The small green tomato-looking orbs wrapped in papery brown husks came in my CSA box last week. A friend of a friend had made salsa for tortilla chips once, but that was all I knew of tomatillos.
My first question about new produce, "how do I store them?" I had no idea until I started buying food at farmer's market that some produce deserves better than just being thrown into the fridge drawers. Tomatoes should never go in the fridge (they get mushy) and some leafy herbs do best if you keep them in a cup of water in the fridge or wrapped loosely with a damp paper towel. After seeing mixed reviews with trusty Googling the answer about tomatillos, I decided to just go with the leaving them loosely on the counter. They fared fine in San Diego humidity (80-ish degrees when no one is home) for about 2 weeks.
Next was "what am I supposed to do with these guys?" I found out they have a refreshing tangy flavor-in the two recipes I tested (not dairy free but may be adaptable once I do some experimenting), they get cooked in some way before consumption.
Tomatillo Recipe #1 (untested possible adaptation for non-dairy, naturally no soy!): I Googled "tomatillo mac n' cheese" as I have bleu cheese I am desperately trying to mow through so I can start my detox. Last time I ever ask Shades to pick me up a bag of cheese at Smart & Final (or as my sis fondly calls Fart n' Smile). I've been working on this cheese since spring time -it's been residing in the freezer and I think it has been breeding. Hoping I can experiment and try to vegan-ize the recipe with nutritional yeast and perhaps some toasted nuts in place of dairy-stay tuned in! Here is the original recipe at What's Cookin'
The substitutes I made were 1) 1 cup of bleu cheese and 1 cup Mexican blend cheese shredded and 2) used olive oil for half the butter. 3) I left off the tortilla chips and green chiles and instead put in probably half a cup of chopped hot assorted peppers, seeds in (depends on how hot you like it). 4) I used cornstarch in place of flour to make it gluten free. 5) Also because it's summer, I didn't want the oven on so I didn't do the baking step. I had one serving with chicken and one vegetarian. Either way delicious! It yielded about 4 servings.
Tomatillo Recipe #2 (untested possible adaptation for non-dairy, naturally no soy)
Adaptation of Sunset Magazine's Tomatillo Salsa for Halibut
Thanks for the recipe, my Lisa!
Modifications made for tomatillo salsa: 1) still used butter but imagine for dairy free I could just use an equivalent amount of oil. 2) used mint instead of cilantro-worked well for cucumber pancakes but a little fun-kay with chicken taquitos. 3) fresh lemon juice instead of lime 4) used greek yogurt for the sour cream (to make this dairy free eventually, I am hoping to try making a nut-based "sour cream" that I have seen on some blogs, but I need a food processor)
Served the tomatillo salsa with Cucumber pancakes (dairy-free, soy-free) from One Hot Stove's blog. They are so quick and easy-ready within the half hour! They remind me of zucchini pancakes that my mom only used to make for dinner whenever my dad was on a business trip ("breakfast is eaten for breakfast" must have been how daddy-o felt). She'd have me and my sister help grate up the squash and then we mixed it with Bisquick while she fried up some sausage links.
Since the recipe called for 2 large cucumbers, I just estimated 1.5 cups of grated cucumber would be sufficient and did half white rice flour and half brown rice flour. I got the white rice flour from Fresh & Easy and brown rice flour likely came from Sprouts, Whole Foods or Jimbo's (go SD for healthy store options).
See, I think I made my batter too thick as I had to use the ladle to spread it and it only yielded 3 pancakes instead of the 5-6 it was supposed to make.
So next time, I will add more water and perhaps grate more cucumber so it doesn't get too thick to turn and fall apart like my second cake did. That's right, I cook just for myself so many times I don't have beautiful presentation...what is the opposite of food porn?
What kinds of foods do you enjoy eating outside of their traditional meal times ?
Would the opposite of food porn be food austerity? There was a tomatillo soup recipe I was intrigued by, but I can't find it now. I'm not certain if it was soup too, lol. Maybe it was http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/chilled-avocado-tomatillo-and-cucumber-soup/
ReplyDeleteI like American/European breakfast foods (cereal, eggs, toast, pancakes, muffins) any time except during breakfast time. I prefer Chinese breakfast (congee or its American counterpart of oatmeal) or leftovers from the previous night's dinner.