Favorite Canned Tomato Recipes: Roasted Salsa

I'm in love with this salsa. It's similar to the double roasted salsa at Trader Joes but much cheaper to make! I upicked tomatoes for 50 cents a pound this year (otherwise I typically purchase at the farmer's market for $1.50 a pound, unless my garden goes gangbusters).

Made 11.5 pints last year and forecasted I'd need at least 15 pints this year; we eat a lot of this stuff!

Jar size: Half pints are too small for our usage but make good taster/gifts. I  prefer the pint size as we got through lots of salsa.  Tip: when giving out canned goods to friends and family, ask for the jars back! Start training them early and you won't have to purchase too many jars each season :)

My favorite uses are to mix this with black beans (great vegan bodybuilding food) or drizzle it on fried eggs for a nutritious vegetarian breakfast.  Or we put it on tamales. It's of course also delicious on chips or anything else you typically use salsa for.

No peeling necessary.  The roasting does take an extra step but is totally worth it.

Canning notes: sterilize at least 5 pint jars (cook in boiling water for 10 minutes to sterilize).  I like to heat up 6 pints and a half pint (my canner fits 7 jars) just in case. Yield is between 5 and 6.5 pints.


Method:
Roast under the broiler in the oven (500 F) until blackened in spots. I do this in 2 or 3 batches on rimmed baking sheets (the will be 5-15 minutes depending on your oven and the ingredients:

5 pounds tomatoes, cored and cut in half
1 pound 6 oz yellow or white onion, peeled and cut into half
8 oz chiles (approx 10 red jalapenos; good with any medium to spicy chile or mixture of chiles)
2 oz garlic (1-2 heads), peeled

Puree all of this in the blender. Once mostly smooth, then add 1/4 C washed cilantro and blend for just a few seconds to make it into small flecks (you don't want to overblend the cilantro in otherwise it will muddy the color instead of being nice little green flecks).

Pour the liquid into large (6 quart) saucepan.  Bring up to boiling and add:
1/2 C apple cider vinegar (5% acidity)
1 TB salt
1 TB sugar

Following standard canning procedure, pour the hot salsa into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Wipe rims so they are clean, put lids (which have been soaking in hot water) on, screw on bands. Process in boiling water bath canner for 40 minutes.

DIY Yogurt in dehydrator

I referenced several recipes for how to make yogurt. Why make yogurt?  Store bought yogurt is very expensive compared to making it at home. If/when we have a good dairy source (either when we have a goat or cow of our own or live near one) then I'd consider using yogurt as a way to use up, enjoy and extend the shelf life of milk. Hell I'd even start making butter (or at least try) if I had abundant good dairy.

Result: a slightly runny with clumps texture- not perfect- but it was delicious.  Blended with blackberries it made a fabulous milkshake!! On the left is the one where I added honey and vanilla bean. On the right was plain and it firmed up a bit better, you can see the whey liquid at the top (which went into muffin batter).

Basic Method:
Basic idea is to sterilize jars. Heat and cool milk to speicifc temperatures.  Mix cooled milk with some starter yogurt (I used Nancy's plain yogurt which has active cultures and is a local favorite). Then you let it ferment at 105-110 F for a few hours.

I used 1/2 gallon of milk which made a little more than 2 quarts of yogurt.  In each quart of milk went 1/4 C plain starter yogurt.  I tried adding honey and vanilla bean to one jar but it just got really runny... so maybe you add the sweetener after it ferments?

I capped the jars and put them in my dehydrator. Next time I'd put it at 105 instead of 110 to try for a better texture.  I took them out at 4 hours, but I think they could have gone longer to get a firmer texture.

Farmers Market Stir Fry in cast iron pan

Cast iron is amazing for stir fry.
 
This is the first meal I've made that tastes like good chinese food (however this is much healthier).  Pairing it with egg fried rice made it a whole meal and gave some protein (which is great b/c I always have eggs around but don't often have bits of meat perfect for stir fry).

Great way to use up veggies from the farmer's market, especially with the end of summer bounty making me purchase perhaps too much on saturdays. I had long green beans, green bell peppers, onions and eggplant needing to be used up.

I saute my eggplant slices separately as the husband will not eat eggplant (sad!). Just make sure you cook it really good so it gets mushy- the best texture (raw eggplant texture is more rubbery- not so good).

Usually I get scared away from stir fry as I don't feel like I have the appropriate "sauce" for it.  But really then I realized that Japanese teriyaki is delicious and doesn't take more than sugar, sake, mirin and soy sauce. So, I used a variation for this and it was very good (ok so maybe that makes it Japanese-Chinese fusion but who cares).

This makes excellent leftovers.


Method:
1.  Mix up the "sauce".  I used sake, soy sauce, little bit of sugar, red pepper flakes, garlic and cracked black pepper.

2. Heat cast iron pan over high heat for 3-5 minutes until it is screaming hot. Add a little peanut oil (or other high heat oil- don't use olive oil as it will burn) and coat the pan.   Be careful, that pan gets very hot and I've burnt myself -- use oven mits.

2. Sear each veggie separately in the hot pan and dish it out into a bowl when you are ready to do the next veggie. this way you don't overcrowd the pan and decrease the temp or get too much liquid. This helps cook the veggies in the appropriate stir fry method (and taste).

Veggie selection/Ingredient Note: In this photo I used long green beans (green beans taste the same), bell pepper and onion. Eggplant, celery, broccoli (if in small enough chunks) are all good.  You can even do leafy greens like spinach but they will cook really fast. Pretty much anything should be good in stir fry...

3. Once you are done cooking all the veggies separately, you'll have a bowl of veggies with black marks. This is perfect. Now pour all the cooked veggies back into the hot pan. Add the sauce, stir and coat the veggies in the sauce.

Serve hot, with rice or egg fried rice.

Gallo Pinto (costa rica rice and beans)

I fell in love with gallo pinto in Costa Rica. It is particularly hearty breakfast, especially when served with eggs (usually scrambled).

Here in the US, we have a chunky raw salsa called pico de gallo. I mentioned this in Costa Rica and got laughs- apparently it means the beak of a rooster? In any case the name doesn't universally carry the meaning of a food.  What's funny is that they still use rooster to name a different dish in Costa Rica.  Gallo pinto means spotted rooster.

I had extras which I spooned into a metal muffin pan and froze. Once frozen, you can pop it out by putting a little hot water on the bottoms of the muffin pan, or using a knife (carefully!).  Then I put these hockey pucks into a freezer bag. They take up less space (and don't keep a container in the freezer) and you can pull out just as much as you want. 

I consulted a few websites for gallo pinto recipes (this, this and this) and finally made my own variation.  Here's the gist:

Saute 1 diced onion and 3 cloves garlic in olive oil with salt until browned.  Add diced green bell pepper and cook until softening.

Add 1 cup dry raw rice, and 1  ground and cook in the oil to toast- approx 60 seconds.

Now add a few cups water (or broth), 1 - 2 TB tomato paste. Optionally, blend up roasted chiles and raw cilantro with water and use for the broth.  Stir and cover, put on low heat and cook until rice is nearly done.

Add 1/2 C black bean cooking water and 1 C cooked black beans. Stir.  Finish cooking the rice.

Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Lemon Almond Poppy Muffins (Whey & Yogurt)

I made too much home made yogurt so I figured I'd use some up in this recipe.

Reduced the sugar, increased the poppy seeds, added lemon to this recipe. So I was going to use whole wheat flour until I realized I didn't have any. And I was going to use coconut oil instead of the butter, but then I overfilled my yogurt/whey container and decided to try it without more liquids like coconut oil.

The texture of these is moist and almost rubbery in a good way- my husband loves gummy bears (it's a texture thing) and was raving about these. Full discolsure- they don't have cake-y crumb, but more of a bready crumb.  My guess is that the protein of the whey liquid and yogurt, along with resting the batter, is responsible.

These are not very sweet so I drizzled with lemon zest, lemon juice and powdered sugar which was perfect. I did try sprinkling with turbinado sugar but it fell into the batter so I wouldn't do that again on this batter.

The photo at top is the batter baked into mini tartlet pans (sprayed with olive oil first).

Mix:
2 C cake flour (or whole wheat pastry flour, or use all purpose flour)
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
0.25 tsp salt
1/4 C sugar
4 TB poppy seeds

1 tsp almond extract
zest and juice of 2 lemons
1 egg
1.5 C yogurt & whey liquid on top of the yogurt (mine was from home made plain yogurt made from whole grass fed milk)

Set the batter in the fridge to rest for 4 hours or overnight. This should help hydrate the flour.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Pour batter into greased muffin pan.  Bake for 25 minutes at 350 or until set and slightly golden.

Pull out of muffin pans, and drizzle each muffin with mixture of:
lemon juice
lemon zest
powdered sugar to taste

Flax Wraps

I am crazy about these flax wraps.  They are raw, vegan, low in calories, high in fiber and make a
delicious textured wrapper for all sorts of stuff. Use these to wrap up dehydrator sauteed vegetables, raw shredded vegetables, rice and beans, cheese or anything else you desire.  I love how easy it is to make a lunch or snack with these.  You can even use flax wraps in place of tortillas (regular or sprouted grain) for tacos.

Tools: you'll need a dehydrator and teflex sheets (whenever I've tried this kind of recipe in the oven it's a disaster).

Storage: the finished wraps last for probably a couple weeks in the fridge. I cut them into fourths and place in a ziplock bag.

Ingredient Note: use golden or regular flax meal. Remember that flax meal (ground/milled flax seeds) can go rancid so use it quickly and/or store it in the fridge.  Find it in bulk sections or at costco to avoid overpaying (I've seen a wide range of prices on flaxmeal).
The recipe can be scaled up or down. I sometimes make a double recipe to use up zucchini and to use all the trays in my dehydrator.

Zucchini Basil Wraps: 
Puree 2 cups zucchini, 1 cup water, 1 cup flaxmeal, large handful basil leaves and optional salt and garlic until homogenized.  The ratio is fairly flexible-- you want something spreadable but not too watery that it rolls off the tray (flax quickly thickens up so that's usually not a problem!)

Spread between several dehydrator trays. Pour then spread with a large spatula. You want it to be 1/8" thick so that it dries out.  I try to keep the edges a tiny bit thicker than the middle as the edges dry faster than the center (at least in my Excalibur dehydrator).

Place in the dehydrator. Dehydrate at 110- 115 F for 5-7 hours. Check a couple times to avoid overcooking (unlike dehydrated veggie chips, you want these to be pliable so don't let them dry all the way out). They are done when they are still flexible but don't have any wet mushy spots. If you have just one or two mushy spots, you can cut these out if the rest of the batch is done and you're impatient :)

When done, peel off the teflex sheets. Cut into whatever shape you desire and eat immediately or store in plastic ziplock bag in the fridge.


Variations:

• Use any vegetable you wish: I bet tomatoes, carrot, or yellow summer squash would all work well instead of the zucchini.
• Omit the basil. Add spices like salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, cumin etc
• Press small nuts into the wraps such as sesame seeds or poppy seeds before dehydrating

Sweet crepe variation: sub out the zucchini for banana and make sweet flax crepes. The texture is between a crepe and fruit leather and it makes a good breakfast or dessert depending on what you put in it. I bet peanut butter would be great to spread in a banana flax crepe for a snack.

Raw Vegan Creamy Chipotle Sauce/ Salad Dressing

This is between a sauce and salad dressing, so I have been using for both!  Works great on top of rice and beans (obviously not raw), or on dehydrator-sauteed vegetables, especially if they are seasoned in a latin fashion (oregano, cumin etc.).  Or use this in wrap sandwiches to add some flavor, salt and gooey-ness.

If you want to be fancy, this would be beautiful piped out of a ketchup bottle or pastry bag.

SAUCE:
Yield approx 1 pint of sauce

Blend until smooth:
1/2 C nuts (almond, pine nut, sunflower seed)
1/4 C lemon juice
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C water
1 tomato (or red bell pepper)
1/4 C cilantro
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp agave
1/2 dried chipotle chile
1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

Refrigerate and use on veggies, salad or tacos.

Cucumbers with himalayan sea salt

Cucumbers are in season and with a couple cucumber plants producing wildly, I've got a lot on my hands!

My new favorite way to present and enjoy cucumbers is to mandolin slice them paper thin, spread on a plate and sprinkle himalayan sea salt over the top. Let it sit for 2 -3 minutes to get juicy and then enjoy.

If the skin is tough, first peel off shreds of peel with a potato peeler. Then slice. The result looks like poker chips.

Good quality salt is a perfect partner for cucumbers- you can taste the salt and the cucumber better by eating them together. This is a great snack with good mouthfeel but low calories.

Another way I'm enjoying cucumbers is to juice them with green apples. Yum!

Raw Vegan "Roasted" Tomatoes

I"m a fan of roasted tomatoes. The roasting brings out their sweetness. But tending to the oven for more than 10 minutes in the summer? Blech.

So I tried an experiment and tossed these guys in the dehydrator. Result: not quite as caramelized as oven-roasted but still very good and cravable. And the best part is I can prep this in the morning and have lunch waiting for me.

Method:
Wash and slice tomatoes (preferably roma) in half
Place on telfex sheet on dehydrator tray
Drizzle with
olive oil and sea salt
Dehydrate at 110 or 115F for at least two hours.  (I did just 2 hours today but I wonder how much better they'd be at 4 hours?)

Better than sauteed zucchini (dehydrator sauteed)

I came across a raw vegan recipe for "marinated" vegetables.  You slice the veggies about 1/8" thin, toss with a dressing and then dehydrate on teflex sheets for 2 hours at 110 F.

It doesn't sound very revolutionary until you taste it. Watery vegetables that get a bad rap for having a rubbery texture, like zucchini and eggplant, are transformed. The result is not really like "marinated" raw vegetables at all. So I'm calling it  dehydrator-sauteed vegetables.  And apparently I really like them because I've made this recipe at least 4 times in the past couple weeks!

The water is wicked away, leaving warm, slightly chewy on the edges vegetables and lots of flavor. Compare this to cooking zucchini on the grill or stove where it starts to release some but not all of the water and gets soggy and flavorless.

I reduced the original recipe's massive amount of olive oil-- I'm finding that 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice is just right. And you can go crazy with whatever spices you want- just make sure to add salt!

This is a great way to use up farmer's market vegetables that I don't typically eat raw (lettuce, cucumbers, carrots are easy to snack on out of the fridge; but eggplant, zucchini and mushrooms tend to languish in the fridge if I don't' feel like turning on the stove).

Easy Lunch/Dinner tip: these can sit out at room temp once prepped, so I like to cut the veggies, toss with the marinade and put in the dehydrator with a timer set to start later in the day. I use a lamp/applaiance timer which tells the dehydrator when to turn on (i.e. 2 hours prior to the meal). Then when I get home for lunch or dinner, it's ready.

INSTRUCITONS
Decide on your vegetable and marinade ingredients.

Veggie Combinations:

• Bell pepper, corn, zucchini (latin theme)
• Mushrooms, eggplant, yellow summer squash
• Eggplant & garlic
• Green beans are ok but they don't get as cooked (they taste more raw) 

Marinade:
1-2 TB lemon juice
1-2 TB of good quality olive oil
sprinkling of salt to taste
Optional Flavorings: black pepper, paprika, cumin, chipotle pepper, garlic, onion powder, finely chopped basil, oregano and/or cilantro

1. Wash vegetables.  Slice into 1/8" thick pieces (don't go paper thin unless you want it crispy)

2. Toss veggies with marinade. Make sure you get all the slices coated (sometimes zucchini likes to stick to itself).
3. Pour over teflex sheets on dehydrator trays.  I generally make enough for 1-2 people (i.e. 1 zuch and 1 corn cobb and a few mushrooms) and spread over two trays.
4. Dehydrate at 110 F for 2 hours
5. Gently scrape off the teflex sheets (I use a spoon)


Uses for dehydrator-sauteed veggies:

• wrap into a flax wrap, ezekiel tortilla for a wrap sandwich (see photo at top).  Optionally add other veggies (lettuce), pickles and or dressings, such as raw vegan chipotle cream dressing
• Top a green salad
• Garnish rice and black bean bowls
• eat warm out of the dehydrator or just as good chilled from the fridge