Vegan Ranch Deja Vu

Ranch dressing sans the mayo, the buttermilk, the sour cream, the moooo. It's been done before. It'll be done again. And since meals when the kitchen's in boxes come mainly from the fridge, I'll be eating it alot over the next few weeks.

Last time we went down this long Southern-bound path, it was with our pal Tofu. Tofu is good. Tofu is light. But if you want something a tad more decadent, you might want to try this cashew-based puree instead. You should try it regardless - it's seriously delish.

Cashew Ranch Dressin'

makes 2 cups. Dip the radish, the lettuce, the carrot, your finger, et all in it.

1.5 cup raw cashew pieces + 1/2 cup of cashew soaking water
Juice of 1 lemon
4-5 tablespoons pickle juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
Miso, small pinch
Ground mustard, pinch
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional)
Handful each : fresh parsley, dill, scallion
Tons of freshly ground black pepper


Throw the first 6 ingredients in the blender, except for the water - just add 1/4 cup at first. Whizz away for a long while - the longer, the smoother the dressing, and thus mine went for 6-7 minutes - adding water as needed to keep the motor running sufficiently to smooth the puree out. You'll probably need most of the 1/2 cup to acheive this.

Add your yeast (if using) minced herbs, and black pepper, and pulse to just mix.

Chill for an hour or so before serving, to let the flavors mellow and blend.

AWESOME on a tomato/greens/mustard sammich. Yeah, I eat that alllll the time. Simple and tart.  Best when tomatoes are just coming in - as they are now. Say hello to bulbous, beautiful heirlooms, my darlings! They're coming!

I'm such a salad nerd I spent some bucks on vintage Scandi-design salad plates that come preprinted with salad.

*chomp*

Sneaky Monkey Sauce

For the kids, for the picky eaters, for the "eeewww, carrots" kind of people, grown up and child alike - here is the sauce. Put it on a pizza. In a lasag. Over basketti. In ze calzone. Anywhere regular tomato sauce would make an appearance.

Tomatoes are such an acidic (and delicious!) veggie. They have special powers of conversion - seeping into other, more base substances, turning them red, softening them. Disguising them. Making it possible to get "I only eat chicken nuggets!" child (a client's) to unknowingly scarf 2 servings of veggies in one plate of lasagna.

Awesome.

And so, here it is, a personal-cheffing classic - Sneaky Monkey Sauce.

1 28-oz can diced/chopped tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
3 tablespoons garlic
1 small onion, diced
3 cups vegetables of your choice - I used mushrooms, zucchini, broccoli shreds, carrots, and celery, chopped roughly
Basil and oregano, 1 tsp each
2 tablespoons olive oil
Dash red wine
Salt to taste
Dash sugar

First, we're going to mince those veggies to a pulp. Pulsing is the way to go - you want them small and uniform.

At start:

And, finished:

This is actually the first step to my Mushroom Bolognese as well - mincey mc mincerson. Anyways.

Start the sauce as you would normally - heat oil, saute garlic and onion, 3-4 minutes, until onion softens. Add your veggies and turn up the heat - medium-high or so. Stir to coat with oil, cover, and let those suckers go for 3-4 minutes - I like to brown them a bit. Stir. Cover. Repeat.

Deglaze with wine and add all your tomatoes. Fill up your large tomato can half way with water and add that as well. Turn the heat to medium and simmer the sauce 40 or so minutes, until the tomatoes have fallen apart a bit. You'll have to stir pretty regularly, more often that you would normal mater sauce.

Taste for salt, add a little sugar or molasses. If things aren't simmering to indistinguishable-ville as quickly as you'd like, don't be afraid to get the potato masher out and have ats half way through the simmering.

Lookit that thing! Not even a HINT of the veggie power hidden inside. And remember, this sauce doesn't quite have the congealing power regular stewed tomato sauce does - so if you plan on putting this on a pizza, maybe add another 1/2 can of tomato paste, and simmer just a teeny bit longer.

Off season cravings.

I must have put away at least 20 pounds of tomatoes this summer. One of my super-duper-favorite foods. Sliced, baked, roasted, pureed, cherry, heirloom, roma, whatevs, I love them all.

So it's always amusing to me when I get Cream of Tomato Souplust, because it's never during the summer, when it would be AWESOME. It's always Fall, often Winter, many times around Christmas. And once they start, they continue for months, and I pretty much eat a bowl a week (at least), with toast, or cheese sammiches, or Ritz.

So I'm left using canned 'maters to make this favorite soup. Which has made me a bit of a Canned Tomato fascist - to qualify for the Pot, you must:

Have no added herbs (I must have control! Aaaargh)
No added sugar
Little-to-no added salt
Minimal Citric Acid (which is often there to preserve redness, yeesh)

Hard to qualify, I know. Pomi used to be my brand of choice before moving South - but it's so damned expensive down here that I've had to explore other possibilities. And, once again, Trader Joe's saves the day by stocking organic, chopped tomatoes with little additives for less than I paid for Pomi up in NYC. So that's what I use. For everything red - pasta sauce, minestrone, lasagna, chili, all of it. Ah, TJ's, you make life easier.

Simple Winter Tomato Soup
6 servings, give or take

2 large cans chopped tomatoes, in juice, no additives
1 small can tomato paste (optional - just for thickness)
2 celery ribs
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion
6 cloves garlic
Dash white wine
5 fresh sage leaves
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1.5 tablespoons honey
1 2-cup veggie bouillion cube or 1.5 tablespoons salt
1.5 cups half and half or 1 cup heavy cream

Easy peasy!

Melt your butter in a small soup pot and add onion, celery, and garlic. Saute until celery softens, about 5 minutes.

Add your wine, stir, and cook 2 minutes. Add your tomatoes and juice, paste if using,  herbs, and bouillion cube. Stir well and cover. Bring to a simmer. Cook 45 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking.

Remove the rosemary and sage. Add you honey and taste for flavor. Salt should slightly dominate sweet. Remember that cream has a slight sweetness, so resist adding more honey.

Using an immersion blender if smoothness isn't a big deal, or a real blender if it is, puree the soup until smooth. In a blender, this will take 2-3 minutes, and you'll want to rinse out your pot before returning your pureed soup to it.

Ladle 2 large spoonfuls of soup into each bowl and carefully pour cream in a swirl over each serving (alternatively, you could just add all the cream to the soup in the pot and mix there. Swirls are pretty, though!). Serve with a starch of your choosing - toasty English muffins, cornbread, grilled cheese, it's all delish.

So THAT'S why it's always 2 bucks more.

There was no immediate need for me to try my hand at Malai Kofta, since we have some really great Indian joints in CLT. Nevertheless, I made a big batch yesterday and discovered a few things:

Time intensive. Just the dumplings take an hour to prepare, pre-fry.

Cranky materials. Oil has to be a very specific temp and small batches are KEY, otherwise you end up with exploded koftas. Which, unfortunately, aren't very nummy.

Not healthy. In the slightest.

But delicious! Really, really good. I'll admit that I've had better than the batch described below - prepared by other, more experienced Kofta cooks. My theory is that at, say, Woodlands, they make a batch a week and freeze the dumplings ahead of time, and just fry them to order. Still, if you're in the mood to try this most-challenging of Indian dishes, give it a whirl - you'll understand why it's always the most expensive choice on ze menu.

Malai Kofta (Cheese and Vegetable Dumplings in Creamy Tomato Sauce)
serves 4-6, or about 24 dumplings

I went tastespottinghunting and found this extremely detailed recipe. I followed the techniques for the koftas but shortened the sauce instructions. Check it.

For the dumplings:
3 small-medium potatoes, boiled and peeled
14 oz paneer cheese, grated
1/4 cup cornstarch
Salt to taste - about a teaspoon, based on how salty your paneer is
2 tablespoons curry powder of your choice - I used some delicious Garam Masala 
1 carrot, grated, blanched
1 cup nuts (I used cashews and almonds) soaked in hot water
1/2 cup raisins
Splash cream
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 small knob fresh garlic, grated


Mash the 'taters until smooth, adding salt, pepper, and curry powder. Grate your cheese into another bowl, toss with cornstarch. Mix potatoes and cheese. Set aside.

Toss carrot, nuts, raisins, cilantro, garlic and ginger with a little cream in another bowl. Throw it in a food processor or blender for a few pulses - you want the stuffing to be fine mince.

Grab a slightly-smaller-than-a-golfball sized hunk of potato, and press it into your cupped hand, forming a bowl shape. Press a teaspoon or so of stuffing into the center and carefully close your hand a bit, smoothing the potato around the filling until totally surrounded and the dumpling is "closed". Gently roll the ball in your hand until the surface is smooth. Set aside on a plate until ready to fry. Make the rest.

Heat your oil until hot! and fry your koftas, 6 or so at a time. This is important - they must be able to move freely in the oil without touching each other. If they do, they tear themselves apart (which happened to me, luckily on my last, toss-em-all-in-there batch). You want a dark exterior - this'll take 4-6 minutes to achieve. Carefully remove to paper towels to drain.

Now for the sauce!

Since it's tomato season, I went the extra mile and peeled some fresh garden tomatoes. This is not essential - you could easy use canned 'maters instead.

4 cups fresh tomato puree from 5 medium 'maters
4 cloves garlic
1 small knob ginger, grated
1 stick cinammon
4 black cardamom pods
4-6 curry leaves
1 tablespoon powdered fenugreek
3 tablespoons ghee
Masala powder to taste (I used a tablespoon or so)
2 bird's eye chilis, sliced in half lengthwise, seeds removed
Salt to taste (about 2 tsp here)
1 cup heavy cream
Milk, to thin and serve

Melt your ghee in a wide saucepan and add your garlic, ginger, fenugreek and masala. Fry until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add tomato puree, cinnamon and cardamom pods, salt, and curry leaves, stir well, and cover. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes. Add your cream and a little milk (you want enough sauce to cover your dumplings), stir and remove cardamom and cinnamon stick. Carefully place your dumplings in the sauce and simmer 5 minutes more.

Serve with Basmati rice. Garnish with chopped chilis and cilantro, if you so desire.

'Mater Hater

After three weeks of 90+ degree weather, we finally had a small break in the heat and haze. And what happened? Half of the tomatoes in the garden *poof* ripened, all within a day or two of each other.

Weird.

This, of course, inspired me to run to the Internets for an explanation: why, after weeks of droolingly staring at umpteen-million green, refusing-to-ripen orbs dangling enticingly from their spindly branches, would all my 'maters ripen simultaneously? Turns out tomatoes like it hot, but not that hot. Ideal ripening temperature: between 68-77 degrees F. What happens when the temperature hovers in the mid-to-upper 90s? Nothing. Everything goes into stasis - fruit is maintained, but not ripened. Carotene and lycopene are not produced, so they remain hard and green.

Sigh. Guess it's time for gazpacho! Muahaha!

I used to hate spring.

Until I started gardening.

For whatever reason - pastel colors, too much sun, Spring Cleaning. Since I started growing my own tomatoes, squash, cukes and whatevers, I find myself looking forward (somewhat, at least) to warmth, sun, rain, all that heralds the end of winter. Autumn still has my heart but Spring'll do for now.

Our local farmer's market scene, while small compared to places like NYC and (closer) Atlanta, is pretty verdant. It's growing yearly, too, which is exciting to watch. This week, the first of the asparagus appeared - and there were lots of big eyes and grabbing hands. Smugness, like you'd just robbed a bank. Awesome.

Our garden, as usual, will be mater-full and super water-needy. But tomatoes, more than any other vegetable, exemplify the reasons to grow your own food - picked fresh off the vine they are sharp, succulent, textural, phenomenal. Worth the schlepping and gentle, careful care, for sure. I can't wait.