Roasted Tomatoes Provençal

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These slow roasted Tomatoes Provençal are a wonderfully delicious way to enjoy the full ripe flavor and natural sweetness.

TomatoesI do this to use up any extra tomatoes we don’t get around to eating fresh. One week both Robert and I brought home an arm load of fantastic heirloom tomatoes from the local farmers market.

Being February when we bought them, I knew they weren’t local but they sure looked and tasted great.

Roasting Cornish Hens for dinner one evening, I decided to also roast some tomatoes.

Here’s how:

Tomatoes Provençal

  • Good quality ripe tomatoes
  • Kosher salt or French Grey Salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • Herbs d’ Provence
  • Olive oil
  • Pinch of sugar (Optional)

Slice the tomato in half. Slice it across the middle, rather than top to bottom, to expose all the seed pockets.

Gently press out the seeds, catching them in a wire mesh strainer.  Place the cut and seeded tomatoes in the strainer, cut side down. Allow them to drain for about an hour or so.

Reserve any juice and press out any additional juice from the seeds. Set this aside for later.

Use a shallow baking dish. Place the tomatoes cut side up into the dish. Don’t crowd them as we want them to roast and concentrate all around. If they are crowded together, only the outside edge will get thoroughly roasted.

Sprinkle salt, pepper, herbs and sugar is using over the tops of the tomatoes. If you like, you can also add garlic, I chose to leave it out this time.

Seasoned, ready to roast tomatoes

Seasoned, ready to roast tomatoes

Drizzle a light bit of olive oil over the tomatoes and roast them, uncovered, in a 350°F oven for at least an hour and one-half. Keep an eye on them as you do not want a dried up leathery tomato (good sometimes, not here).

When the tomatoes are done roasting, allow them to cool before serving. Their full flavor potential is best at room temperature or slightly above.

Here we served them along side of grilled cheese sandwiches and butternut squash soup.

Lunch!

Lunch!

Be prepared! They will go so fast so be sure to roast more than you need.

If, by chance, you have any left over, you can make great roasted tomato marinade or  roasted tomato vinaigrette or even roasted tomato soup.This afternoon, I am putting some on grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. YUM!

Typically though, you have to roast the tomatoes specifically for these dishes as there never seems to be any left over.

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Butternut Squash Soup Sautéed Apples and Rosemary Flowers

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I made butternut squash soup in the vita mix for lunch today. Tasty!

Processing the soup for about 8 minutes heats it and leaves quite a delicate texture.

Put the ingredients in a blender, except the cream

Put the ingredients in a blender, except the cream

The texture actually seems to evaporate as it hits your tongue leaving a wonderful rich flavor and aroma behind. It is like eating essence.

Even though it is butternut squash, this elevates simple into the sublime!

1 whole butternut squash, washed

1/2 Granny Smith Apple

1/4 sweet onion

1 teaspoon rosemary needles

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 cup heavy cream

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F. Lightly pierce the squash with a knife in a couple of places. Place the whole squash on a parchment lined baking sheet and roast the squash for 1-2 hours or until done. You can tell when it is done by piercing the squash with a knife. If it goes in without resistance, the squash is done. Remove from the oven and cool.

Peel and remove the seeds from the center of the squash.

Place the squash, and remaining ingredients except the cream, into the blender and process. Begin on low variable and move up to number 10. The mixture should form 4 mounds inside the work bowl. If you want, thin with chicken stock or water at this point.

Process for 7-8 minutes or until the mixture releases steam.

Blend madly for 7-8 minutes

Blend madly for 7-8 minutes

Add the cream and process for another minute.

In the meantime, dice some of the apple and saute in a very small amount of butter. Using a light hand, sprinkle them with cinnamon and nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Set aside to garnish the soup.

saute the diced apples for garnish

saute the diced apples for garnish

Rosemary Flowers

Rosemary Flowers

Harvest some rosemary flowers, also for garnish and a great flavor burst.

To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls, garnish each with sautéed diced apples and a few rosemary flowers.

Butternut Squash Soup with Sauteed Apples and Rosemary Flowers

Butternut Squash Soup with Sauteed Apples and Rosemary Flowers

Enjoy!

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Warm Apple Dumplings

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These warm apple dumplings are juicy, filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins all wrapped in tender flaky crust.

Apple DumplingWe made these in bakeshop this week and students discovered how tasty and delicious they are.

For each apple you will need:

  • 1  Granny Smith apple (green)
  • A mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and butter, combine these ingredients to use to fill the hole where the core used to be
  • lemon juice
  • 1 sheet of puff pastry (1 sheet can cover up to 4 apples)
  • Egg wash (egg beaten with water)

  • Peeled Apples

    Peeled Apples

Method:

Peel and core the apple, drizzle it with lemon juice.

Core the apples, drizzle with lemon juice.

Core the apples, drizzle with lemon juice.

Fill the center with the brown sugar/raisin mixture

Fill the center with the brown sugar/raisin mixture

Cut the puff pastry to fit the apples; egg wash.

Cut the puff pastry to fit the apples; egg wash.

Wrap each apple in the pastry and egg wash again. Bake at 375 F Degrees for 35-40 minutes. Pierce the pastry with a knife or toothpick the see if the apple is tender, if it is, it is done. Remove from oven. If not allow to cook until the apple is tender. If necessary cover the pastry loosely with foil to prevent it browning too much.

Wrap each apple in the pastry and egg wash again. Bake at 375 F Degrees for 35-40 minutes. Pierce the pastry with a knife or toothpick the see if the apple is tender, if it is, it is done. Remove from oven. If not allow to cook until the apple is tender. If necessary cover the pastry loosely with foil to prevent it browning too much.

Serve warm with whipped cream and caramel sauce. A few fresh berries add color to the plate.

Serve warm with whipped cream and caramel sauce. A few fresh berries add color to the plate.

Stuff the cinnamon sugar into the center of the apple.

Wrap the apple in puff pastry, seal seams tightly.

Bake at 375°F for 35-40 minutes.

The Apple Dumplings are done when the apple is tender inside.

Serve warm with vanilla and caramel sauce and a few berries for garnish.

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Hamantashen! Shortbread and Jam Filled Cookies

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Hammentashen

Hamentashen

Hamantashen are lovely cookies that can be a bit of a challenge to get the hang of making. These tasty morsels are made for the Jewish celebration of Purim. Since I’m not Jewish, I’ll not attempt to tell you the story, I’ll show how to make the cookies instead.

I have several Jewish friends so making these was fun and a nice surprise to give away.

Some basic notes, the cookies are cut out of circles that are folded into triangles to resemble hats. Who wore the hats, I’m not sure but they are part of the celebration.

Notice the direction say “folded” not pinched! For some odd reason if you pinch them, they open while baking; folded, they turn out perfect.

Here is what you need:

Hamantashen

  • 3 cups AP flour
  • 1 Tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/4  teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 ounces butter at room temperature
  • (6 ounces or 1-1/2 sticks or 3/4 cup of butter)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 400°F.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the soft butter and sugar with a paddle until incorporated, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla.

Add the flour mixture a third at a time to the butter, sugar and egg mixture, process just until the mixture is combined. Don’t mix it a long time as gluten will develop resulting in a tough cookie rather than a tender one.

IMG_5201Divide the dough in half and roll it out on a lightly floured surface.

Cut 3-4 inch circle, brush with egg wash, add your filling and fold the circles into triangles.

Roll out the dough and cut circles (3 or 4 inches)

Roll out the dough and cut circles (3 or 4 inches)

Lay the disks on a parchment lined baking sheet and add the filling of your choice: Any fruit jam, peanut butter, chcolate chips, poppy filling, prune filling, raisin filling etc.

Lay the disks on a parchment lined baking sheet and add the filling of your choice: Any fruit jam, peanut butter, chocolate chips, poppy filling, prune filling, raisin filling etc.

Egg wash the edges, Fold the circles into a triangle; bake in a 400 F degree oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Egg wash the edges, Fold the circles into a triangle; bake in a 400 F degree oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

It is important to note do not pinch the corners, FOLD them!

Egg wash the outsides of the triangles and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.

Cool and sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Purim cookies

Folded edges

Folded edges

DSC_0051 DSC_0043

Versatile Gluten-Free Almond Cake

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Almond Cake with Raspberries

Almond Cake with Raspberries

This Gluten Free Almond Cake is easy to make and can take on many flavors. Depending upon what gluten-free flour you choose, the cake can be quite different each time you make it.

You can add fruit, nuts or chocolate chips for greater variety. Glaze recipes are at the end.

You will need:

      • 2 eggs
      • ½ cup milk
      • ½ cup honey
      • 2 ounces melted butter  (1/2 stick)
      • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups almond meal* (see note below)

    1-1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
    1/2 Tablespoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F

Spray a 7″ tubular or bundt cake pan with pan spray set aside until ready to use.

Combine the almond meal with the salt and baking powder, mix well, set aside.

Combine the vanilla, eggs, honey, melted butter and milk in a large bowl. Mix well to combine.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Stir to combine. The consistency is cake batter. If what you have is too thin, add more almond meal.

Pour into prepared cake pan; bake for 30 minutes or longer. Insert a toothpick, if it comes out clean, the cake is done.

Allow to cool 10-15 minutes before removing the cake from the pan.

Glaze with honey or fondant glaze

Chestnut Cake with Almonds and Blueberries; Honey Glazed

Chestnut Cake with Almonds and Blueberries; Honey Glazed

Honey Glaze:

Melt 2 ounces of honey with 2 ounces of butter, drizzle over cooled cake

Fondant Glaze:

  • ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • Pinch salt
  • 1-2 drops vanilla

 Chocolate Fondant Glaze:

Pistachio Cake with Chocolate Drizzle

Pistachio Cake with Chocolate Drizzle

Add 1 teaspoon dark cocoa powder to the fondant glaze recipe above. Mix the cocoa powder with the confectioners sugar for an even blend.

Special Note:

By changing the gluten-free flour used from almond to pistachio, or chestnut, you can produce some really nice and different cakes.

You can also use Splenda in exchange for the honey. Additionally, you can use agave syrup as well.

Enjoy!

Pistachio cake with chocolate fondant and toasted chopped pistachios

Pistachio cake with chocolate fondant and toasted chopped pistachios

Chestnut cake with honey glaze

Chestnut cake with honey glaze

Almond Cake with raspberries, fondant drizzle and toasted almonds

Almond Cake with raspberries, fondant drizzle and toasted almonds

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i-Phone Camera Lens!

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I bought some lenses for my i-phone recently. While I don’t expect to use them a lot, they are fun and take good pictures.

i Phone lenses

i Phone lenses

The lenses attach to the phone via a small metal ring with adhesive on one side. The lenses attach to the ring magnetically.

I need to find a cover that allows the metal ring to stay on the phone. Right now, the case I have does not fit over the ring nor is the camera opening in the cover large enough to go around the ring.

There is a macro lens, fish-eye lens and a wide-angle lens.

Each of the lenses were used to take the following photographs.

Succulent flower; i-phone macro lens

Succulent flower; i-phone macro lens

Using the i phone macro lens

Using the i phone macro lens

Wide angle lens

Wide angle lens

Fish-Eye Lens

Fish-Eye Lens

Macro with wide angle(they can be attached or used separately)

Macro with wide-angle
(they can be attached or used separately)

 

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Snack Time!

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When having fruit for a snack or any snack for that matter, be sure to present it nicely.

Apple Snack!

Apple Snack!

It makes such a difference!

This was just a half an apple, sliced and served with a small bit of vanilla Greek Yogurt.

Snack apples

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Turkey Sausage with Peppers and Tomatoes

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It is cold and sleeting out today with a high of 27°F. A thin layer of ice coats everything.

Robert went out to do some foul weather errands before it gets really bad this evening.

Icicles

While he was out, I decided it would be quite nice to have a nice big pot of turkey sausage with sautéed peppers and tomatoes over some pasta for lunch. We just finished off a large pot of chicken soup last night so it was too soon to eat soup again.

English: Green, yellow and red bell peppers fr...

English: Green, yellow and red bell peppers from the capsicum annum plant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I used yellow and green peppers, onions, garlic and diced tomatoes. Everything got chopped into a large dice and set aside. Choose yellow and green peppers  because of the red in the tomatoes. This dish looks so good with lots of different colors.

A pound of turkey sausage (remove the casing if you want) gets sliced and sautéed, add the vegetables and simmer everything while you boil pasta and make a salad.

Add fresh garlic bread if you like.

A steaming bowl of sausage and peppers over some spaghetti is a perfect lunch for a day like today. Let’s eat by the fire!

Turkey Sausage and Peppers

  • 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1  large diced yellow pepper
  • 1 large diced green pepper
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 2 large cloves of fresh garlic, minced
  • 2 pounds  peeled, seeded and diced tomatoes
    (Canned diced tomatoes are a good substitute)
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon herbs de Provence
  • kosher salt to taste

Method:

Prepare all the vegetables and sausage. Keep items separate until ready to cook.

Heat the oil in a deep saute pan, add the turkey sausage, toss to brown the sausage. When sausage begins to brown, add the onions, peppers and cook for 5 minutes over medium high heat.

Add the bay leaves and the herbs de Provence and garlic, stir to combine.

When the bottom of the pan begins to turn brown, add the remaining ingredients, stir well and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Like I mentioned earlier, you can make a salad and garlic bread while the pasta is cooking or just pour yourself a glass of wine.

Enjoy!

DSC_0087Turkey sausage and peppers

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How I Eat Eggs, and You?

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My favorite way to eat eggs for breakfast is to cook over-easy in a small amount of butter.

1 slice of really good bread, lightly toasted and torn into bite size pieces, not buttered, just dry.

I like to tear the toast in the kitchen. Then all I need at the table is a knife and fork. It would be rather crude to tear the bread the way I like it at the table. Besides it would be really crummy and need a vacuum to clean up.

A1 Steak Sauce

A1 Steak Sauce (Photo credit: AtomDocs)

A1 Steak Sauce is essential.

Toast the bread, cook the egg over-easy season it with salt and pepper.

Slide it onto a plate with A1 Steak Sauce, surround the egg with the torn bread.

The A-1 gets warmed slightly in the microwave first so it isn’t refrigerator cold.

Take each piece of bread, dip it into the sauce and then into the yolk. Make sure you get some white on every bite.

If planned correctly, you should have just enough sauce and egg for every bite of bread.eggs

Now this is not to say I don’t enjoy eggs other ways but sometimes I get a hankering for an egg just this way. I find it so satisfying.

This is kinda like “How do you eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?”

How do you eat your eggs? Just curious. . .

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Three Days of Hell – Surviving Being Suspended on Word Press

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On January 9th, I came down to morning coffee, opened my blog, Spoon Feast, to find a glaring announcement that the blog had been suspended.

Suspended for “violation of terms of use and advertising”.

The announcement read further: Sometimes we do make mistakes (Ya think!) so if you feel this was in error, use this form to contact us.

So I clicked it.

The form read; Report a blog for violation of terms of use, choose one of the below:

  • This blog promotes hate speech;
  • has mature content,
  • supports advertising or multilevel marketing,
  • promotes self hurt,
  • is a violation of my trademark,
  • is a violation of my copyright

Pick your poison.

None of the choices were for questioning suspension. And you couldn’t submit the form without choosing one of the options. How bogus is that!

In the meantime any visitors get diverted to the Freshly Pressed home page with a banner:

Spoonfeast is no longer available. It has been archived or suspended due to a violation of terms of use and advertising policy.

And I had no way of contacting my followers, or accessing any content. It was all gone and I was blocked from doing anything, posting, commenting, blocked and shut out of the blog totally.

Needless to say this caused quite a bit of stress.

I felt cut off from the world.

I felt I should have done an “In My Kitchen” post for January. (Sorry Celia, there were too many things going on and then Spoon Feast got suspended.)

Like a bad child from school only I had no idea what I had done. Really, did they object to kale salad that much?

I found a form to contact support, sent several e mails over the next couple of days.

No response.

I found an old e-mail from the WP support team where they actually responded to an issue a while back so I wrote them there. I wrote to support and help, being blocked from forums I couldn’t go ask there either.

Robert found the address and phone number of what we thought to be the corporate office for Word Press/Automatic (their parent company). I called and got this message:

“You have almost reached the cell phone for Matt Mullenweg, please leave a message.” So I did. Then I found his Facebook page and sent a message there too and sent him an e-mail.

If you don’t know who Matt Mullenweg is, and you are on word press, you should.

Next Robert sent a message to both support and help at word press asking why and to reinstate Spoon Feast.

My next plan of action was to publish both the help and support e-mail address on Facebook and ask everyone to write in to ask for Spoon Feast back.

Just as I was about to do that, I got a response! Yes an actual response saying the blog had been reviewed and the suspension had been lifted. “We are very sorry for any inconvenience.”

Seems like I used some words in my last post that triggered the automatic anti-spam regulators and they zapped me.

What words?

Raw was one.

Massage was another.

I’ll leave the third one out in case it triggers the automatic anti spam response again.

I think “kale” triggered it too.

Too much kale on the internet perhaps.

So in the meantime, thinking about how to recover or move my content that I don’t have access to, stinging from being told You don’t belong on Word press, thinking about how much time it took to get Spoon Feast to where it was. I felt like a deflated balloon.

One thing I realized is how much time I spend on writing, photographing, planning all that goes into Spoon feast. Suddenly I  had a lot of time on my hands.

Time to work on lesson plans, the class I am taking, planning TV shows for this season, and working on my book. Imagine losing the blog and gaining more time for all these things. OK, I could keep busy.

But being suspended still makes me angry.

What can be done to protect our blog content? Anything?

Celia, I’ll do an IMK post if it isn’t too late. (Yes, I am superstitious)

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