Cilantro Pesto

Look at that beautiful, vibrant green color! Can't you just imagine it on a big plate of black beans and rice???

It is nearing the end of my CSA box week. Because of the holidays I have been picking up on Tuesdays. I looked in my fridge today and panicked. One of my friends is out of town and has gifted me her box. That means I have double the food coming and with New Years and all coming not too many veggies get eaten. I planned dinner to get rid of the bulk of it. I have salad greens and peppers left but I had some cilantro that I had no idea what to do with.

I started searching through my cookbooks and hit the Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I found exactly what I was looking for. Cilantro Pesto. Let me tell you about this stuff. It is incredible. If you love cilantro like I do there is nothing better except for pico de gallo heavy on the cilantro. It was strong and filled with all the flavor that I love. Green and fresh. The garlic gave it a nice bite and I can just imagine this drizzled on tacos or nachos or topping some black beans and rice!!!

I made a double batch so that I didn't waste any of my cilantro and plan on freezing it. T. came home and tasted it for me and immediately got out the tortilla chips and started eating it by the chip load!

Cilantro Pesto - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman

Ingredients:

2 cups loosely packed fresh cilantro
salt
1 clove garlic
3 Tbsp neutral oil, like corn or grapeseed (I used canola and it was great)
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

Directions:

Combine the cilantro with a pinch of salt, the garlic, and the oil in a food processor or blender. Process and scrape down the sides of the container if necessary.

Add the lime juice and blend for a second; add of little water if necessary to thin the mixture, then puree.

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve or cover and refrigerate for up to a couple of days or freeze for future use.

To freeze this I place it in a ziploc freezer bag and press flat. Make sure all of the air is out of the bag to prevent freezer burn. Freezing it flat makes it easier for you to break off chunks as you need or want it!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Read more »

Pumpkin Butter and my ridiculous amount of pumpkin puree!

Pumpkin puree and all the ingredients for delicious Pumpkin Butter!

I hate to waste food.

On Saturday night T. went to the store. He came home with a huge pumpkin (one helluva an impulse buy I would say!) for $.99. His idea was that he could open the pumpkin and take the seeds and make some more roasted pumpkin seeds. What to do with the rest of the pumpkin? He wanted to throw it out! Guess what I did ALL day Monday? Roasted and pureed a great big pumpkin.

I had to do this in 3 batches as the pumpkin was soooo big! Here is what I did:

Cleaned out the guts and set them aside.
Cut the pumpkin into chunks and used a vegetable peeler to remove the skin.
Lined a sheet pan with foil and placed as many chunks of pumpkin I could fit.
Placed them in a 400 ° oven (thanks Dharm it works!)
Roasted them until they were fork tender.
Allowed them to cool and then in batches I pureed them in my food processor.
I then placed 3 cups of cooled pumpkin puree in quart Ziploc bags and plopped them in the freezer.

Today I decided to make pumpkin butter out of some of the puree. Turned out wonderful. The girls loved this on some fresh made bread for an afternoon snack!


Pumpkin Butter

Ingredients:

1½ cups (or one 15-oz can) of pumpkin puree
¼ cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp white sugar
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ cup water or apple juice

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat to low.
4. Let mixture simmer for approximately 30 minutes to an hour or until it thickens.
5. Stir frequently.

My house smelled incredible while this was cooking and the girls love it. I will definitely be making this again!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Read more »

Freezing Peppers

Beautiful organic green peppers!

On Saturday before T. and I went away I had him make a pit stop for me to a new Farmer's Market that I had just heard about at Cape Harbour. I am really getting tired of the same old thing that I see at all of the markets around here right now, produce from anywhere but here. Asparagus from Peru, potatoes from Argentina, tomatoes from who knows where. I guess you get my point.

But this one was different!!! I was able to talk to the man who owned the stand and he had a ton of organic produce. We started talking and I was able to find out that he has a friend who has a farm in Labelle, which is north of here, and another friend who has an organic farm in Georgia that he meets up with weekly to get his produce. This was really great info for me seeing as I have been struggling trying to get some fresh produce. Granted this isn't the perfect situation as it really screws up the "local factor" but you know what...sometimes you just have got to bite the big one and look out for yourself.

Here is where it gets really cool. It was getting late and the market closed at 1 so he asked me what I was really looking for. I told him the herbs and stuff that I wanted and then I mentioned that I would like to get a bunch of bulk things that I can freeze for summer use. Get this...he sold be a WHOLE FRICKIN' CASE OF ORGANIC BELL PEPPERS FOR $18.00!!!!

That's a ton of peppers huh?

So last night T. and I cleaned them all up and cut them in half and ripped out the membrane and the seeds and plopped them in the freezer. Peppers freeze great and we can use them a million different ways. So be prepared for many recipes with pepper as a main ingredient!!!

Ignore my rusted out pans. These are only used for freezing things and on top of that EVERYTHING rusts in Florida!!!
These trays get places in my chest freezer and then bagged in freezer bags all ready to be used!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Read more »

Freezing Tomatoes

Bright, fresh tomato puree!

By now all of you know that I am really, really saddened by the ending of our growing season. I have found several ways to prolong it but shortly I am going to be supermarket bound again! Yesterday though i took the girls to our local U-Pick and as I was at the cash desk checking out they had some irregular tomatoes (smaller ones than what you would normally buy) for real cheap. I bought 2 baskets of them knowing that I would pull out my handy ricer and get them frozen for a meal later on down the road when nothing but fresh, homegrown tomatoes would do!

I wanted to share with you the process because most of you are just coming into the summer season. Now, I have absolutely no idea where you would get this type of equipment but my MIL in rural Pennsylvania got it for me years ago. If you can get something like it they are generally called fruit and vegetable mills, click here for a reasonable example you will use it over and over.

Here is the whole process (took us about 10 minutes in all):

Clean and halve the tomatoes

The crank on the side gets turned and the tomatoes are removed of their skin and seeds. See all those tomatoes I got for $3.00?

The skin and the seeds get pushed out here and the puree goes to the other side.

I have a canner but this is the way I like to freeze my tomatoes. I simply put the puree in the bags and toss them into the freezer.

We will use these in a simple spaghetti type sauce or maybe to cook a chicken in. Whatever we do end up using these for the couple of minutes it took to do this was sooooo worth it!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Read more »