Tag Archives: Tomatoes

Thursday Stash

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Ashley| 5 Comments


Stash

Ah here we are again on a lovely Thursday, ready to check out the THURSDAY STASH.  I got back to Oakland after a great vacation just in time to pick up my latest CSA box.

I was so extremely excited when I opened the box and unwrapped these goodies.  It might be the most colorful box I’ve gotten this year, what with the rich purple, shades of red and orange, and stripey greens.  A vegetable rainbow!

How these all fit into my fridge I will never know…  I got a little bit creative with my organizing.  We’ve got: 3 white onions, 2 baby watermelons, a basket of Santa Rosa plums, a basket of cherry tomatoes, 3 full size heirloom tomatoes, 4 flamingo peppers, and 3 Armenian cucumbers.  Whew.

And I’m so excited to share what I did with some of those tomatoes, peppers, and a baby watermelon tonight…  Soon enough, soon enough.

Cukes

Anybody have some good ideas for using up those Armenian Cucumbers??  I’ve never seen this kind of cucumber before, although I’m assuming it tastes much like the ones I’m used to?  They are very long, not very stiff, and (as you can see) have ridges that create dark and light green stripes.  I’m excited to do something with them.

Veggies

→ 5 Comments

Posted in CSA

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Corn, Lentil, and Tomato Salad

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Ashley| Leave a comment

Baby Tomatoes

I realized that I briefly mentioned a salad in the last Thursday Stash, but then never followed up about it!  For shame!

It may be three weeks late, but this recipe is definitely worth it.  You probably don’t remember, but I described this salad as “heartstopping,” and I was not exaggerating.  But the thing is, it definitely isn’t an intense recipe.  Instead, this salad relies on the quality of its ingredients.  I used my corn, basil, and tomatoes straight from the CSA box.  They were basically just out of the ground.

Juicy

That’s something I struggle with sometimes, actually.  Because I only get the CSA box every two weeks, I worry sometimes about evenly balancing everything.  I don’t want to cook everything up the first few days (although realistically, that’s never going to happen), but I also don’t want everything sitting around aging for the next two weeks.  If I was more organized I would make some meal plans… but let’s be real, that’s probably not going to happen.

So I’m really glad that this time I busted a move with the corn, basil, and tomatoes.  They deserved to be devoured immediately and they really made this salad into something special.  So here she is:

Salat

Corn, Lentil, and Tomato Salad
Recipe Type: Salad
Author: Ashley @ The Drunk Squash
Prep time: 3 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Total time: 13 mins
Serves: 2
A simple salad that relies on the freshness of basic, yet flavorful ingredients.
Ingredients
  • 1 corn cob
  • 1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes
  • handful of fresh basil
  • 1 cup cooked lentils
  • 2 tsp barbecue sauce
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • thyme
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400F.
  2. Cut the corn off the cob, and slice the tomatoes down their middles.
  3. Lay the corn and tomatoes in a pan or on a baking sheet and then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and thyme.
  4. Place the corn and tomatoes in the oven for about ten minutes.
  5. In the meantime, mix your lentils with the barbecue sauce (lentils can either be hot or cold).
  6. In a bowl, add the basil and lentils together.
  7. After ten minutes mix the corn and tomatoes along with the basil and lentil mixture and serve.
Notes

If you don’t have pre-cooked lentils, you can either add the time to cook some up or just leave them out of the recipe- personally I think they add an important nutty flavor though.

Salad

There’s something about that combination of sweetness and acidity (and even smokiness) that makes this recipe extremely gobble-up-able.  So get yourself some fresh vegetables (CSA box?  Farmer’s Market?  Straight from the farm?  The down-low on your local grocery store?) and try it :)

→ Leave a comment

Posted in CSA, Dinner, Lunch, Recipe, Ten-Minute Meal

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Summery Tomato Sauce

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Ashley| 2 Comments

tomtp

So what did I make with those beautiful tomatoes from last Thursday??  Well, I knew that I wanted their flavors to be a huge part of whatever I did.  They were too bright and  deliciously soursweet to simply become another veggie in the mix.  No, these guys needed to be large and in charge of a dish.

On the other hand, though, I didn’t want to just cut them up and add them as-is to a salad.  Of course they would have made a splendid addition, but I also felt that they deserved some fun process.

Beautiful Tomato

So I decided to make a pasta sauce.  But it was hot outside and I didn’t want to simmer and bubble the tomatoes into a hot sauce.  Instead, I blended those babies with some zucchinis (to thicken) and spices.  It was a cold pasta sauce that I was extremely pleased with.  It had a nice kick of freshness that perfectly dressed some simple noodles. In addition, it was the quickest preparation ever.  Ten minute meal for sure!

Blend

This is the best sauce for a hot evening where the amount of heat generated by a boiling pasta pot is already too much and you just want something cold, fast, and easy.  My tomatoes were really juicy and I didn’t need much oil to thin out the sauce, so this is also pretty healthy.  (Gotta be healthy when you’re pounding down the pasta haha).  Anyways, I’m not a wine-pairer (by any means… I’ve just recently begun attempting to step away from the two-buck chuck display into the $3.99 section of Trader Joe’s), but I had this pasta with a glass of (not so bad, actually) Chardonnay and was pretty stoked.

So go!  Find an especially weird looking pair of heirloom tomatoes and make some summer tomato sauce!

Pastas

Recipe: Summer Tomato Sauce

Summary: A cold tomato sauce that lets heirlooms reveal their fresh, summery beauty.

Ingredients

  • 2 heirloom tomatoes (reserve a quarter of one)
  • 2 small zucchinis (I used a green and a yellow)
  • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • sprig of dried sage
  • dash of black pepper and salt

Instructions

  1. Chop both tomatoes (reserve about a quarter of one of the chopped tomatoes) as well as the zucchini and then add to a blender.
  2. Add the olive oil, yeast, sage, and spices.
  3. Blend until you get a thick sauce. Can add more or less oil/zucchini to either thicken or make more watery.
  4. Dress your pasta with the sauce and add the extra chopped tomato.

Preparation time: 10 minute(s)

pasta

→ 2 Comments

Posted in CSA, Dinner, Lunch, Noodles, Recipe, Snack, Ten-Minute Meal

Tagged , , , , ,