How do you solve a bunch of tomatillos?

…How do you eat them ‘fore they all go bad?

So we had a bumper crop this year. As in, one can no longer turn around in our kitchen without bumping into crop. The tomatoes, after a slow start, did remarkably well. And I learned that “determinate” Romas are just that: They go from all-green to all-red-and-you-best-pick-us-now-or-we’ll-rot-on-the-vine in approximately 17 seconds. My second bunch of slow-roasted Romas is perfuming the kitchen right now. (I was so excited about this project that I actually cleaned the oven for the first time in… well, ever.)

Last year, the tomatillos were the top performers in our garden. They did well. So well, in fact, that this year I planted three of them rather than two, which is sort of a counter-intuitive response to discovering that a given plant produces OH HOLY HELL THAT’S A LOT.

And so for the last several weeks, we’ve been harvesting half a pound or so of tomatillos at a time. Very nice. But perhaps a bit intimidating if you don’t already have lots of plans for this shiny green bounty. So periodically over the next few days/weeks, I’ll post some of the ways we come up with to take advantage of these tasty, oh-so-prolific little powerhouses.

First up: a Rick Bayless-style salsa verde, which has the dual advantages of being ridiculously delicious and pretty darn easy to make. It’s perfect for zazzing up a meal of tacos, burritos, plain ol’ beans, grilled chicken/pork/whathaveyou.

Tomatillo Salsa
Makes about 2 cups; easy to double or triple or quadruple

About 1 pound tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 to 3 chiles of your choice, either jalapenos or serranos, halved, seeded to cut the heat if you like
1/2 to 1 white onion, roughly chopped
Fresh cilantro to taste; start with about 5 or 6 sprigs, increase if you like, roughly chopped, stems and all
Zest and juice of 1/2 lime (optional)
Salt

Put the tomatillos and chiles in a saucepan with enough well-salted water to barely cover them. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until tomatillos are just tender. This will only take about 5 minutes if they’re itty-bitty like mine tend to be; up to 10 minutes if you’ve got bigger/tougher specimens. Drain.

Put onion, cilantro, lime zest/juice, and a couple of pinches of salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse briefly to chop. Add drained tomatillos and chiles and pulse to puree until smooth-ish but still in possession of a bit of texture.

Taste and season with salt (no pepper) medium-generously.

Once you have this basic salsa down, the world is your oyster, tomatillo-ishly speaking. It’s fantastic combined with a mashed ripe avocado for a dip that is not technically guacamole. It can turn canned refried beans and Santitas tortilla chips into ZOMG nachos. You may also can it following standard hot water bath-instructions so that you may enjoy a bit of zesty summer freshness all long miserable rainy season long. (Unless you live in the Great Northwest, in which case there is no amount of zesty summer anything that is going to get you through the 14-month rainy season.)

Thai-Esque Pork with Papaya

Photo by Flickr user Reeding. Used under a Creative Commons license.

A few months ago, in one of those temporary mental orgies of Healthful Living, I subscribed to Clean Eating magazine. Lots and lots of food-porny photos of heavy-on-the-veggies meals, lots of recipes that sound really really good until you start getting into them and realizing they call for nonstick skillets and “1 tsp canola oil” and reduced-fat cheeses and other nonsense up with which I will not put. But the veggie (and fruit) focus still appeals, and man those photos sure do look yummy, so I’m giving some of them a sort of a try anyway.

This one started out as the cover recipe for July 2011, “Thai Pork and Papaya with Couscous.” I had never cooked with papaya before (actually, I don’t think I’d ever even eaten papaya outside of a smoothie/Jamba Juice context), and this recipe called for just dumping the raw papaya chunks in at the end, which did not sound super-great. It also called for ground ginger, which sounded similarly non-super-great. Anyway, by the time I was finished changing it all around, it worked a little something like this.

Thai-Esque Pork with Papaya
Serves four

2 Tbsp peanut or other neutral-flavored oil
1 jalapeno or other hottish pepper, seeded if you like, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
About a 2″ piece of fresh ginger, minced or Microplaned
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 to 2 Tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 pork tenderloin (about a pound-ish), cut into thin slices
About 1 to 1.5 lb papaya (the one I bought was just over two pounds, so now I have a chunk of papaya mooning about in my fridge), peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2″ cubes
Juice and zest of 1 lime (my lime was looking a bit spotty, so I only zested about half of it)
A few generous handfuls of baby spinach leaves

Heat the oil over medium heat in a generously sized skillet (I used my 12″ cast iron skillet). Add chile pepper, ginger, and garlic; stir furiously for about 30 seconds, taking care that garlic doesn’t brown.

Add pork, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring constantly, until pork loses pink color, about 2 minutes. Add papaya and continue cooking and stirring for another minute or two. Pork will cook through very very quickly. Don’t overcook it or it will go from “tender yum” to “shoe leather” faster than you can say “whoops, that was stupid.”

Remove from heat. Immediately stir in lime juice/zest and spinach. Add a half cup or so of chopped cilantro if you have it on hand (I didn’t, but it would’ve been yummy).

Serve over rice or be all anti-traditional (as I did, as Clean Eating suggests) and serve over couscous instead. Pan-culturality! Let’s eat!

Mascarpone-Amaretto Stuffed Apricots

The ODB is down with MSP

So what could be worth breaking nine months of radio silence for? These little pieces of heaven, that’s what.

They’re sweet but not too sweet, creamy but not cloying, just exotic enough to stand out without overwhelming timid tasters with anything weird.

And after the third or fourth time I was specifically requested to bring them to some sort of Happening, I figured it was time to share them with the world. I can’t recall where I got the original recipe, but I’ve tweaked it to the point that it may or may not be unrecognizable.

Mascarpone-Amaretto Stuffed Apricots
Yield: approximately one crap-ton, or at least it feels that way while you’re making them, but it never really comes out to be enough

A quantity of dried apricots, preferably the unsulfured Turkish variety, which are kind of a peculiar brown hue but taste better nonetheless
A 4-ounce (I think) carton of mascarpone; you could also use cream cheese if you can’t find mascarpone anywhere, but you’ll need to whip it for a good while all by itself first, also the result will be much heavier and tangier
1 tsp to 1 Tbsp honey, depending on your personal liking
About 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (and perhaps a bit of the zest, if you’re feeling frisky)
1/2 tsp ground (or, better: freshly grated) nutmeg
A pinch (only!) of salt
2 to 3 Tbsp amaretto liqueur
About 1/2 cup blanched almonds, very very finely chopped/minced/pulverized, divided

In a small bowl, beat the mascarpone for a few seconds with a hand mixer on low speed to lighten. Add honey, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt, and amaretto; beat on low speed until combined. With a rubber spatula, fold in a few tablespoons of the chopped almonds.

Scoop about a third of this mixture into a pastry bag, should you be fancy enough to own one, or into a Ziploc bag, should you be me and not be so fancy. If you’re using a Ziploc bag, seal the bag and snip off one of the bottom corners. Put the remaining chopped almonds in a shallow plate.

Pick up an apricot and look for the cut where the pit was removed. With a small knife, widen and deepen the cut until there is a generous pocket in the apricot (but don’t cut all the way through it). Squeeze about a teaspoon of mascarpone mixture into the pocket. Press apricot gently to even out filling. Roll cut edge in the chopped almonds; set finished apricot aside; pick up another apricot and repeat, repeat, repeat. This is not a difficult process, but it is a fairly time-consuming one.

These are especially nice if you chill them a little before serving. I imagine they would be lovely with some Champagne, because what isn’t?

N.B.: If you’re wondering what Ol’ Dirty Bastard has to do with mascarpone-stuffed apricots, well, I needed a background so my photo wouldn’t just be one lonely apricot floating in space, and this stamp I carved last week seemed to fit the bill.

Bacon Rice Krispie Treats

 

Bacon Rice Krispie treats

 

I never really got on the add-bacon-to-it bandwagon. Bacon, though a wonderful thing in and of itself, doesn’t particularly cry out to be deep-fried and served with gravy, infused into vodka, or basket-woven around a slab of sausage and grilled. At least not in my world.

The idea for these came to me in a dream, though, I think, and I became a little bit obsessed with them.  So I gave them a try, and they were good. And then I tweaked the recipe and gave them another try, and they were better.

This definitely doesn’t count as health food; on the other hand, you can set these out at a gathering and pretty much guarantee they’ll be gone in just a few minutes, thereby sparing you the agony of continuing unhealthy temptation. So… why the heck not? Immerse yourself, however briefly, in the world of stunt bacon cooking.

You need to start with some brown sugar bacon. Which you’ll need to make yourself.

 

Making brown sugar bacon

 

Brown Sugar Bacon
Preheat oven to 275. Line a rimmed metal baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a metal rack on the sheet.

Put about a cup of dark brown sugar in a shallow dish. Dredge thick-cut slices of bacon in the sugar, turning to coat and patting the slices gently to encourage the sugar to adhere. Don’t go hog-wild (hee) with the sugar, because the excess will melt, drip off and potentially burn. Arrange the slices on the metal rack. You’ll need about 1/3 to 1/2 pound for this recipe. Your family will be happy to eat any excess.

Bake for about half an hour, maybe up to 40 minutes. This will seem like it is taking forever, but it will smell really good. The bacon will not get crispy at this point. When it seems sufficiently done, remove the sheet and carefully pour off the molten bacon fat into a small bowl. Using tongs, remove the bacon to a paper grocery bag or other nice sturdy absorbent draining surface. (Don’t use paper towels. They will stick to the hot sugar and ew.) Let bacon cool for about half an hour or so, during which time it will crisp up a bit.

Now you’re ready to proceed with:

Bacon Rice Krispie Treats
3 Tbsp bacon fat
2 Tbsp butter
5 cups mini marshmallows
A splash of vanilla extract
2 generous pinches kosher salt
1/2 tsp Drunken Angel or other hot sauce, to taste (optional but highly recommended)
5 cups Rice Krispies cereal (don’t try to get away with the generic kind; they’re just not as good)
About 1/2 pound Brown Sugar Bacon, chopped fairly fine

Thoroughly grease a 9×13 baking dish. Put Rice Krispies in a large bowl and toss with chopped bacon.

In a medium saucepan, combine bacon fat and butter; cook, stirring, over medium-low heat until melted. Add marshmallows, vanilla extract, salt and hot sauce. Cook, stirring constantly, just until marshmallows are completely melted. Pour mixture over Rice Krispies and stir gently to distribute.

Scrape mixture into greased baking dish. Wet your hands and pat mixture into an even layer. Let cool before serving. These are best the day they’re made, though honestly no one will complain about eating them the next day either, and they probably won’t last that long anyway.

Potato Tortilla

No, not that kind of tortilla, silly.. the flat Spanish omelet-type thing that’s pretty much just a showcase for veggies or cheese or whatever, loosely bound together with egg.

The nice thing about this recipe is that it’s adaptable to pretty much whatever you have on hand. Zucchini? Why not? Spinach? Oh sure. Jicama? Well, that might be a little weird, but probably not un-doable. Bananas? You’re on your own there, buddy.

Cooking the potatoes first pares the tortilla-cooking time to almost nothing. And yep, traditionally this is made with ultra-thin sliced potatoes fried in the same pan, but (1) I am not so much for the frying of the food, and (2) the purpose of this recipe was to load up on vegetables. Which it did.

Tortilla de Patatas
Serves six-ish

3 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed, unpeeled, and cut into roughly 3/4″ cubes
About 2 quarts cold water with plenty (!) of salt added
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 small-to-medium red bell peppers, cored, seeded and chopped
1 or 2 jalapeno pepper(s), seeded (or not) and minced
3 to 6 cloves garlic (depending on their size), minced
A couple teaspoons of Montreal steak seasoning, purchased or homemade (or: coarse salt, black pepper, paprika, red pepper, ground thyme)
8 eggs, beaten
1/2 to 1 cup finely shredded cheese (I used sharp Cheddar)

Put the potatoes into the salted water, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are just tender, about 7 minutes. Drain and set aside. Preheat the broiler to medium.

In a large skillet–cast-iron if you have it, nonstick if you don’t, in which case make sure it’s broiler-safe before you get too much further–heat the olive oil over medium-heat. (Really, cast iron is going to work better than anything else here.)

Add onion and peppers. Cook, stirring regularly, until softened and barely translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, jalapeno and seasonings. Cook and stir 1 minute more. Add potatoes and cook, stirring very gently, for just a few seconds to get them all coated in the nice yummy oil.

Pour the eggs into the pan. Shake gently but determinedly to distribute everything around fairly evenly. Fold the eggs into the mixture very briefly. Then step away and leave the pan alone until the eggs are set enough that they don’t jiggle (tee hee) when you shake the pan. Three or four minutes, tops.

Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top of the tortilla. Pop the pan under the broiler and let it cook for a few minutes until the top is bubbly and the cheese is starting to brown. (Probably another three or four minutes.)

Cut into wedges and serve; for a super happy fun time, top each serving with a dollop of homemade guacamole.

Arabian squash, like Arabian nights…

Photo by Flickr user VancityAllie. Used under a Creative Commons license.

This one’s straight outta Katzen, which is sort of like being straight outta Compton, except a lot less intimidating-sounding. Also, one of my most favorite things to cook/eat ever. Also pretty, which is kinda rare for a casserole, which makes me sad that I don’t have a photo. Humph and alas.

Arabian Squash Casserole (or Bake, if you hate the word Casserole, or heck, call it a Cassoulet, ’cause no one really knows what that is anyway)
Serves… oh, a lot

2 medium butternut squash
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large-ish onion
2 mid-sized red bell peppers
6 or so cloves of garlic
1 tsp salt (or maybe a tinch more)
1 to 2 tsp ground cumin (feel the noize)
A fat pinch of ground cayenne pepper, or maybe a teaspoon or so of red pepper flakes–you know your heat tolerance better than I do
Lots of ground black pepper
1 cup plain yogurt, preferably whole-milk
1-1/2 cups (or whatever you have on hand) crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup sunflower seeds or chopped walnuts, divided (optional but Oh So Good)

Preheat the oven to 350. Split the squash lengthwise down the middle, scoop out the seeds, and place them facedown on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until nice and tender. Take them out, let them cool, scoop out the flesh and mash the hell out of it with a potato masher. (Or: wimp out and put it in the food processor.) You’ll need 6 cups, and you’ll probably have about 8 cups, which means… woo-hoo! Two cups left over for butternut squash risotto! Or freeze it, or put it on pizza, or whatever. (You can prep the squash early in the day, or even the night before, thereby leaving yourself plenty of time to ride bikes or paint your nails or something.) Put 6 cups mashed squash in a very large bowl and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and peppers and cook, stirring frequently, until tender and onion is translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper; cook, stirring, a couple minutes more. Remove from heat and add to the bowl with the squash. Stir well.

Add yogurt, feta and half the sunflower seeds (or walnuts). Stir well. Taste and correct seasoning, and then remind yourself that you should probably not keep on tasting it perhaps quite so enthusiastically, because you want some left over to serve to your friends/family/self.

Spoon into a baking dish; I use my trusty oval gratin dish, which holds a little less than a standard 9×13 Pyrex baker but looks oh so pretty. If you have more left than will comfortably go into the dish, you can bake it separately in a small dish or save it to bake later or even to toss with some hot cooked pasta. Sprinkle the remaining sunflower seeds (or walnuts) over the top.

Bake at 350 for half an hour or so, or until nice and hot and beginning to bubble.

This is particularly lovely paired with a spinach salad with homegrown tomatoes, just as Mollie Katzen suggests.

Take a picture, it’ll last longer

Imagine this dish, only smaller, whiter and more scalloped, and more full of kale-rice gratin.

So I made this kale-rice gratin-ish sort of thing last night, and I put a bit of it in a wee little white scalloped mini-gratin dish thingy and set it aside, thinking it would be lovely to take some pictures of it today in natural light. Terminally cute, it was, with its topping of slivered almonds and delicately sprinkled paprika. And the recipe made ever so much, and there was plenty left in the great big red gratin dish, and I was happy just musing on how nice that picture would be.

And then Jim came home last night and ate half of what was in the wee little scalloped dish.

(Yes, just half.)

(No, he didn’t even see the big red gratin dish all chockful of the rest of it.)

So you will have to use your imagination to envision how sweet that dear little dish looked all full of kale-ricey goodness. Sigh.

Kale-Brown Rice Gratin
Serves eight; leftovers reheat brilliantly
Adapted from a recipe in Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook

2 cups long-grain brown rice
3 cups water
Butter for greasing pan (or cooking spray, if you insist)
2 Tbsp olive oil (or butter)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 bunches kale, tough stems cut away, leaves finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
A few grinds of black pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated=best)
1 to 3 tsp Drunken Angel Hot Sauce or other thick hot sauce (Moroccan harissa would also work well)
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1-1/2 to 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese (medium or sharp=best)
1/2 to 1 cup slivered almonds
Paprika

Combine the rice and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for about 35 minutes, until rice is tender. Uncover and fluff thoroughly with a fork. Dump into a nice big mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350. Butter a large baking dish–I used a large oval gratin dish and had some of the mix left over.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil (or butter) over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add kale, salt, pepper and garlic. Cook, stirring, until kale wilts down and is heated through, about 5 minutes more. Add to rice, along with nutmeg and hot sauce, and stir gently to combine.

Beat eggs lightly with a fork. Whisk together with milk. Pour over rice mixture and stir to combine. Add cheese and half the almonds; toss gently until nicely mixed.
Spread mixture in prepared dish. Sprinkle with reserved almonds and a goodly amount of paprika.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until browned and a bit crispish up top.