And More Food

Roasted tomatoes give lackluster tomatoes a chance to live up to their full potential. A basket of cherry tomatoes followed me home, which usually happens after a trip to Monterey Market. These tomatoes, from Fully Belly Farm, were a little watered down, probably due to the unusually cool summer we're experiencing here.


I have a fear that my two tomato plants are going to produce lackluster tomatoes because the fog is ever present this summer. At least those tomatoes can be saved with some slow and low heat (250 °F), a sprinkling of salt and pepper, dried oregano, and some olive oil. I like to throw garlic cloves, skin on, into the mix since roasted garlic is better than candy.


I take the tomatoes out of the oven after 3 hours. If you don't snack on all of them, you can use these for a simple angel hair pasta dish with basil and Parmesan cheese.



Usually, the oven stays idle during the summer, but it's cold here! I even roasted strawberries tossed with a dash of balsamic vinegar and a scant amount of sugar. They went really well with pork chops.

Cool weather also means that I get a hankering for spicy food. I just nabbed a copy of Fushia Dunlop's Land of Plenty, which brought back memories of my bike tour in Chengdu. Sichuan food is so different than the Cantonese food I cut my teeth on, so having Dunlop's help to demystify the techniques and spices has made for fun bonding time with my wok. The kung pao chicken recipe is worth the price of the book!

Refrigerator pickles are also happening in these parts. I made a huge batch of Vietnamese style daikon pickles, which is nothing more than a rice vinegar and sugar marinade. Salting the matchsticked daikon and letting it drain for at least 2 hours made the resulting pickles nice and crisp.

Nothing interesting is on the needles or the hook. I'm having to dig deep to finish up a super secret knitting project because reading and cooking are my preferred "I just to need to relax" projects.

Hopefully, I'll have news of ripened tomatoes the next time I blog.