Tomato salad

[two or three months ago]

Sprouts is having a sale on cluster tomatoes! My favorite, err second favorite, heirloom tomatoes are still the best. 69 cents per pound! Woohoo!

Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman started her Food Network tv show this morning. I don't normally read her blog, but I read another blog that linked to another blog (you know how it goes) that mentioned her Food Network show. I looked up a clip online and she made this tomato salad and well it had me at Hello.


recipe
I bought a mason jar just to do the whole frustrated shaking thing. Too bad I'm still frustrated. But the dish turned out pretty good. I added some cherry tomatoes for color.

 

I finally got to the library and picked up some cookbooks. They have the Silver Spoon book I was eying at Borders [hence the fact Borders was still around]. With all my tomatoes I made spaghetti with raw tomato.

Similar ingredients.
Mix 3-4 chopped tomatoes, 4 tbsp olive oil, 10 basil leaves chopped, 2 garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Cover. Set aside for 30 minutes and remove garlic. Cook 12 oz spaghetti in large pan of salted, boiling water till al dente. Drain and serve.

 I like the idea of putting certain things in a dish then removing it. Like the whole point of that ingredient was just to capture the essence. The consumer has a sense of something familiar but can't quite put their finger on it and it's no where to be found. Kitchen trickery. Reminds me of this Fresh Air interview. Is it wasteful to remove ingredients or are we so far the past the point of eating solely for survival that we can be so picky? Did you know Costco sells garlic pills in its nutritional supplement area? What a world we live in.

The best thing ever

I decided to finish off the green tea ice cream to make more room in the freezer (maybe the ice machine will start holding more ice and not just cartons of ice cream...). Woe this life of mine.

I discovered kind of the best thing ever.


If you like gingersnap cookies, you need to try Nyakers. Nyakers is a Swedish company that makes those super thin, crispy gingersnaps that are my favorite. They pretty much go well with anything.

 

I get my tins at World Market but I think Ikea has something similar, probably in their Swedish market area. It looks like this:

Anyways, I'm a big fan of ice cream sandwiches so you can probably figure out what happened to the ice cream...

Gingersnap green tea ice cream sandwich

Nyakers ginger snap cookies

Maeda-en green tea ice cream 

1. Place scoop of ice cream on a cookie.

2. Top with another cookie and gently squeeze together.

3. Release the cookie monster.

 

 

Tomato lover

If I started a grocery store that only sold tomatoes would it do well?
(It would have chalkboards stating farms of origin in a pretty font. There would be a tomato press in the back and a small kitchen/deli area that served lunch. Everyday the sweet, acidic aroma of tomato concoctions dance in the air and waft out the front door to passersby who would be lured in by the raging firing or their olfactory receptors.)

I've been thinking about tomatoes a lot lately.
And raw food diets. And how the majority of my diet consists of processed foods.

Did you listen to the Michael Pollan piece? I find it fascinating that women didn't want to use cake mixes at first until the marketing teams discovered if they removed the dehydrated egg and asked consumers to add their own eggs so they felt like they were still actually baking. Marketing people are so clever. Soon boxed enriched foods and frozen meals were in vogue and out were the days of hours of toiling in the kitchen. I am leaning more towards the pre-brainwashing thinking that just adding water to something should not be considered cooking.

Real Simple is doing a Take Back Dinnertime Challenge. Each day is a new dinnertime challenge.
+ Take Back Dinnertime

Day 1 was to buy five fruits or vegetables and incorporate them during the week. Lucky me, I passed by a Grocery Outlet and picked up some cheap produce, including yellow cherry tomatoes.

I had my first heirloom tomato a few weeks ago and it was amazing. Thus I am now revoking my lifelong disgust of tomatoes.

They are so beautiful (to me).
Such a variety of colors, shapes and tastes.
How do you not appreciate the diversity of nature?

Don't forget the cheese.
Yesterday, I bought a rather sizable wedge of brie from Costco. By sizable I mean Costco-sized. By Costco-size I mean as big as my head. So creamy it tastes like butter. Yum!

This morning I came up with a yummylicious combination. I assembled a bowl of tomatoes for breakfast. I was eating my cherry tomatoes with brie but something was definitely amiss. I looked out to the compost bin and spotted my housemates basil plant. Plucked a few leaves and voila. Magic.

Perfect for those that wish to phase out all the processed food in your diet but not quite ready to commit to really "cooking". Here is a recipe to "assemble". I think this would be a nice starter to a meal.

Cherry Tomato, Brie and Basil

Ingredients:
handful of washed cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp creamy brie
washed basil leaves

Assembly: Place tomato and glob of brie on leaf of basil.

Similar to the caprese salad but a burst of a flavor every bite and I think it's better without olive oil. I topped the brie with a little bit of dried basil. I'm not sure if this really made a difference.

FYI: The red tomato did not compare to the yellow cherry tomato. Stick with the cherry tomatoes.

Alice Waters

Terry Gross from Fresh Air interviewed Alice Waters of Chez Panisse today!
+the interview

Things I did know:
* Chez Panisse is a well-known restaurant in Berkeley.
* They choose to use fresh organic, local foods that are in season (I once ran into someone picking up the restaurant's oyster order from the farmers market in Embarcadero.)
* There is the expensive cafe section (which is too expensive for me) and the restaurant portion (which is far too expensive for me).
* Mary Canales, founder of Ici (my favorite ice cream store in Berkeley), was a dessert chef at Chez Panisse, thus making it one of my favorite restaurants even though I have never been to it.

+chez panisse restaurant website
+ici ice cream shop website

Things I did not know:
* Alice Waters attended UC Berkeley during the free speech movement and heard Mario Savio speak.
* She wanted nothing more than lemon meringue for her birthday.
* They are releasing a book 40 Years of Chez Panisse with contributions from chefs passing through the restaurant and famous figures like Michael Pollan (who was on Fresh Air earlier in the month).


+michael pollan interview
We are spending more time watching cooking shows,
yet spending less time cooking ourselves.

One thing I miss about going to school at UC Berkeley was the expansive cookbook section of the natural science library in the VLSB that no one seemed to know about. Anytime access to all books from Alice Waters. One day I will have to get her books on ebay.

I found this interview particularly fitting since I've made her apple tart three times in the last week.
With only four ingredients and a bit of water (no eggs!), it couldn't be simpler.
Also, it was my first time successfully rolling out dough.
(Thanks Grandma!)

+apple tart recipe

Japanese tea house

These are pictures from dinner when we stayed at a Japanese bathhouse.
Dinner was in a tea house area.

I love how Japanese food is small portions, varied, delicate, and beautiful.
Though it doesn't seem like much, yet somehow it makes you full.

I do feel a bit sorry for the dishwasher.

Korean Sunday night

Secret Kim Family Recipe turned Costco spareribs into the best Korean BBQ I've ever tasted.

Lettuce Wrap

*lettuce *bbq sparerib *minced garlic * kimchi *soybean paste *veggies

Kimchi Fried Rice
by: Yvonne
*spam *day-old rice *kimchi *sunnyside eggs

Along with typical Korean side dishes, watermelon and banana pie, Sunday dinner needs to become a tradition.

Mexican Night

Housemates threw a Mexican-themed dinner. 

Salsa, guacamole, chips, tacos, rice.