House Spouse

Thanks to Smitten Kitchen’s post on slow-roasted tomatoes about a month ago, I have developed a real problem.  I can’t stop making them.  And I definitely cannot stop eating them. On everything.  It reminds me of when my mom was pregnant with my brother 14 years ago and swore that she did not have cravings for pickled jalepenos despite needing to add them to every dish of food in front of her face. Spaghetti, pizza, sandwiches. Nothing was safe.

Except that I’m not pregnant.  I have no excuse. Just a slightly compulsive/borderline addiction for anything that tastes strongly of salt and vinegar.

When I received an innocent email from the Chopping Block last Friday with an innocent little recipe for a tomato tart, I knew I had a place to put my container of freshly roasted tomatoes.  Other than directly into my mouth.

Something you should know: this recipe calls for puff pastry and goat cheese. I think I’ve said enough, and you should be preheating your oven right now.

Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart
(adapted from The Chopping Block)
Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry (yes!)
2 teaspoons herbs de Provence (I just used fresh thyme)
1/2 c panko bread crumbs
1/2 c - 1 c slow-roasted tomatoes
2 cloves roasted garlic, roughly chopped
1 cup goat cheese
Fresh basil or thyme for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
(I plopped a little kalamata olive tapenade here and there to take things completely over the top. Going over the top is optional. )

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Place the puff pastry on a parchment-lined (or use a silicone baking mat) baking sheet. Using a paring knife, cut a shallow border about 1 inch from the edge on all sides.

Combine the herbs and bread crumbs and sprinkle them over the bottom of the puff pastry. Place the tomatoes on top of the bread crumb mixture, mostly covering the bottom. Sprinkle the roasted garlic over the top and season with a touch of salt and pepper. Add olive oil if your tomatoes look like they need it. Crumble goat cheese over the top and bake until the pastry is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with some fresh basil or thyme and serve room temperature or warm.

The recipe also came with the suggestion mixed greens salad as a side. Serve dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

Oh, wow. What’s it been, like 18 years since I last posted? Between picking up some extra hours at work for the summer and doing an independent study in reading French, I’m not so much busy as I am drained from having to employ so much self discipline for three months in order to accomplish anything. (I hope that sentence wasn’t so long and full of prepositional clauses that it was impossible to understand. Edit: I just went back and read that sentence and it wasn’t so bad after all. See, all this memorizing of the different ways to translate “celui, celle, ceux, celles” and all of the other relative, interrogative, disjunctive and demonstrative French pronouns has me thinking only in terms of grammar these days.) I did accomplish this lovely recipe some months ago, though, and never got around to posting. It’s simple, pleasant and refreshing.

Lemon Sesame Green Beans

Ingredients
(note: The amounts are approximations. In all honesty, I just added things until it tasted right.)
1 pint of green beans
1 tsp sesame oil
1-2 T olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 T honey
1 tsp sesame seeds
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
Blanch the green beans in a pot of boiling water for about 1 to 2 minutes. Drain and rinse with very cold water or place in an ice bath. The beans should remain tender-crisp. While they are cooling, prepare the dressing: Whisk together the oils, lemon juice and honey. Add the salt to taste (the dressing should be just slightly bracing). Toss with the beans and sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.

Although my fall semester begins in just a week, I do have a list of things to cook and post about. Here’s a preview: preparing dry beans (for Louisa), lemon layer cake (for me!), and Mexican salsas.

I was in need of some inspiration. Having been out to eat every day, often twice a day, for a week straight with Andrew’s parents, I found myself getting hooked on restaurant food, tasty tasty food that doesn’t require doing dishes or turning on the stove in my already uncomfortably hot kitchen. So, I went to the library and checked out some cook books. My library fortunately has a nice selection such books and I walked out with Jamie’s Kitchen and The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (along with a non-fiction work and two books of knitting patterns). After picking up some zucchini and summer squash at the farmer’s market earlier this week, I happily chose a recipe out of Jamie’s Kitchen for a stir-fried warm salad of shrimp and baby zucchini and modified it slightly to accommodate just two of us (the original recipe is for 4) and the ingredients I had on hand.

Spicy Shrimp and Zucchini Salad
(Adapted from Jamie’s Kitchen)
-Serves 2
Ingredients
10 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 small zucchini, thinly sliced diagonally
2 small summer squash, thinly sliced diagonally
1-2 T vegetable oil
1 tsp sesame oil
zest and juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1-2 tsp red chile flakes or 1 fresh red chile, seeded and finely chopped
1 small bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 small bunch fresh mint, chopped
1 T soy sauce

Have all your ingredients ready before starting this recipe. (It moves really fast and once the shrimp hit the oil, plan on eating within about 3 to 4 minutes.)

Heat the two oils in a pan over medium-high heat, until shimmering. Toss the shrimp with the lime zest and the ginger, then throw in the pan. Stir together for about 2 minutes, or until the shrimp are lightly golden, then remove from the heat and place in a dish. Allow them to cool for about 30 seconds before adding the lime juice, herbs, chile, zucchini and squash. Toss these together and then dress with the soy sauce. Serve.

We ate our salad with a side of brown rice mixed with cilantro, which made it a full meal. I suppose some dressed cold noodles would be good on the side as well.