Showdown With the Dreaded Raw Tomato

Raw Tomato Sauce - pg. 265

I love tomatoes. When they are cooked. I love tomato sauce in all its many forms. I love ketchup. I love stewed tomatoes. You name it. Cook a tomato and I love it. Raw tomatoes? Well, that's another story altogether. My mother loved raw tomatoes. My husband loves raw tomatoes. Everyone I know pops raw cherry tomatoes into their mouths like candy. Me? I hate raw tomatoes. I can get them down. Occasionally. But not often and not because I like them. I'll make a face every time. I can't help it.

Do not put raw tomato slices on my burger, my sandwich or my salad. Spare me the cherry tomatoes on the crudite platter. There isn't enough salad dressing and vegetable dip on the planet to drown them. I don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. I don't like the texture of raw tomatoes. In other words, I do not like raw tomatoes.

I have struggled for years, decades even, to learn to like raw tomatoes. Nearly every summer, when we're awash in a sea of garden-ripe gifted tomatoes, I choke a few down in hopes that some divine intervention will occur in my taste buds. No such luck. Ever. Me? I take all those red orbs and turn them into cooked tomato sauce. Look, I even have to steel myself to peel and seed them. It's almost stomach turning. That's how much I hate raw tomatoes.

So there it is on page 265 of TAOSF. My nemesis. My ultimate culinary challenge. Because the things I'm cooking I'm going to have to eat. Page 265, on the left side of the page. Raw Tomato Sauce. WTF??? Why would anyone ever consider dumping chopped up raw tomatoes on top of perfectly good freshly cooked pasta? This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Two pounds of raw tomatoes. Skinned, seeded and whacked up into bits. Add torn (not chopped) basil leaves and plenty of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a shot of Pepper Plant sauce. Cover tightly (why??? will it produce air pollution???) and leave it alone for at least an hour. Boil the best pasta in the pantry. Put the oh-lord-help-me RAW tomato sauce over the pasta, hide it all underneath a huge mound of freshly grated Parmesan and, saints preserve me, eat it. Chase back with plenty of toasted crostini dripping with olive oil.

I made it. I ate it. Raw tomato sauce. It wasn't bad. Not my favorite dish. But, I'd make it again and eat it again. Obviously I agree with Alice that this is a dish for that time of year when tomatoes are at their very best. These were from a friend's garden, so I knew they would be as good as tomatoes ever get. Whatever that is. Randy liked it. There is easily enough sauce for another meal. Oh sigh. Well, whatever. It's done. Another major hurdle cleared.

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings. Swallow a whole frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse can possibly happen to you for the rest of the day. I have eaten my TAOSF frog.

81 recipes down; 224 to go

Caponata!

Caponata - pg. 304

Alice continues to change my mind about various veggies. I made caponata (you could call it eggplant and tomato stew) to take along to dinner at friends last night. Really good stuff! Friends sent us home with a lot of tomatoes. Yeah! I just made some tomato sauce and now I can make more since I used a lot of the last batch in the caponata. However... I now also have zucchini and yellow summer squash coming out my ears. Ooooph. Can Alice change my attitude toward zucchini? Good luck Alice!

80 recipes completed - a mere 225 recipes yet to make

Ratatouille The Alice Waters Way

Ratatouille - pg. 322

While out with our friends Tom and Marie recently, we planned (or rather Tom planned, since he's that kind of guy) a neighborhood bbq for this afternoon. There are 3 of us couples in the neighborhood who are friends and foodies all. Tom has quite a vegetable garden. I told him that if he'd provide the veggies, I'd make a batch of ratatouille. Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food ratatouille, of course.

Today was the day. I walked over to Tom and Marie's house this morning to get veggies directly from Tom's garden: eggplant, summer squash, and tomatoes. I supplied the sweet peppers, onions, and basil from Trader Joe's.

I've made relatively traditional ratatouille in the past, although it's been a very long time. Alice's approach is different in that she cuts everything into 1/2" dice, cooks the veggies more or less separately, adds a good bit of basil, and then mixes everything together. Since I was making a double batch to feed 9 people with plenty of leftovers, I appreciated this approach. I cut up stuff for an hour, if not more. Then cooked everything (except the tomatoes) separately in a deep 12" skillet, adding the basil bouquet, garlic, salt and crushed chili to the onion and pepper mix. When everything was cooked (except the tomatoes), I mixed it all together and just let the whole thing simmer while I took a shower and got dressed. By then, the tomatoes were well heated through, but not really cooked. Seasoning was adjusted by adding salt, pepper, and our favorite Pepper Plant Sauce (a local product).

I turned the whole thing into a covered cast iron casserole so it stayed warm all the way until dinner time. While I am not a big fan of these summer vegetables, I must admit that this ratatouille was fabulous. I ate a lot of it. There was plenty for everyone who wanted some to take it home with tons left for us. I know from past experience that ratatouille only improves with age so I'm looking forward to leftovers for several days to come. I was delighted with how the different vegetables all retained their own textures and flavors, even having been cut into such small pieces. Ratatouille can easily turn to mush, especially the eggplant. I used Tom's Japanese eggplant which probably helped. And the tomatoes were ripe but still firm.

Now. What the heck do I do with all the excess crook neck yellow squash, tomatoes, hot peppers and Japanese eggplant I still have? Tom sent me home with too much bounty from the garden. Sigh. What a horrible problem to have. (ROFLOL)

79 down - a mere 226 to go

A Triple Play!

Grilled Steak - pg. 153

Cucumber Yogurt Sauce - pg. 232

Grilled Eggplant - pg. 304

A night for experimentation. I've never gotten into grilling outdoors. I think it's a pain. But in the summer, every other recipe you encounter is for grilled something or other. Well, sometime in the not too distant past we got one of those ribbed grill pans to try out for stove-top grilling. It's just a cheap one, but good enough for experiments.

I gave it a whirl tonight, grilling 2 very nice flatiron skirt steaks and some eggplant. The results were pretty good. I may go ahead and invest in a better grill pan now, one of those nice cast iron Lodge numbers, I think. The el-cheapo pan doesn't stand up all that well to the heat required for proper grilling.

With the last dregs of some yogurt and the end of a cucumber I made some cucumber yogurt sauce for the eggplant, but it worked just as well on the steak. With a little garlic pounded in my smaller mortar-and-pestle, and a hefty pinch of cayenne. Even without the required fresh mint, it was pretty yummy.

Otherwise, I recently saw Tilda Swinton in "I Am Love." Visually beautiful if otherwise a bit strange. But what the heck, it was Tilda Swinton. I think she's amazing.

bottom line?

78 down and 227 to go

Corn on the Cob

Corn on the Cob - pg. 301

I know. I know. It's been way too long. Facebook. Blame it all on Facebook. I suppose that's a story for another time. Or, just check out my page there and be done with it.

Believe it or not, Alice has a "recipe", directions really, for Corn on the Cob. Good grief. Even I know how to cook corn on the cob. Even I have done this multiple times in the past. Anyway, we got a couple ears at Saturday farmers market. Randy made pesto and pasta tonight. I "made" corn on the cob.

75 down; 230 to go