When James Peterson’s guide to vegetables was published, I quickly became intriqued by his recipe for Slow-baked Cherry Tomatoes with Herbs. The two-hour cooking time was especially interesting, as I’d primarily used my garden’s cherry tomato bounty raw in the past. I planned to serve my first batch of these tomatoes as “tomato croutons” in a garden salad at a dinner party. When the tomatoes were finished roasting, all of the counter space was already occupied, so I simply turned off the oven and kept cooking, planning to pull them out after they’d cooled.
Tag: tomatoes
Our yellow teardop tomatoes have been very productive lately, so when we got yellow beans and yellow peppers in our produce delivery, I decided that it was time to make a yellow gazpacho. I loosely followed this recipe, and our version included orange juice, cucumber, a little red onion, yellow pepper, yellow wax beans and the yellow tomatoes. A smoothie of yellow veggies! I toppped it with a chiffonade of basil. The color was intense……like the color of the yolk in a fried egg, and the taste was just as vibrant. And really, really refreshing on a day that hovered around 100 degrees!
KC’s favorite soup is tomato, and she eats A LOT of peanut butter, so this recipe for Peanut Soup with Rice and Scallions seemed right up her alley! Sometimes, I think the beauty of the pureed soup is also its Achilles heel — the simple, smooth texture. So, in order to avoid monotony from that texture, I generally serve smaller portions of pureed soups than of soups with more textural variety. This recipes says that it makes 6 servings. I halved the recipe, and I would say that I still got 6 servings from it.
It’s pretty foolproof. You sautee the vegetables and aromatics.
Then, add stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil, and simmer for a while. Then puree. I use an immersion blender to puree hot liquids right in the pan, which makes life a lot simpler and less dangerous than using a blender!
Then after serving, sprinkle with sliced scallions. I omitted the tofu because the rest of our meal contained plenty of protein already.
When I tasted the soup, at first I thought, “Oh, this is just another tomato soup.” Then, the peanut flavor snuck up and mingled with the tomato flavor in a way that was very surprising to my American palate. Of course, if you were raised in Africa, this flavor combination will seem obvious to you!
I’ll definitely make this again!