Pepper Paste

Thanks to a generous gift of hot red peppers from my mother-in-law I was able to embark on a first-time journey of making Turkish red pepper paste, or "biber salcasi". In the southeast of Turkey where I sojourned for a year, no kitchen is complete without a bucket of pepper paste handy. Yes, a bucket. In Gaziantep cuisine, food prepared without at least a spoonful of this rich, zesty red goo is pretty rare.

In high summer, when the spicy red bell peppers are peaking, Antepli housewives hunker down with their buckets and knives and pare loads and loads of peppers for grinding. Once ground, the peppers morph into an orangey "soup" that is poured into pans and set out in the hot sun to thicken over a period of days. Each day the pepper soup is worried over and stirred. It's color begins to brighten as water evaporates off. Finally, it is paste. Olive oil and salt are added as preservatives and the paste is stashed under the kitchen sink or another convenient location to be dipped into daily for soups, meat dishes, kofte, to spread on bread, you name it.

I was not so fortunate as to have a reliable stretch of hot, sunny days, so had to resort to using the oven, set at 200F, to make my pepper paste over a period of several hours (I did it along with my dried tomatoes). I was also not so fortunate as to end up with a whole bucket of it the lovely goo. Rather, from 12 hot peppers and two large sweet red bell peppers my labors yielded about two cups of this delightful stuff. It is so precious to me, that I even had a dream last night about one of my sisters shamelessly using up all but a few spoonfuls of it in a single day! I was happy to wake and discover my jar of pepper paste silently, calmly holding out on my fridge shelf, just where I'd left it.

The Peppers (and how they shrunk) . . .

orangey soup stage

Finally, biber salcasi!

Dried Green Tomatoes

You've heard of fried green tomatoes, right? Slices of green tomato dipped in a milk/egg mixture, dredged in flour, and fried in oil . . . At least once a summer I sneak past the garden guards and heist a pre-ripe tomato or two for this treat. Oddly enough, I think they're good dipped in ketchup. A bit gruesome for the tomato perhaps.

But--as per post title--I'm not talking about fried green tomatoes, but DRIED green tomatoes. Yes, it was NOT a typo (though given the proximity of "f" and "d" on the keyboard and my sometimes-atrocious typing skills that could have been a definite possibility).

Thanks again to the in-laws for inspiration. I gathered the meager remaining ripe red tomatoes from our plants in anticipation of making some oven dried tomatoes. This process requires turning your oven on to a low heat and drying the fruit for 6 - 8 hours. I couldn't just do one tray! I had to put that energy to good use by drying something else. How about green tomatoes? It was worth a shot.

So, here's how it went down. I quartered and de-seeded the red tomatoes, placing them cut side up on a foil-lined baking sheet. I sprinkled them with coarse sea salt, some dried basil, oregano, and a little lavender, and gave everything a good glug of extra virgin olive oil (which I had to run to the grocer's for). I did the same for the green tomatoes, skipping the de-seeding since they weren't as juicy inside.







After slowly roasting for about 6 hours, the smallest pieces were done, a little leathery, but still succulent inside. Another hour or two and I pulled them all out. Delicious! Some of the red ones went right onto a pizza, and the rest were placed in a small baggie to be frozen. I've now been gifted with a bucket of cherry and roma tomatoes that will get dried in the same fashion. Yay!

Late Summer Salsa

There is a tree just around the corner from my house whose leaves have turned yellow-brown and are falling at the slightest provocation. I've gotten out the sweater socks and swapped the summer quilt for a thicker one. Yep. All signs point towards fall. I've almost committed to this being my favorite season. I love the air nipping at me and getting cozy with warm blankets, hot tea, and hoodies. And scarves. I simply relish the smell of decaying leaves and the way cooler air seems to sharpen that sense of smell.

By winter, coziness has lost its charm, and I pine for spring. The thrill of crocuses and daffodils! The glory of budding dogwoods and redbuds! The delight at tossing off winter coats and daring to go barefoot again! And so I just can't quite commit completely to fall.

But it is one of my top seasonal loves. In Number One spot for the time being. For better or for worse, fall is about here and there's no chance to preserve any more of summer (unless I do some sun-dried tomatoes yet). Our four plants (yes, all tomatoes) are slowing production, and in a few short weeks a good frost is going to nip any remaining buds. This evening I was seized by a nostalgic urge to make the most of the time I had left with my backyard produce. Inspired by some in-laws, I decided to make salsa (sans cilantro), using just what I had in my own backyard.

Colander in hand, I headed out to the tomato patch for the main ingredient--green and red roma's and golden nugget tomatoes yielded to a slight tug. I added two small bell peppers (we did plant some peppers, they just got--literally--overshadowed by the tomato plants). Next stop: herb patch. Basil, chives, rosemary, lavender, and marigold. And in the front flower bed, a tiny jalepeno that survived a slug-crunching early in the growing season. A quick rinse, a shake, some dicing and chopping, and viola! Salsa. It doesn't get much more local than this, folks! Below is a rendering of what I came up with.


Anita's Late Summer Salsa

2 cups diced assorted tomatoes
1 small bell pepper, diced (about 1/3 cup)
2 tsp minced fresh chives
2 tsp minced fresh basil
1/4 tsp minced fresh rosemary (I don't like a strong rosemary flavor)
1/4 tsp lavender flowers (careful not to add too many of these!)
1 pathetically small jalepeno, minced
Petals of one marigold
not from the garden:
1 tsp olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon
salt/pepper to taste

Instructions: are any needed? Stir ingredients together. Eat.

Served up with some fried plantains
(also not from our garden!)

Happy Last Week of Summer!

Mini Cini's

Here's a fun, easy way to do cinnamon rolls. I made a batch of bread dough, then used one loaf's worth for cinnamon rolls. I wanted to make them small for camping, so I rolled them to about 3-in thickness, sliced, and placed them in well-greased muffin tins. So cute! They got a little glumpy after sitting in a container for three days, so I'd recommend eating them right away!

Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

A long time ago, I promised a recipe for these cupcakes. For those of you who have been holding your breath, well, sorry . . . I guess you've had to let it out a few times by now. But without further ado . . .

Vanilla Chai Cupcakes
(makes 15 - 17)

1/2 cup milk
1 bag chai tea*
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (because I can't resist)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp each of cinnamon and nutmeg
6 TBSP butter, softened
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla

Heat milk and add chai tea; let steep while you assemble other ingredients. Sift flours (or all white flour, if you prefer), sugars, baking powder, and spices into a medium mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until incorporated. Fill muffin cups (or papers in cups!) 2/3 full of batter. Bake at 325F for 18 - 20 minutes or until done. These cupcakes still look white when they are completely baked, so check with a toothpick if you're unsure. I like to top these cupcakes with a cocoa frosting my sister-in-law gave me the recipe for (see below). A half-recipe made enough frosting for the cupcakes with some left over.



Fisher Family Cocoa Butter Frosting

1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup cocoa
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 TBSP milk (or more as needed for the consistency you like)

With a whisk or fork mix ingredients in a small bowl, drizzling in milk until you have the consistency you like.

*If you don't have spiced tea make your own mix. For this batch I used a heaping teaspoon of black tea with 4 cardamom pods, 4 cloves, 5 peppercorns, and a bay leaf. Use any or all chai spices you like/have on hand. Ginger would have been a good addition.

Basic Bread

Last year I went on a "basic bread quest". Not limiting myself to cookbooks I owned, I also borrowed from the library and found recipes on the internet that seemed to my liking. I was looking for a basic whole-wheat bread (but not ALL whole wheat) that wasn't too complicated and would give consistent results. Each time I made bread I used a new recipe, trying some a second time if they seemed promising. But for all my searching, it came back to the beginning for me. Esther Shank.

For some of you the name "Esther Shank" is totally meaningless. For others, it is roughly synonymous with a warm, busy kitchen where economy and good-sense reign; nothing is wasted, least of all pounds off the cook's middle. The back of her cookbook (titled, "Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets") effuses with some charming rhyme: "Mennonite homemaker Esther H. Shank . . . has collected and perfected good recipes and food tips for 25 years. In this remarkable collection of more than 1,000 recipes and hundreds of hints for success, she shares her legacy of kitchen know-how". Indeed.

While there are some wonderful standard recipes (most of them marked by tell-tale oil or cocoa stains) that I can personally vouch for--Basic Pancakes, Delicious Chocolate Cake, and Buttermilk Biscuits for example--many of the recipes and ideas in the book seem outdated and unusable. The "Party Foods Recipes" section in particular takes my "Whoa-There!" cake. Besides "Surprise Hamburger Muffin Cups" and "Hot Dog Treats" (okay, so I admitted to liking hot dogs, but they either have to be from the diner downtown or sizzled to perfection over a campfire), there is the inscrutable "Elegant Party Loaf". The idea behind this is to take a loaf of bread, cut it into four horizontal slices, and slather each layer with a highly-mayonnaisized salad, chicken, egg, and ham. The loaf then gets cut so that each slice has layers of bread and salads. Elegant, no? From the first time I laid eyes on this page, I have been puzzled and repulsed.

But despite these occasional culinary ditches, I keep going back to Esther Shank for invaluable advice (on such varied topics as mattress-rotation and egg-poaching) and some of those standard recipes that will never go out of style. My basic bread recipe happens to be one of those. I have actually paper-clipped page 60 so that I can easily find it when the bread-baking urge hits.





My only changes to the recipe have been to use a 1-1 ratio of white to whole wheat flour rather than 2-1, respectively. I also have found that baking my loaves for the recommended 40 minutes results in a dry, crumbly texture rather than soft and moist how I like my bread.

Between the two of us, here's what I end up making (a half-recipe that yields two loaves):


Basic Whole Wheat Bread

1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 TBSP yeast
1 TBSP sugar
3/4 cup hot milk
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 TBSP molasses
2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups water
3 cups white flour (plus enough to gain the proper texture)
3 cups whole wheat flour (I often substitute one cup of another whole grain flour, such as rye tonight)


Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water and let sit. In a large-ish bowl dump oil, brown sugar, molasses and salt. Pour milk over all to dissolve. Add 1 1/4 cups cold water. Stir in yeast mixture. Add flours and knead until dough is sticky-smooth. I leave it a little sticky, not kneading too long. I then remove the dough from the pan and dump in about 2 TBSP of oil, returning the dough to the bowl and turning to coat. Cover and let rise until double. Shape loaves (2 9X5) and let rise again until double. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Once the bread comes out I use my mom's old trick to keep the crust soft: cover with towel, then a layer of plastic (a grocery bag usually covers both loaves), then another towel. Let cool. Before it's completely cool, I generally can't resist slicing into one of the loaves to "test" it. With butter and honey. YUM. I think my taste-tester said something like: "That's good, honey".

Confessions of a Foodie #2

Alright. Tomato sandwiches are great, but their consistency as a menu item around here has left me with very little blogging material. Plus I'm just not up to the picture-uploading thing right now. Plus it's Sunday. Time for a confession.

I like hot dogs. I'm a little ashamed of publishing this. Especially being a person who calls herself a "foodie". My table should only be graced with the most wholesome of foods prepared with fresh, local ingredients and presented in the finest taste. Right? I'm supposed to shun so-called "foods" that contain a long list of obscure and un-pronouncable ingredients such as (hang on, let me find a highly processed food that's lurking about . . .) "thiamin mononitrate" and "sodium aluminosilicate"*.

But the fact is I don't have such a pristine criteria for what I consider "food" or even "good food" for that matter. I suppose I can chalk some of this up to sentimentalism. The family gathered around a crackling campfire. Forest sounds reverberating beyond our circle's cheery glow. A piece of unappetizing processed "meat" sizzles and spits as it cooks over the flames . . . Substitute "A lump of processed sugar substance puffs and goldens over the flames . . ." and I've explained away my craving for a nice toasted marshmallow too. It could be the association with good, family times that sends me into a downward hot-dog-craving spiral.

Or, I'll admit, it could just be plain "poor taste." (har, har). Pass the relish and mustard please.


*Ingredients culled from a (now-empty) "Cheez-It" box and container of "French Vanilla Coffee-mate"