so don't overcook them now!  When done, remove from heat, and add back the bacon, plus the cheese and lemon juice.  Toss with tongs and serve.

These are so satisfying and delicious, I ate the whole batch for lunch.  These don't even need any salt at the end!  Four ingredients plus ten minutes gets you a healthy side dish (or meal, in my case)!

Cauliflower "Grits"

Cauliflower grits supporting a heap of vegetable curry

In an effort to lose weight, eat better, and get my children to eat more veggies and fewer processed grains, I am always on the lookout for tasty recipes that fit the bill.  I'd had cauliflower "fauxtatoes" before, where you mash the cauliflower and try to pass it off as mashed potatoes, and it didn't really work for me.  This recipe for "grits", however, is a horse of a different color.

Cauliflower grits, au natural

The hardest part of this recipe is cleaning the food processor when you're done.  It really couldn't be easier, and the end result is a tasty, firm blend of cauliflower and almonds, cooked in broth until done.  I use chicken broth, but vegetable broth would work well too.  For the almonds, I like the toasted, skin-on kind, but you can use whatever you have - raw, slivered, Marcona ... I'm tempted to try this recipe with Trader Joe's Wasabi Almonds! I serve this in place of rice in all of my Indian dishes, and it supports a saucy chicken dish better than noodles, since it soaks up all the best juices that run to the bottom of your plate.  It reheats well, is packed with protein and healthy fats, and tastes great.  What are you waiting for?




Cauliflower "Grits"

(Recipe Adapted from Paleo Comfort Foods by Julie and Charles Mayfield)

Ingredients:

• 1 large head of cauliflower, shredded (use your food processor.  If you don't have one, use a box grater, or just chop the heck out of it.)
• 1 cup almonds 
• 3 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Shred the cauliflower.  Doesn't matter if you have chunks left over, they get cooked down.  Just make sure, however you cut or shred it, it gets cut down very small - this ensures a quicker and more even cook time.  Add the cauliflower to a large pot with a lid.  Add the chicken broth and stir to combine.
2. Crush the almonds.  I like it chunkier than almond meal, so it still gives you a little crunch and helps the cauliflower not just be squish.  Grind them in the food processor until the pieces are the size of bread crumbs, but not all the way powdered.  Add the almonds to the pot with the cauliflower and broth.
3. Simmer, covered, on medium-low for about 20-30 minutes until tender.  Add the butter and taste for salt and pepper.  Serve under curry, gumbo, or by itself as a side dish.

Fajitas Salad with Chipotle Dressing

Just as a painter needs to spend time in nature for inspiration, so must the Frugal Girlmet eat at a restaurant every once in a while, to taste new foods and get new ideas.  Sunday we took the family to Disney's California Adventure and had lunch at Cocina Cucamonga.  I ordered the Fajitas Ensalada.  I wasn't expecting much:  I mean, amusement park food doesn't have the greatest reputation.  But I was very pleasantly surprised!  

The salad was romaine and baby lettuces, topped with grilled chicken, and grilled onions, peppers, and zucchini.  But the best part by far was the chipotle dressing:  creamy, smoky, spicy and piquant.  I ate every last bite, and immediately began plotting how to make it at home.

It was so easy!  Buy a can of chipotles in adobo sauce (they're $1.69, so no big investment required!) and whole cumin seeds, and make this tonight!  (Note:  the veggies and chicken would be even tastier grilled, as they were in the original, but even with sautéed veggies and leftover chicken, this salad was amazing!)  Vegetarian?  Omit the chicken!  This sauce is so awesome, it would be great over grilled veggies - something to keep in mind for your BBQ plans this weekend...

Fajitas Ensalada (a la Frugal Girlmet)

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 large chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• 1 large (or two small) cloves of garlic
• 1/2 bunch cilantro (use the upper stems too!)
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced
• 1 red or yellow bell pepper, sliced
• 1 zucchini, sliced into pieces the same size as the bell peppers
• 1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
• 1 avocado, sliced
• Salad greens - spring mix, romaine, whatever you like

Directions:

1. Toast the cumin seeds over medium heat for a few minutes until they get a little darker and start smelling delicious.  When toasted, grind in food processor or pulverize in mortar and pestle.  (You could use pre-ground cumin, but please don't.  Seriously, that stuff has no odor or flavor.  Buy the whole seeds!)
2. With cumin in the food processor, add chipotle and a little adobo sauce, garlic, cilantro, mayonnaise, yogurt, lemon juice, salt and sugar.  Buzz to combine.  Taste for seasoning - too spicy?  Add more mayo.  Too tart?  Add a pinch more sugar.  Put the dressing in the refrigerator while you cook the veggies.
3. Add a little oil or butter to a large pan.  Add the sliced onions and sauté until golden, then add the peppers and zucchini.  Cook until hot and tasty (not for too long, don't let them get mushy!)
4. To serve:  Lettuce on the bottom, top with hot veggies and shredded chicken, and dress liberally with the chipotle dressing.  Scatter some avocado over the top and dig in!

(The salad was also served with some tortilla chips over the top.  It was nice and crunchy, but I didn't need the extra carbs.  If you want, go crazy with them, but we skipped them and didn't miss them.)