Sauce & Snack from the Filipino American cookbook: Tomato-curry Refrito and Adobo Pecans

Looking for a hero to add depth and zip to your meal? Enter a good sauce that compliments just about anything and is wonderful to use throughout the week. Jennifer Arana's gorgeous and inspiring cookbook contains a tomato curry refrito recipe to spoon over fish or chicken. That's just a start, let your heart decide how you want to use it! Mine said to try pairing this with some brown lentils to make a vegetarian dish-I added that to some quinoa-corn pasta for a filling lunch this week and also tried eating it with corn tortillas and avocado for breakfast.

I love when I decide to cook two or more dishes in one go and the oven temperature is the same so I can save time!

While there is the thrill of a treasure hunt going to an ethnic market for new ingredients, we all have weeks that spending a leisurely trip to the market isn't an option. Jennifer's tomato refrito and adobo pecan recipes are such that you might not need to even hit an Asian market for as they call for fairly common pantry items!

Tomato-curry Refrito

2 pints of cherry tomato (575 g), rinsed and stems removed
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp yellow curry
1 green onion, finely diced
1 tsp minced fresh ginger (I didn't bother peeling off the outer skin)

Roast in a covered pan in the oven at 325 F for 1 hour until the tomatoes collapse and release their juices. Let cool before storing in the fridge.

To do a single serving of my suggested meal, I found 1/2 cup cooked lentils and 2 oz (Uncooked weight) pasta to be just right, with 2-3 spoonfuls of the refrito. Enjoy with a vegetable side of your choosing! (I went with my Ecuadorian cookbook boiled beet, potato, green beans salad with lime juice, olive oil salt and pepper).

Adobo Pecans

A little sweet and savory snack to liven up your mid-morning or afternoon slump.

Only made minor modifications made to make it soy free, avoid using refined sugar

2 cups pecans
4 tsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
coconut sugar
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp of lime juice (in place of calamansi juice)

Mix ingredients in a bowl until pecans are coated evenly.

Spread out in a single layer on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Try not to have any touching each other.

Bake 20 minutes at 325 F. Remove from oven and let cool 20 minutes before storing in an airtight container.

The Cookbook-Inspiring and Substitutions

The cookbook does offer recipes for all courses, explains the traditional dish and any changes the chef made (to call it her own or because of traditional ingredient sourcing), and happily some vegetarian options (a couple examples are, a mushroom-tofu dish and instead of chicken porridge it can be mushroom), but many dishes call for shrimp paste. Vegan Livejournal forum notes that shrimp paste often isn't meant to impart a seafood flavor to a dish but to add savory depth. One of the posters said that veggie bouillon, water and kelp made them a fine substitute (that suggestion would likely be soy and gluten free if you check the veggie bouillon ingredients!) If I give this a shot, I will report back.

The corn and coconut soup is calling my name despite 80 degree weather and 78% humidity. Just need to go find canned strips of coconut (buko) and pick up cilantro. I would certainly consider owning this cookbook, considering how much I wanted to just rush out to the market to find ingredients.

Food question: What is your go to sauce or seasoning blend? Non-food question: What has peaked your interest this week?

Vegetarian Summer Series #6: Spiced Cucumbers with Coco-nutty Sweetness

Not as much prep space as I used to have (an island) but there is still more on either side of the stove. I like being able to see into the living room.

I broke in the kitchen this past week making tons of salads and spicy noodle soup to combat my summer cold. I even tried baking some pumpkin-oatmeal muffins (they were ok, maybe the type of oats I used). Happily, I hung up some pictures over the weekend, got the shoes out of the garbage bag and into the rack and placed a few boxes into the laundry closet. Decided I would finally try organizing my bookshelves by color. I see it in the decorating magazines so much. Hopefully I remember what color the books are when I look for them!

Taste that rainbow :) 

Our front porch has its welcome mat and plants wave howdy. We'll see how they do with less sun. The tomato plant gave me just enough to make dinner Sunday night. What else inspired my dinner? Over the previous weekend we went to celebrate with Dave's nieces for their birthdays-they twirled and frolicked in the white "princess" dresses. So cute, creative with their playing and always energetic. But as soon as we got there, no time to kick it with the kids, we got put to work making mashed potatoes while his sister went to the store for the cake. The man of the house was out of sight, prepping one of the 5 dishes he was going to be making that day. He eventually emerged briefly with handing one of the girls and I supplies to cover the tables in pink. And then I was also told I could pick some extra tomatoes, cucumber and peppers from their family's garden as they weren't going to be able to eat them all. With cucumber from the party and wee guy from my box I thought I had better get crackin'. Pickles alone aren't going to cut it.

The CSA list provided a Spiced Cucumbers with Coconut Milk recipe from Bon Appetit. How perfect! And it's a cooked cuke recipe...I really liked the sauteed cucumber with black bean sauce and fish that my co-worker (Mr. Tony!) turned me onto so this recipe made me very hopeful.

INGREDIENTS

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cups 1/4 inch thick of cucumber peeled (although I left the peel on mine no issues)
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 small tomatoes, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped (left seeds in and had no problems)
4 scallions, thinly sliced (I used about 1/2 cup of spring bunching onion tops instead)
2 red Thai chiles (with seeds), thinly sliced (or other hot peppers)*
1 garlic clove, smashed*
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk ( I used vanilla coconut milk and just omitted honey below)
1.5 tsp honey
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves*

*I substituted my leftover 2tbsp of Cilantro Chutney from earlier in the week.

STEPS

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add cucumber. Saute until beginning to soften, about 1 minute. Season with the kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

2. Add tomatoes, scallions, chiles and garlic. Saute until vegetables are soft, 2-3 minutes.

3. Add coconut milk and honey; simmer until vegetables are cooked through 2-3 minutes. Stir in cilantro leaves and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired

4. Suggestion to serve with rice or something to soak up the delicious sauce!

It filled the kitchen with the slightly sweet coco-nutty scent. Mmmmm. It tasted so nice and clean too. I'd love to throw in some chickpeas to give it some protein next time and make it a vegetarian main. For Sunday, I ate it as a side with my leftover taco-seasoned chicken. Monday at lunch it was with half cup of quinoa and 2 hard boiled egg whites.

Have you re-organized something lately? 

ROUND UP OF CUCUMBER RECIPES:
Cucumber-rice flour pancakes 
Mystery Ginormica Squash Gratin 
In the Savory Salad of Spunky Grapefruit Dressing 
Cantalope-Cucumber-Carrot Juice
Cucumber-Melon Salad
Add into the Seaweed Salad

Vegetarian Summer Series #4: 6 ingredient Hijiki (seaweed) and sprouted mung bean salad

The damp, warm weather persists. The heating and cooling at work is STILL on the mend (have a fix-it ticket in). Downing coconut ice cream, red bean popsicles or Naked juice popsicles every day after work to feel refreshed. So the salad and/or minimal cooking recipes continue! Give sprouting a try, it's not as crazy/weird as I thought and once it soaks and drains, it just sits and grows on its own! No babysitting-don't need to shake/stir, check water levels or anything.

This post is for Ann since she says she feels lost going to an Asian market (I still don't know what most things are at the market, but if its label translated in English sometimes, I may just buy it and look up a recipe when I get home...like the agar agar still sitting for the last 3+ months)

I threw together some panty ingredients to make a very easy salad. For planning ahead, you need half an hour to soak the dried hijiki seaweed. I picked this up at a local Japanese market. There are three in the Convoy area of San Diego, Marukai, Mitsuwa and Nijiya-

• Be a Marukai member for $10 per year to get things on sale or $1 per shopping trip to get the sale prices and get a fun monthly sales leaflet that gives the history of Japanese foods/drinks.
• Marukai carries free range Shelton's chicken and free range eggs. I think the other meat may be all natural.
•  Marukai also has it two stores in the same plaza-one sells home goods and Hawaiian products, and the other one has $1.50 items.  
• Nijiya has a lot of organic options and I found some awesome black tea flavored with banana--possibly not natural but yummy.

Speaking of Japanese places, I finally tried Niban, just off the 805 freeway and Clairemont Mesa, in the Wal-mart shopping center. It's a order at the register, then sit place. With tip, dinner was only $8. I gave the vegetarian sukiyaki a try and it was a very generous portion -it did come with rice (which texture could have been better, a bit mushy) and had a nice flavor, also included miso soup and a salad--am sure this doesn't fit gluten free diets nor soy free though due to soy sauce, miso and tofu. I make my occasional exceptions since my sensitivities are not so extreme.

You also need 2-3 days if you are sprouting your own beans (grab a soup pot with a lid, a tea towel and do as described for red lentils last week). Short on time? Pick up sprouted legumes at the health food store or I'm sure the  more fully developed mung bean sprouts you can pick up at any grocery store would also work (those white ones you throw in stir fried or sukiyaki or they come with pad thai! Yeah you know, they must be used in about 3 days or they get limp. I don't really have storage tips other than don't rinse until right before you need them and cook them panfried or in a soup if you can't use them raw after 3 days)

Salad:

The seaweed is already in nice small pieces.

1.3 oz of dried hijiki-yields about 1 cup of plump seaweed after soaking half an hour
3/4 cup of dried mung beans (un-sprouted): which yields about 2 cups sprouted

Dressing:
2 tbsp Braggs Amino (or soy sauce or coconut aminos, whatever suits your diet, more or less to taste)
1 tsp honey (or other sweetener)
1tbsp sesame oil
ground pepper to taste

1. After draining the hijiki, toss it with the sprouted mung beans and dressing.

2. Can chill for best taste. Eat, savoring the crunch and slight sweetness of mung beans and savory,slick seaweed.

Idea: add some chopped cucumber for additional crunchiness.

Do you have any new favorite apps? I have an Android phone started using Ibotta a month ago and finally made my first coupon purchase of Silk coconut milk.

Vegetarian Summer Series Post #2 : Quick Cucumber-Melon Salad Dashed with Cumin

Happy to report that I had my first swap party this weekend! An idea which was probably found in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine that I clipped out over 3 years ago. Because we have to move next month, I was more inspired to get the event planned. Each person was to bring up to 10 items to swap. Whatever no one wanted is going to Goodwill this Friday (or in the case of Redneck Life board game..."whoever has the most teeth left at the end wins!" in a White Elephant stash).  Some of my items found new loving homes for a framed photograph I mistakenly purchased when we first moved to this house and books I finished reading (Memory Keeper's Daughter, Zookeeper's Wife, Little Altars Everywhere, While I'm Falling). Amy's puppers had a good time playing with the plush dinosaur tail that everyone tried on. I wish I had taken a photo. People tried out yoga poses from my 608 Asanas book but some were more fixated on the man's tiny shorts.

This weekend also brought me satisfaction that I got the chance to cook a meal for people who came out to swap. We had inari (fried tofu) sushi, cucumber-melon salad, and arugula and radish sprout salad with heirloom tomatoes. Also made some fancy-foo-foo water by sticking lemon verbena leaves and strawberry slices.  

Not photogenic!

CUCUMBER & MELON Salad Dashed with Cumin
Adapted from Rawmazing Jicama and Melon Salad

 
Dressing

• 1/2 cup walnuts (soft nuts don't need to be soaked overnight)
• 1 medium cucumber,  cubed
• 1 clove garlic
• Juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1 tbsp juice)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• Himalayan salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

Salad

• 3 cups melon cubed (I used one not as sweet)
• 1/2 cup onions cut thin and roasted (450 F for about 25 minutes, with 1 tsp olive oil)
• 1-2 tablespoons red pepper flakes (optional)
• 2 cups steamed green beans (1" pieces, cooked about 5 minutes)
• dressing from above

1. Place all ingredients in bowl and toss to combine. 

What kind of parties do you have coming up?

Summer Sniffles-Remedies & Chipotle Vegetarian Chili

The dreaded summer cold has found me. Snuffling around, building sinus pressure and having my normal "Daria" voice drop to an even lower pitch makes me slow down and take care. Things that make me feel better:

1. Light exercise-Consider what kind of symptoms are present. With symptoms limited to the neck and above and without fever, I have the energy to still move about this time. Monday at the gym was wearing work out gloves, not coughing or sneezing so hopefully did not spread any germs (at the time I thought it could be allergies and wanted to motivate my friend to go this week).  I'll use sanitary spray now that symptoms have been lingering. Tuesday, I found some gentle yoga poses here that felt nice. Wednesday was resting. Thursday just breaking a sweat doing an easy jog in the cooler evening seemed to help my nasal congestion. No pressure to push it.

2. Wellness Formula-Shades swears by it. And so do I. He got it from a holistic minded practitioner. If you get take it early enough it can prevent. But otherwise, seems to reduce the severity. They have it on bodybuilding.com or if you need it right away, their website lists stores who carry it . In San Diego I have got it at Sprouts and Whole Foods before. A little pricey taking 3 tablets every 3 hours when sick but I think feeling 10x better is worth it. They are horse pills so get a big glass o' water!

3. Restful activities-an obvious treatment but I still know a lot of people who just plow on through pretending like their body isn't crying for rest. I like being propped up with pillows of all sizes on the couch for reading (a touch of practical, some for fun like Game of Thrones or Dead Beat about obituary readers and writers, some for inspiration like Food Truck cookbook/stories), cracking up over Project Runway, and going to bed early.

4. I know you want the edibles. My buddy Karin recommended a hot drink (ingredients pictured) to stave off a cold and/or its symptoms. I like to put it in my favorite pretty big mugs. Pretty things for when you're not feeling pretty inside.

5. Apparently heating foods like onion and garlic are good for when you are sick. I heard this taking a series of yoga weekend workshops this year. Supposed to be part of ayurvedic medicine. So the thought is to use less of them when you are healthy and use it to help your body fight. I would like to learn more about Ayurveda. I hear it often around yogis but embarrassingly don't know much except each person has a dominant element or type of energy..something like that. I bet the yoga studio I attend has a good book, but can anyone have experience or on the contrary does anyone poo-poo this?

6.  Spicy foods-I like making the Korean instant spicy soups (another recommendation from Karin back in the college days) to numb itchy or sore throats, but to be honest I cannot tell what is in the "kimchi powder"-it could be ingredients I am not supposed to have. So I made an adapted vegetarian version of Rachel Ray's turkey chipotle stoup (stew/soup) with bountiful summer peppers and canned chipotle. On my ALCAT results I am not supposed to have chili powder, chipotle or paprika...but I have not started yet. Getting used to dairy and soy. I think it's easier to let go/reduce of a few things at a time, while I finish off the perishable no-no items before starting the detox anyway.

Chipotle Vegetarian Chili

This recipe can turn into a weekend (aka time intensive) if you don't use short cuts. You may need to plan ahead. You could do chopping, the stock and beans on a leisurely day and make the rest on a busy though-it cooks together in under 20 minutes. It makes about 4 servings.

3 cups home-made or store bought veggie stock
1 cup dried kidney beans-soaked overnight, then cooked (~1 hour) or about 2 cups canned kidney beans rinsed
1/2 cup diced red onions
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp olive oil
2 canned chipotles, chopped finely
2 cups chopped sweet peppers
1 cup chopped tomato
pinch of smoked (or regular) salt (to taste)-got mine at Little Italy's Saturday market. (my friend Jeff says it's easy to make, but my little test tube has lasted a couple years so I haven't got around to trying)

1. Heat a pot that can hold at least 5 cups of liquid on medium-high. Add the olive oil allowing to heat up for a couple minutes. Then add onion, garlic, chili powder and chipotles to cook about 5 minutes.

2. Add your stock, tomatoes and beans. Bring to boil and then  reduce heat. Simmer 10 minutes.

3. Slurp and sooth your throat with this fiery concoction.

What are your best activities or consumables for when you're under the weather?

What to do with tomatillos?

Caring for an unfamiliar produce

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 ?