Tomato Tomahto

So before I lost my job, I took the plunge and bought into a CSA. You know, co-ops (for some reason Justin calls them 'Farm Fresh'. That name makes me cringe) where you help fund a farm and they give you produce for it. Well I got quite a few nice pieces of produce: corn, tomatoes, yellow and purple cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, lettuce. Well, I thought that since I have this produce I'm going to find some easy recipes to make with them. I've got two recipes and both are not mine. I like to give credit where credit is due. The first one, is my corn on the cob recipe. I got it from the food network, though I can't remember which chef...

You'll never want to make corn on the cob another way again.
Step 1.) Preheat oven to 350*
Step 2.) Take off the very outer husk leaving some on
Step 3.) Place in oven
Step 4.) Bake for 30-45 minutes. I have a gas stove so the cooking time depends on the temperature outside.
Step 5.) Enjoy! Simple right?



You will know they are done when the husks open like you see in the picture to your left. So if you forget to set the timer that's the easiest way to tell.






Okay so the second recipe that I'm going to show you is quite simple as well. You can find the original recipe here. I am not a fan of tomatoes, but after the roasted bruschetta that I made with the fresh cherry tomatoes that I got? I think I'm starting to like tomatoes more.

Tomato and Sweet Onion Bake
Your ingredients are:
Olive Oil
2lbs of Tomatoes
1lbs of Onion
3 cloves Garlic* (ProTip at the bottom)
1/3 C Fresh Basil
3 Tbsp Fresh Oregano
Salt and Pepper
Dried artisan bread

1/4C Butter

1/2C Parmesan cheese

Since I am unemployed, I needed to work with what I had so this was my recipe:
Olive Oil
5 Tomatoes
2 Onions
3 cloves Garlic* (ProTip at the bottom)
5 tsp Basil
3 tsp Oregano
Salt and Pepper
Remember the top of my french bread? Yep used that!
1/4 C Butter
1/2 C Parmesan cheese

Your steps are:
1.) Heat oil in a skillet and preheat oven to 350*
2.) Slice onion so they are rings and chop garlic
3.) Saute garlic and onion
4.) While sauteing slice tomatoes




5.) Put tomatoes, herbs, and salt and pepper in a bowl and mix around
6.) In a 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish put in sauteed onions and garlic evenly
7.) Place tomatoes over onions




8.) Put bread, cheese, and butter in a food processor and pulse until crumbly

9.) Put over tomatoes
10.) Bake for 20-25 minutes.
11.) Let stand for five and serve warm!








Omg, this was SO GOOD! I would TOTALLY eat tomatoes like this all the time. I don't know what it was. It was just...amazing. So simple. Fresh foods, ingredients that everyone has (unlike what Rachel Ray says people have in their kitchen) and you just bake it.

Let me know if you try this and how it came out for you! Because this is something I could seriously eat everyday.





ProTip: You don't need some garlic masher to mash or chop garlic. It's really quite simple.

Shell the garlic











Place the flat end of the knife over the garlic and with your fist slam down onto the knife. Since it's flat, it won't cut you. (But I am not responsible for your clumsiness)

And then, just go over it like you would chop anything else!

Bread!

Normally, I go up to Cleveland every other weekend. I go up to game. There are two games in Cleveland but due to my work schedule, unless I called off, requested off, or got someone to take my shift, I couldn't go to the Saturday game. Normally I would go up Saturday night and stay with Justin and hang out with a bunch of my friends at his place and we named the party "Afterdrank". Why "Afterdrank"? Because it's after the Saturday game and we drink. Why don't we call it "Afterdrink"? Because that sounds stupid of course!

Anyway. I don't normally bake on this weekend because I would have to think of something, like cookies, to make Saturday night that I would remember to bring up on Sunday morning. I've done that. Bring baked goods before. But because I generally travel after work to get up to Afterdrank, there just isn't any time.

Well, my character is in "time stop" that's where no one is allowed to interact with anyone else in the org until the scene is resolved. It was a mass combat (think a raid in WoW) and so now we have to deal with it.

Well, Justin hasn't been hosting Afterdrank because it's been "too hot" (pussies) and well I don't have a character to play up there - due to the time stop. So, I decided to what I do best to pass the time and that's make bread! Woo! I went shopping on Saturday for some basic stuff, that will last me a while and be pretty filling. My days are going to be filled with drinking water and carbs. My sister will hate it, but carbs are WAY cheaper than protein is - animal protein at least. Looks like I'll be looking at tofu recipes!

So anyway. One of the things that I don't normally buy, but can be handy for things, like casseroles, is bread.  I can also make sandwiches out of them. I also have a lot of ingredients to make bread as it is, and it's incredibly cheap.

I have a bread maker. It's awesome. I haven't used it since I moved into my place three years ago. So I decided to crack it out. And since I have nothing to do during the day, I thought I might do some blog posts about bread and all the different flavors that I will make.

All the recipes will be for a bread machine and so please, read your owner manual before following mine to make sure that the measurements are correct.

Here is the recipe:
3C Flour (they say bread flour I use all-purpose)
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Shortening
1 1/5 C Water
2 tsp Yeast*




I'm making a French bread. I don't like just plain white bread, and I'm an "artisinal" person myself. This is also a really simple recipe to just begin with. Most recipes will have this as the backbone.

Now, you add all the dry ingredients together. and you slowly pour in the water.

Make sure you press the right setting. There might also be a "Darkness" setting for your bread. I always choose the "darkest" on mine because it gets the crispier crust. You'll need to experiment when it comes to this.

Now, press start! And just leave it. Don't open your bread maker because that will just ruin things. Some recipes will call you to take out the bread after a certain time. If that is the case then please press "stop" or "off" or "clear". It's amazing what people just assume technology does.


So, lets discuss yeast! The yeast that I used was a "Fast Acting" yeast which means it's already been set up. My original recipe called for two more tablespoons of water, but this can be omitted when using this type of yeast. Also, if you are going to use this type of yeast instead of a "Dry yeast" then you'll need to subtract 25% of the yeast amount. The original called for 2 1/2 which would have left me with 1 7/8 tsp. Uh? What? No. I rounded up.


ProTip: Did you know that there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon? I know! So instead of using two measuring spoons, if you've got one of those 1/2 tablespoons laying around use that. It's awesome!

***Four Hours Later***

When your bread is done, it should look something like this:

However, remember when I said that I rounded up? Yeah... I should have rounded down. Like way down. To like 1 1/2 tsp. Because THIS is what happened.

It's okay! It's fixable. I simply cut off the top, turned the oven to 350 and popped it in for a few minutes. Get the top all nice and crunchy and we're ready to go! Bread really is one of the easiest things to make.

Does anyone remember the old Sesame Street or Square One bit where the chef makes a popover but instead of a teaspoon he uses a tablespoon and the thing comes out giant? Yeah. that's what this reminds me of.

Have any questions or tips you want to give me? Just reply and I'll do the best I can to answer!

The 80's Called. They Want Their Snack Food Back.

So every other Saturday night (Or Sunday morning), I make/bake something to take to game. (Every week I pretend to be a werewolf or a "kin" the non-werewolf members of the world. I'll explain later.) Generally it's baked goods. Cookies, cakes, pies, etc. I use it as a way to explore new ways of baking and my understanding of food. For isntance, if it's going to be 90* outside with a heat index of 105* you may want to put the blueberry pie in the freezer because any setting it may have done will be undone.

Last week, I made chex-mix. It owned. Completely and utterly. It owned because I made it the real way. Not with a microwave, but in the oven. It made my house almost unbearably hot but the results were worth it. I remember my mother in the wintertime making batches of these for...whatever and they were loaded with Worcestershire sauce and seasoned salt. You seasoned it each time you mixed the concoction on the cookie sheets.

Now, before I make anything, I like to research it. How easy is it, what are main themes within it, and how can I make it my own. What I discovered with this amazing world of technology is how practices that our parents and grandparents utilized are buried within the ideas that a company advertizes. I mean, I had to search various keywords to find the correct temperature for my oven for the chex-mix recipe. All because General Mills has decided that their way is the only way. I'm pretty sure that "their way" used to be with an oven at one point.

Most of my cooking is influenced by my mother and my grandmother. As is most people on this planet. And so, after making your mouth water for chex-mix, I will show you how I made "lil smokies"! Again, this is a recipe that I had to search for that wasn't influenced by corporate ingredients. It's quite easy and I put my own spin on it. (This is also my first attempt at including pictures)

First, you get a crock pot.





Second, you have your ingredients.







Third, you follow the recipe, which is as follows

1 14oz pack of little beef sausages (Store brands are just as good as "name" brands)
1C Ketchup
1C Bar-b-q Sauce
1C Brown Sugar

The sauces can be tailored to your tastes. For this batch I am using Honey Hickory Smoke BBQ sauce and Sweet Baby Ray's Vadalia Onion BBQ sauce. I recommend using 1 cup for the sauces as a guideline because that's a lot of sauce.

My final conversion was
3 14oz beef sausages
1C Ketchup
1C Honey Hickory Smoke BBQ Sauce
1C Sweet Vidalia Onion BBQ Sauce
1C Brown Sugar




As you can see, I am 2 cups short on ketchup and brown sugar and a cup short on BBQ sauce. I like sauce mind you. But I don't want my stuff drenched in it. And sauce is supposed to enhance flavors or add a small twist. Also, my crockpot isn't that big and I need to feed a lot of people.



Fourth, put all the ingredients in a crock pot and mix together. Pro Tip: Put in only some of the smokies (I used two packs) then put in the sauces and mix and then put the rest of the smokies in and stir again.





Fifth, turn it to low










Sixth, wait two hours and DON'T open it! Not even to stir!

My mom always said that if you open a crock pot before the dish is done cooking, you add a half an hour to the cooking time. I don't know if that's true or not... I have seen some other people say that too but it might have been a way to try and get us to NOT open it. The old "If you eat it now, you won't get any later" type of a deal.




And that's it! Pretty simple, huh? This took me, no joke, FIVE MINUTES to do. My alarm went off at 9am, I snoozed until 9:10, got down at 9:13, and put everything together. Including the pictures!

Now the dish will be done just before 11:30 and that's when I have to leave... so I get to transport it and hook it back up! But with crock pot dishes I think it's always a good idea to have it cooked fully or mostly before transport because then when you hook it up it's just a matter of keeping everything warm.

For those of you who are wanting the chex mix recipe here's what I do. Follow the recipe but turn the oven to 250, melt butter in a roasting pan, have several bowls (depending on how many batches you are going to make) mix in the butter, then sprinkle liberally with the onion and garlic powder, seasoned salt, and Worcestershire sauce. Lay out on a cookie sheet, sprinkle salt and sauce again, and bake for one hour. Every 15-20 minutes stir the mix and sprinkle more seasoned salt and worcestershire sauce. Of course you don't have to keep loading it up with sodium, but that's how my mom made it and that's how I'm going to make it. :)