supertaster

Roasted tomatoes with shrimp and feta

This past spring has been particularly fruitful for work, which unfortunately means a long dry season for Supertaster. Apologies to my fellow supertasting readers (all two of you) for such a long hiatus. I've still been eating and cooking, of course, and following is a recipe I found myself making a few times because of its unsurpassed combination of speed, ease, and taste. I think it originally may have come from Bon Appetit, but am not sure as my copy is handwritten on a piece of notepaper. This is a great recipe if you're craving tomato flavor but tomato season isn't quite underway -- the roasting intensifies the flavor of even bland winter supermarket tomatoes.

5 large tomatoes cut into eighths
3 T olive oil
2 T minced garlic
3/4 t kosher salt
3/4 t black pepper
1-1/2 lbs. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 c chopped fresh parsley
2 T lemon juice
1 c feta, crumbled

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place tomatoes in a large baking dish. Spoon olive oil and garlic over. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss.

Place on top rack of oven, roast 20 min. Remove from overn and stir in shrimp, parsley, and lemon juice. Sprinkle with feta. Put back in oven for 10-15 min or until shrimp are cooked.

Serves 6.

*Modifications and notes*

I usually use the Trader Joe's pre-cooked, shelled, deveined frozen shrimp, which makes this even faster, but necessitates some modifications since it comes in 1-lb. bags. Use 4 tomatoes, but keep all the other quantities the same. After adding the thawed shrimp, put the baking dish back into the oven just long enough for everything to heat through, about 3 min.

I also usually make the full recipe for two people to eat and then have leftovers another day. If you do this, save some chopped parsley and sprinkle it over the reheated shrimp when you eat them the next time. The fresh parsley perks up the dish a little the second time around.

Another time-saver -- crumbled feta. I've used the 6-oz. container from Trader Joe's and though it's not the full 1 c that the recipe calls for, it works fine.

Don't cheat and use bottled lemon juice. Freshly squeezed lemon juice makes a big difference here as there are so few ingredients.

PB wench

To begin, let me assure all true-believers that the To-Fu Master has not lost a beet, his vivace tempeh does not flag, & his superpowered waistline still snaps back wash after wash. From the depths of all that is mighty, I offer you

PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH à la East Village, New York

As much peanut butter as you can stomach
Slice of fresh bread

Spread peanut butter on bread. Maintain open face. Pause (Ay, there's the rub). Eat.

Ah, but this is no ordinary sandwich. Hurrah for the Whole Foods flagship at Union Square in the big, gritty, bustling city of New York, where local calls are billed on the minute & where I can flip off with reflexive alacrity a pushy senior who nosed her gas guzzler through right-of-way pedestrian traffic (that is, a hard swerve in front of me as I crossed the street on a WALK light)! There, I wended my way through NYU brats, fashionista, part-time models on the DL, desperate housewives, & the like, until I reached the downstairs station for freshly grinding nuts, tucked beside personal beauty products: shaaa?! honey-roasted peanut butter (among other options that include chocolate-chip PB — one or the other is usually low or empty). Next score was a fragrant honey whole-grain boule just carted out steaming from the bakery guts. Then I sped home, without incident, & promptly crafted the PB wench's delight.

Wish you were here.

Take that, ramen!

Our To-Fu master has been shy about posting despite repeated encouragement. Below is a quick lunch or light dinner recipe he sent me last month. I'm allergic to tree nuts, which is why he substituted peanuts for walnuts.

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This is about as fast as homecooking can get. Perfect for lunch & much cheaper than eating out or eating take-out; the carbs keep you going. The original one I developed used walnuts :( Serve as is or with a heap of jalapeño sauerkraut (or kim chee).

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8 oz soba noodles (subst: whole wheat spaghettini or vermicelli)
1/2 c lightly chopped peanuts (optional: toast before chopping)
2 tsp toasted sesame seed oil
sea salt, coarsely crushed, to taste
pepper

Bring water to boil; salt. Toss in noodles & cook for 3-5 minutes. Drain & toss well with sesame seed oil & pepper, to taste. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Orange Cranberry Scones

Despite my love of scones, I’ve never actually made them myself until last week. It was Saturday morning and I was craving something fresh from the oven, as opposed to our typical stovetop scrambled eggs. I had some buttermilk in the fridge, and some dried cranberries in the cupboard, so I threw them into a batter and made some cranberry orange scones. They were delicious!

I combined the best of two recipes from two of my favorite sources, Everyday Food magazine, and Fields of Greens with slight modifications. I’ve been waiting to use the whole wheat flour I bought recently in an effort to eat a bit healthier, so here I substituted half the flour with whole wheat flour. Well, I’m happy to report that they came out great and were enjoyed with morning coffee, followed by afternoon tea. Delicious!

Zest of 1 orange
4 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 ½ cups unbleached white flour
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup dried cranberries
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ lb cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk

Preheat the oven to 400F. Soak the cranberries in the orange juice. Sift the dry ingredients together. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut butter into dry ingredients until it resembles coarse meal. (Hint: I don’t have a pastry blender and have no idea how to use two knives for that, so I just used my hands. First, I made sure my hands were cold so the butter would not melt by holding a few ice cubes for as long as I could stand. Then I dried them off and smashed the butter into the flour with my hands).

Make a well in the center of the mixture. Add the zest to the buttermilk and pour it into the well. Add the cranberries and orange juice. Stir until just combined; do not overmix. If the mixture is a bit too dry, you may need to add a little more buttermilk. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into an 8 inch round, about 1 inch high. Transfer to a baking sheet. Cut the round into 8 wedges, spacing them ½ inch apart.

Whisk the egg yolk and milk together and lightly brush the scones with the mixture. This will form a nice lightly brown crust on the top of the scone while baking. Bake until the scones are golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Best-ever chili

1 lb. ground turkey or beef
1/2 diced onion
1 can stewed tomatoes (14.5 oz)
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn, optional (I like Green Giant Niblets)
1 to 1.5 T medium-spicy chili powder
1/4 c ketchup
1 T cumin
1 T oregano
pepper to taste
salt not usually necessary

Brown meat and onion together, breaking into small chunks as it cooks. Drain fat. Add stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans, and corn if using, including all the liquid in the cans. Add chili powder, ketchup, cumin, and oregano.

*Secret ingredient*
Add a small handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips or one wedge of Mexican hot chocolate mix.

Stir to combine, and simmer about 1 hr. Serve with any of the following: sour cream, grated Jack cheese, chopped scallions, Fritos (the scoop kind work great -- it's a utensil... and food!).

*Note on chili powder*
We get ours from Penzey's and it's stronger than other kinds we've used. If using more conventional chili powder, you may need to double the quantity.

Recipe courtesy Gloria Christensen, reinterpreted by Lisa Melsted and Ahree Lee and Nate Melsted.