tomatoes in winter: who knew?

I can probably count on one hand the number of tomatoes I buy in the months between November and June. They just aren’t that good! And when tomatoes aren’t good, they REALLY aren’t good.

However, I ran across this slow-roasted tomato recipe in November’s Cooking Light and became immediately intrigued. I’d heard of roasting tomatoes before, and I’d roasted cherry tomatoes with green onions in the summertime (excellent, by the way), but never regular tomatoes.

I decided to half the recipe and pair it with meatloaf bolognese the other night, and Andrew was blown away by both!

You must make these immediately. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough. Less than five minutes of prep, seven (yes, 7) hours in a 200 degree oven and wha-lah! Beautiful, sweet, juicy roasted tomatoes that are an excellent side dish, or an amazing tomato sauce after a few seconds in a blender. In fact, that’s up next: (more) homemade pizza with pureed roasted tomatoes.

Happy Thursday!

don’t fruit the guac

Except that I did, and it was great.

So I made Shape Magazine’s Guacamole de Frutas the other day. It was a recipe I found in the winter (I think their December issue?) but figured I’d wait until summer when some of the ingredients were at the their best (can you even buy peaches in the winter??). Problem is, the recipe also calls for pomegranate seeds. Talk about a recipe of conflicting seasons!

Well, as it turned out, last week was quite the debacle of recipe choice vs. grocery store availability. Long story short: I was a good wife and had Andrew pick out some recipes he wanted me to make and I should have seen the first red flag go up when he grabbed my Eastern European cookbook. Don’t get me wrong, we love all those Mediterranean/Lebanese/Turkish dishes, but I have to really pick and choose what I make so as not to have to go on a wild goose chase for some unheard-of ingredient. Well, I didn’t do that…and ended up with a grocery list a mile long featuring things like “sumac” and “lavender flowers.” (I found neither, but did have acceptable substitutes. And thankfully we have a Penzey’s Spices on Elmwood, so next time I’m in I’m just going to stock up–expiration dates be damned!)

Anyway, two of his dishes called for pomegranate seeds, as well as this one, and since I’d just seen pomegranates at Wegmans the other day (to my surprise, no less), I figured they must be getting them despite it being summer. Well, wouldn’t you know that the day I go looking for the infamous red orbs, Wegmans doesn’t have a single one. Tops to the rescue!

ANYWAY…

I fruited the guac…with apples, peaches, mango, pomegranate seeds, a little onion and lime juice, and a tiny bit of jalapeno. YUM. I ate it as a lunch side with tortilla chips, and then had another portion on some cinnamon-sugared pita for breakfast. Both were very yummy options. If you like guacamole, be sure to give this one a try.

National Spinach Day

Today is National Spinach Day! Who knew??? And of course, today is one of the RARE days I don’t have a giant tub of it sitting in my fridge. (Last time I was at Wegmans they were out of the all-baby spinach, so I settled for an arugula, radicchio and spinach blend, and I’m almost all out!)

Otherwise, I’d be eating green ALL DAY.

Check out WHY spinach is such a powerhouse food!

I use it almost every day in salads, on sandwiches or just IN things, like soups or smoothies.

In the interest of time (I have things I need to do today!), here are some links to some basic spinach recipes and some of my favorites!

Basic Sauteed Spinach

My favorite Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Berry Spinach Smoothie (it’s not green!)

Baked Spinach

Creamed Spinach–Andrew’s favorite! Serve with steak 🙂

Gotta go…must get the dog on a walk before I head off to school! Bring on the green 🙂 (At least when I started this post I was wearing a green t-shirt…)