Greatest (and easiest) cooked salsa ever.

I saw my sis-in-law make this a few months ago, and I was blown away by how good and easy it is.  For the record, I'm not sure I am making it exactly the same way she did, but who cares!  It's really yummy, and isn't that all that matters?  Now let's get to it:

•   1 container grape or cherry tomatoes (I think the orange ones taste the best) or 1 pint fresh from your garden
•   1 clove garlic
•   1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (from the can--I freeze the leftovers)
•  A little olive oil
•  salt, to taste

Turn the heat to medium-high on the stove, and throw a non-stick pan on the burner.  Drizzle a little olive oil in the pan (or use broth if you are avoiding oil/extra fat) just to coat the bottom.  Throw the garlic clove in.  When the garlic is fragrant, add all the tomatoes at once (don't burn yourself!) and toss around the pan a bit.  Keep the heat up pretty high while you cook the tomatoes, remembering to shake the pan here and there so they don't stick.  When the tomatoes start to look roasted (browning a bit here and there), salt them and turn off the heat.  Throw everything in your pan directly into the blender, and add the chipotle pepper too.  Turn that blender on high till the salsa is smoooooooooth.  Done.
(NOTE: If you are spice-sensitive, you may want to use 1/4 or 1/2 a pepper instead)

I LOVE this salsa with baked corn chips, or as a sauce with burritos, avocados, or on wraps.
It will keep in the fridge for about 4 days, but it won't last that long because you will eat it quick.
My dude puts it in fish tacos with a vinegary cabbage slaw and sliced avocados.

Toasted pita with pestos

I think pesto is my new favorite food. You can make so many different kinds of pesto, and they keep in the fridge a long time (and freezer too!). Freeze your pesto in ice cube trays, then pop out and put in a ziplock bag for individual portions. Pesto is great when you are busy and don't have time to make a big weeknight dinner. I posted a recipe in fall of '08 for my mother-in-law's basil pesto. But this year I have been making artichoke pesto!!
You can find a gazillion different artichoke pesto recipes on the web, and now here is number gazillion-and-one.
Artichoke Lemon Pesto
1 can artichoke hearts (8 oz), drained
5 T olive oil
5 T grated pecorino cheese (or you can use parm.)
1/3 c. fresh basil leaves
4 T. fresh lemon juice
1 cup nuts (I use pine nuts, but you can also use walnuts. toast them for a different flavor if you like)
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste

Throw the artichoke hearts, nuts, and cheese in the food processor and pulse a few times. Then add all other ingredients and whiz it up. You can add more oil or water to loosen the pesto if it is too thick. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt.

Now that you've got your pesto, you can get to work putting together your fast dinner. Spread the pesto on a whole wheat pita, and top with a big fat slice of roasted red pepper (recipe posted earlier this year). Slap it in the toaster oven for 5 minutes, watching to make sure the pita doesn't get too crispy. Serve with a salad or soup.

Pesto can be made from: basil, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, hearts of palm, olives, roasted red peppers, and even figs!
Try pesto in these other fun ways:
on baked potatoes, over chicken or fish prior to baking, with a baguette and brie, on apple slices, tossed with boiled chilled shrimp for a fancy shrimp salad, swirled into your tomato soup, as salad dressing.

taco sauce

Aaron has made several rounds of this yummy taco sauce using our end-of-summer tomatoes. The recipe came from the October 2008 issue of Eating Well magazine. If you have never seen this magazine, you should definately pick it up. It focuses on seasonal ingredients in each issue---and seasonal produce is always the least expensive in the grocery store.

1 T olive oil
1 c. diced onion
2 medium chili peppers (poblano, new mexico, or anaheim) diced [we used the banana peppers from our garden]
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 lbs. tomatoes, diced (about 4 1/2 cups)
1 T. ancho chili powder or chili powder
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne pepper, or to taste
1/4 c. fresh cilantro
2 T. fresh lime juice

Cook the onions, peppers, and garlic in the olive oil until onion in soft and beginning to brown.
Add tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, salt, and cayenne. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes have broken down and thickened slightly.
Transfer to a food processor (or blender) and pulse to desired consistency. We whiz it till it is all smooth with no chunks.
Sit at room temp till cool (about 1-2 hours), add cilantro and lime.

NOTE:
This sauce is excellent for freezing!! Just don't add the cilantro and lime. Instead you will add those ingredients when you thaw it out. A little bit of this sauce goes a long way, so you can freeze it in quart sized ziplocks, and it will keep for 6 months.

Super yummy on scrambled eggs & sliced avacados.

Notes from tonight's dinner--early fall

We had a great dinner tonight! I figured I better jot down some notes about it so that I remember it for later. The whether has started to get chilly outside, so its time to make some changes to our usual dinner staples (bye bye cucumbers).
I think its good to make some notes, especially during the season changes, so I can look back and see what was working and what wasn't. Aaron has been trying to remember all day today what sandwiches he made last year during the cold whether.
Lunch first: I had maple ham and swiss cheese sandwiches using the sandwich press. I don't like one of those fancy "panini" presses. I prefer the old style one that is sandwich-bread shaped. Aaron had his first ruben sandwich of the fall. He makes it with corned beef and saurkraut, russian dressing, swiss cheese, and rye bread. He heats up the kraut and corned beef in a pan together. (Noah had a PBJ, which he has about 2-3 times a day now...)

And here's dinner:
Aarron had some chicken quarters that he slow-roasted all day after brining for about 36 hours. The brine contained salt, vinegar, 3 T ketchup, 3 T dijon mustard, 1/3 c. lemon juice. I think he basted it all day as well with butter, wisticher sauce, sugar, dijon, and salt.
I made a few odds and ends. We had some sweet corn and eggs from a farm we visited yesterday outside of Harleysville. I turned the eggs into deviled eggs (yolks, mustard, mayo, pickles, salt, pepper, and paprika) and just steamed the corn. I had some local red bell peppers in the fridge that needed to be used asap, so I roasted them. They were amazing! I threw them in the toaster oven on "grill" for about 15 minutes, then put them in a paper lunch bag and closed it for another 15 minutes while cooling. I skinned the peppers (its really annoying) then sliced them thin. I put them in a tupperware with 2 parts olive oil, 1 part red wine vinegar, and salt. They will stay good in the fridge for about a week. I have a recipe for canning them somewhere, but I haven't done that yet this season. I'll be sure to report back when I do.
There was also some feta cheese hanging out in the fridge that I needed to use or loose, so I marinated it in olive oil, vinegar, oregano, basil, dill, salt, and pepper (all dried herbs). This should also stay good in the fridge for about 10 days.
We also had a baguette available for soping up all the yummy juices from everything.
Anyway, its worth noting to hang on to the pepper recipe. They were the best batch I have ever made!