Food Preservation with the Daring Cooks

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

I started this month thinking that I'd make the recipe John gave us for Oven Roasted Tomatoes. Just halved or thirded tomatoes, sprinkled with salt, olive oil, minced garlic and basil (which I skipped because I was out of it). Slowly roasted at a low temp. They were fabulous, and although I had intended on preserving them, in the spirit of the challenge (freezing), they were so good, I ate a third of them before they'd finished cooling, and then used the rest in a pasta sauce for dinner that night.

While that would have fulfilled the challenge technically, I decided I could do a bit better.

I was looking at the recipe given for Apple Butter, thinking it would be great in the slow cooker, when I came home with a discounted 1kg tub of strawberries. Bingo. This was the easiest thing in the world to make. I halved or quartered what was left of the strawberries, after the kids had some for afternoon tea, and in their lunchboxes - it came to 5 cups of pieces.

Then I put them in the crockpot and cooked them on slow for 19 hours, mashing after 3 hours, and stirring occasionally.

It could have definitely done with a shorter cooking time, as parts of it did scorch a little, and made the overall product a little bitter, but it wasn't yet done when I went to bed after 11 hours cooking, so I had to make do. Quite possibly I'd have had better results if I'd pureed the strawberries first. Ah well, live and learn. May be I should try with apples....

Prosciutto Tomatoes

For the times you really want maximum impact, both with flavour and impact, for minimum effort, you need to give these a go. Something I made up just over seven years ago, to impress a certain someone who I met at university. It must have made an impression, because last week we celebrated our seventh anniversary, and this is part of what I cooked for that dinner.

It's really such a simple thing to do. Cut a tomato into wedges, usually 6 - 8, depending on the size of your tomatoes. Wrap each wedge in a slice of prosciutto. The slices I get from the deli usually are long enough to cut in half and use for two wedges - a bonus when you are paying $50 a kilo for what is essentially just fancy pants bacon.

You can secure the prosciutto strips with toothpicks, threaded through along the spine of the wedge, or just let them sit with the loose end sitting tucked under. If you fry the tucked under side first, it should hold if you are careful with it.

Fry until the bacon is crispy and hard, about the time it takes to colour up. The best thing about prosciutto is that you don't have to cook it for very long to get a wonderfully hard crunchy bacon slice.

There you go. Great for company, and $7 worth of bacon will do 3-4 tomatoes, which is enough for around 6 people. Less than $2 a serve if you grow your own tomatoes. I don't yet, but I hope to have some plants in place for this summer! Mmmm... this would be a perfect way to show off just picked tomatoes. *drools and wanders off dreaming...*

Summer Sauce for pasta

This is the only one of three recipes from this fortnight's Cooks Club Challenge that I'll be doing. The others are Pork in Caper sauce and Rice balls. I don't like capers, and DP doesn't eat rice. I've always wanted to try the rice balls stuffed with mozzarella, but it seems like a lot of work, especially when I have to cook a seperate meal for DP on top of it, so that won't be happening this time around. However, this make ahead pasta sauce is perfect for the hot days we've been having lately.

Summer Sauce (taken from the Taste.com.au forums)

The key to this lovely fresh sauce is really ripe tomatoes – vine ripened are best, or better still home grown.

Ingredients
500g firm ripe tomatoes
1 onion (I use a red onion)
6 green olives
1 Tablespoon capers
½ teaspoon dried oregano (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley (I like to use a combination of parsley & fresh basil)
2 cloves of garlic
½ cup good quality olive oil – you can use light or extra virgin it’s up to you, I prefer extra virgin
Fresh ground black pepper (optional)
Splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)

Chop unpeeled tomatoes finely; peel and chop onion; stone and chop olives; chop capers finely, crush garlic. Combine ingredients, add herbs and olive oil and mix well. Grind in some pepper and splash with balsamic (if using) Cover and stand for at least 6 hours or overnight. I made mine the night before and put in fridge, but returned to room temp 2 hours before serving.

Toss through hot pasta (I like fettuccini) and top with shaved parmesan cheese.

I skipped the olives and capers, and used a mixture of basil and parsley as suggested. Instead of the oregano and 1/3 cup regular olive oil, I used 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil infused with rosemary. I served with spaghetti, but no parmesan.

Mince, Tomato & Onions with Mashed Spuds

You'd be suprised how delicious this simple meal really is. I had it fairly regularly growing up, in fact I remember one time my parents were out, and it was just the three youngest children at home. My sister and brother are 11 and 9 years older than me, respectively, and my brother decided he would cook this dish for us. I think he might have been about 17 or so? Anyway, he started out with Mum's big square Sunbeam electric frypan full of mince and tomatoes and onions, but by the time it reached the table it was only a quarter full. Now, sure, you could blame it on the natural shrinkage of the tomatoes as they cooked, but it turned out my brother was seasoning as he went along. Of course, every time he adjusted the seasoning, he had to taste it again didn't he? My sister and I didn't get much dinner that night, but for some reason my brother didn't mind the small serving...

Mince, Tomato & Onions
500g mince
1-2 onions, diced
4-5 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
mashed potatoes to serve

Fry onions until just starting to turn translucent. Add mince and brown. Add tomatoes. Fry until tomatoes are almost starting to break down, or until your mashed potatoes are ready. Don't let them get too mushy, this is not a ragu, and you aren't making pasta sauce here.

See? Not mushy.

You can of course season this to taste, but learn from my brother's example and wait until the end to do so. Not only is it very hard to stop eating this once you have started, every addition of salt will draw more water from the tomatoes, making it effectively less tasty. But don't go overboard with your seasoning, a little salt, a bit of freshly ground pepper is all it really needs. All your favourite Mediterranean herbs and mixes will taste nice with this of course, but the essence of this dish is how the three ingredients create so much flavour with so little. Especially if it is Summer, as you in the Northern hemisphere have now, with the fresh garden ripe tomatoes that must be in abundance. I had to go with canned, as the hard, white-inside, imported tomatoes available at the supermarket as staple winter fare here didn't tempt me. But you guys have no excuse.

The Simple things...

Sometimes it's the simple things in life that are the best. A child's smile or laughter, sunlight glinting off water, a single flower at the height of its bloom, all these things have just as much power to please as a well executed move on an expensive games console, or any of today's other modern 'necessities'. Food can be like that too. Sure, there's a lot of satisfaction to be gained from accomplishing a huge ten course dinner for twenty of your closest friends, or sucessfully making a complex dish you've never tried before. But when it comes to eating, nothing really tops the beauty of a few simple, top quality ingredients thrown together very simply with no fuss. That's what I had for lunch today.

Fresh home grown tomatoes

My mother dropped by yesterday and gave this bag of tomatoes freshly picked from her garden. I'd already taken about six out of the bag by the time I took this photo. I'd made fresh bread this morning, so I cut myself a nice thick slice, and laid those tomatoes down in neat little slices.

Tomatoes on fresh bread

Really, all this need was a tiny grind of some sea salt, and to be eaten as is, but I was hankering for something warm, and couldn't resist gilding the lily a little. Besides, I knew I was only going to aggravate my heartburn with all that acidic tomato so I thought I better get the full treatment while I could. (Incidentally, the heartburn last night was more likely from the choc buns than the sausage since I had a toasted bun this morning for breakfast (yes, they do toast well) and my heartburn was back within half an hour. And now I've been fighting it all day, which is not good, because I'm about to run out of peppermints and milk, and can't go and buy any more till tomorrow. *growls* I don't see why the whole nation should get a day off for a Catholic holiday. Most of the folk around here are Hindu anyway. I guess they didn't take Diwali off...but anyway I digress.)

Grilled tomato & cheese sammich

So I threw on a couple of slices of cheese, and whacked the lot under the griller for a few minutes - perfect! I sliced it in half before remembering to take a photo, so it's a little messy, but I assure you it was no less delicious because of that.