Gluten Free Fridays: Snow & Soup

Backyard blizzard; 1.5 feet of snow falls on March 26th

After a temporary hiatus, Gluten Free Fridays is back. Magic made me this soup while I was on bedrest. While the snow was falling yesterday, I was dining on leftovers. To think, just a week ago I was having lunch with RetroGirl and we decided not to sit on the restaurant patio because it would have been too hot in the sun!!

I hadn't made this recipe in years. Magic dug it up in a binder I have of photocopies of recipes. My notes on the recipe say it's from the premier issue of the magazine Eating Well from 1990. I was in Africa at the time, but my mom found the recipe. For my mom's short falls, she always was a great cook. She also supported me when I was a vegetarian and found this great recipe. It's one worth sharing.

Meatless Harira
(Moroccan Ramadan Soup)

I lived with Muslims in West Africa (not Morocco). In Islam, Ramadan is the month of fasting. It's a lot like Lent, but more intense. During the daylight hours, one could not ingest anything, not food, water, or smoke, and no sex. After sundown, people would feast. We had ice during Ramadan, which is a big deal in a village without electricity or running water. It was brought in by pickup in the late afternoon insulated in woodshavings. While part of the purpose of Ramadan is to practice humility, we ate some of our best meals during that month. Of course, you can eat this soup anytime.


The traditional version of this Moroccan soup contains lamb and sometimes chicken, as well as beans, herbs and vegetables. The chickpeas can be substituted for the beans.

1/2 cup dried chick peas or 1 cup canned chickpeas
1/2 cup dried white beans, like great northern beans, or 1 cup of canned equivalent
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
3/4 cup chopped celery leaves and ribs
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. saffron threads
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
2 28-oz cans of whole tomatoes well-drained and chopped
3/4 cup lentils
salt to taste
1/2 cup gluten-free spaghetti, broken into small pieces
(the original recipe calls for fine vermicelli)
1 egg, beaten
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Soak beans overnight or use quick-soak method; cover beans with water three times their volume, bring to a boil and boil gently for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand 1 hour. Drain and set aside. Or just used canned beans, drained and rinsed.

Heat olive oil over low heat in a heavy-bottomed soup pot and saute onion over medium-low heat for 5 to 7 minutes. Add celery, parsley, cilantro, turmeric, cinnamon, pepper, saffron, and ginger and saute for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, cover, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-low heat for another 10 to 15 minutes. Add chickpeas and white beans to the pot, along with the lentils and 2 1/2 quarts water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the lentils and beans are thoroughly tender. Season to taste with salt and more pepper. Mash some of the beans against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon to thicken the broth slightly.

About 5 minutes before serving, remove 1/2 cup soup from the pot and set aside to cool. Stir spaghetti into the pot. Meanwhile, mix together egg and lemon. When the spaghetti is cooked, turn off the heat. Gradually add egg-lemon mixture to the cooled 1/2 cup soup and quickly stir into soup. Garnish with lemon slices and chopped cilantro.

Gluten Free Fridays: Pork & Green Chili Stew

Some of my readers have asked me what is the best diet for egg quality? I think that you have to take fertility diet recommendations and find what works for you. Listen to your body after you eat certain foods. Do they make you bloated, for example?

I have had good results with Chinese medicine for gynecological problems. In Chinese medicine, it is recommended to avoid wheat, along with other foods, for optimum fertility. Angela Wu, author of Fertility Wisdom recommends the following:

Avoid

• Wheat
• Refined Sweets
• Dairy
• Processed or bleached foods
• Coffee and soft drinks
• Alcohol
• Iced, chilled, or frozen foods or drinks
• Deep fried foods

Foods like wheat and dairy are considered "cooling" foods in Chinese medicine, and you don't want anything cooling off your reproductive organs! Wheat and dairy are also considered "damp" foods or phlem producing foods. These are kinda vague and mysterious terms to Westerners. When I stopped eating dairy, the first thing I noticed is that my nose cleared up. Very literally, dairy creates phlem. In the reproductive organs, I think excesses of these foods can exacerbate problems like fibroids and polyps. Cold, damp, and/or phlem producing foods basically restrict blood flow to the uterus and ovaries or life force energy flow to these organs, called Chi or Qi in Chinese. Wheat and dairy are staples in the average Western diet, so you can imagine what it does to our reproductive organs! When maximizing your fertility, you want to make sure you have good blood flow to your reproductive organs. Diet is only one of the key elements to improving blood flow and Qi to your girly parts. But enough blathering, let's eat!

Recipe Remodel

When I get bored with my usual meals and all my cookbooks, I get on the web and search for new recipes. This week on Gluten Free Fridays, I'll show you how to remodel a gluten laden recipe to make it gluten free and delicious. I found this recipe for Pork & Green Chili Stew on Rec.ipezaar (wwwdotrecipezaardotcom).

BEFORE RECIPE REMODEL:

Ingredients:

POTATO SOUP BASE

• 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1-2 clove garlic, minced
  
• 3/4 teaspoon cumin (or more)
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (or more!)
• 1 teaspoon oregano

PORK

• 1-2 lb pork tenderloin, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper (or more)

TO FINISH

• 4-6 red potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 3 (4-5 1/3 ounce) cans whole green chilies, roughly cut
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1 (15 ounce) can hominy

Directions:

1. POTATO SOUP BASE: Heat oil in 2 quart saucepan, add all ingredients, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Set aside.
3. PORK Dredge pork chunks in the flour mixture, heat vegetable oil in a sturdy Dutch oven or soup pot, and cook the pork in batches till browned.
4. Once you're done, place all the pork back in the pot.
5. Add the SOUP BASE, and potatoes,chilies,chicken broth,and hominy.
6. Bring to a boil,then simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
7. Creative Additions-- For a richer flavor, add sour cream to the soup base.
8. Use shredded Cheddar or Monterey Jack for garnish.
9. Serve with tortilla chips or Saltines.
10. I sometimes add Frank's Hot Sauce to MY bowl.

There are some obvious problems with this recipe, such as the flour the pork gets dredged in. I first substituted this with a gluten-free flour mix, but discovered this whole step with dredging the pork was a pain-in-the-ass, and tasted just as good without doing all that. Besides, who has time to do all that? I mean, having a baby the non-old fashion way is just plain expensive, so you have to work hard to pay off all those loans. You don't want recipes that have you laboring in the kitchen for hours. Here is my new and improved gluten-free, expedited version of this recipe:

AFTER RECIPE REMODEL:

Pork and Green Chili Stew

Ingredients:

POTATO SOUP BASE

• 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
  
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1-2 clove garlic, minced, or more
  
• 1 Tablespoon cumin (or more)
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (or more!)
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon of chili powder (or more); note, I use straight chili powder from this company, the New Mexico red mild. I like it because there is no other crap in it. You have to be careful with spices that there are not fillers you can not pronounce or contain gluten.
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of garlic salt or salt, to taste
  

PORK

• 1-2 lb pork tenderloin, cut into bite-size pieces (1/2" cubes); note: if you don't have time to cut up pork tenderloin, substitute with ground pork. This version is shown above in the photo.
  
• season with garlic salt and fresh ground black pepper
  

TO FINISH

• 4-6 red potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 3 (4-5 1/3 ounce) cans diced green chilies
  
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes
  

Directions:

1. POTATO SOUP BASE: Heat oil in 2 quart saucepan, add all ingredients, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Set aside.
3. PORK Brown pork chunks on medium heat with a little vegetable oil and season with garlic salt and ground black pepper. Cook the pork in batches till all is browned.
4. Once you're done, place all the pork back in the pot with the SOUP BASE.
   
5. Add to the SOUP BASE the potatoes, chilies, chicken broth, and diced tomatoes.
6. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes to an hour uncovered until the potatoes start breaking down. Stir hard or stir with a sturdy whisk to let the potatoes naturally thicken the green chili.
   
7. Serve with sides of your choice, like guacamole, Chocolate tortilla chips (I kid you not! Probably not the best fertility food, but it's better than a chocolate bar!), and brown rice tortillas. Don't forget some slices of fresh lime too!
   

Gluten Free Fridays: New Mexican Stew

This week's Gluten Free Fridays is brought to you by Karina's Kitchen Recipes, a fabulous gluten-free blog. Karina's blog used to be called "The Gluten Free Goddess", which really, she is. I know this picture does not do this recipe justice. I usually like to actually cook a recipe before I post it on GFF. This picture was kind of an after thought, and is a picture I took at work today of leftovers from last night's dinner. Go over to Karina's blog if you want a more tantalizing picture of this recipe.

Of course, we must have a little story before we delve into the recipe. This past fall, I was on a quest to get the cheapest winter squash I could find. Our local Farmer's Market has gotten pretty pricey in the last few years. I was hoping the last one of the season would have some deals, but I ended up working that Saturday. The next day, November 2nd, I went to one local farmer's stand to see if they had any squash left. They were packing up all the squash they had left to sell off to Whole Paycheck Foods, and I asked if I could still get some. They said, sure, $30 for a box. Now this was a pretty big box. I loaded it up with butternut squash, spaghetti squash, carnival squash, sweet dumpling squash, one big banana squash that I still don't know what I'm going to do with, and one buttercup squash that I found hiding among some other funky looking squashes. I got help loading my ginormous box into my car, and the man said, "you got a good deal there. That box weighs at least 70 pounds." I though, "yeah, right." When I got home, I weighed the box. I almost threw my back out. Sure enough, it weighed 70 pounds. I probably have at least half or more of it left. If you have never seen 70 pounds of squash, let me assure you that it's a lot of squash!! I'm always looking for good squash recipes to whittle down my 70 pounds, and this is one is a keeper.

New Mexican Stew
by Karina Allrich at glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

This is verbatum from Katrina's blog, with a few edits from me in italics. You can get a nice printable copy if you go over there. Just scroll down to the bottom of the post, and it will give you an option for a printer friendly version.

I used ground turkey in this green chile stew recipe but you could also use chicken, pork, or black beans.

Turn on your slow cooker to high or low as you prefer. You can also cook this recipe on the stove top.

You'll need:

1 lb. fresh ground turkey, chicken or pork (or use 1 15-oz can organic black beans for vegan)
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder- hot or mild, to taste
1 1/2 cups peeled butternut squash, diced
2 large or white gold potatoes, peeled, diced
3 medium carrots, chopped
1 cup roasted chopped green chiles- mild or hot, to taste
1 quart chicken broth- or vegan broth
Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste

Before serving:

Juice from 1 large juicy lime
2-3 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro
1-2 teaspoons raw sugar or agave nectar, as needed

First- brown the ground turkey in a skillet and pour off the fat, if any. Add the turkey to the slow cooker/Crock Pot and add the remaining ingredients- through sea salt and ground pepper. Stir to combine. Cover and cook- on high or low- according to manufacturer's instructions until done.

To cook on the stove top:

1. Saute the onions and garlic until translucent.
2. Add the squash, potatoes, carrots, and spices and give a stir.
3. Add the broth, chilis and optional black beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.
4. While the soup is cooking, brown the ground turkey and add to the soup.
5. I cook the soup until the squash and potatoes get so mushy, they breakdown when you stir the soup hard. This way, they thicken the soup and you don't have to add anything else to do so. This will take a minimum of 45 minutes. If you don't want the soup thick, you can cook it until the the squash and potatoes are soft, at least 20 minutes.

About 20 minutes before serving (about 10 minutes on the stove top), stir in the lime juice and cilantro; taste test (editor's note: I skipped this part, and it was fine, but probably tastes better with a little lime juice and cilantro topping. If you don't have time for this step, leave it out as optional). Add a dab of sweetener, if needed, to balance the spice. If you need a tad more liquid, add more broth. Heat through. Serve with warm gluten-free tortillas, blue corn muffins or yeasted cornbread. Serves 4.

Gluten Free Fridays: Kale & White Bean Soup

If you have "unexplained infertility", you may consider getting tested for celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. One of my favorite websites for a compendium of gluten related diseases is The Gluten File. A couple of years ago when I was trying to get to the bottom of my intestinal and uterine problems, I got to know the author of this website through a forum on neurological diseases related to gluten. When that forum crashed, Cara, the author, lost a lot of her data that she had compiled through many posts. She then decided it was time to create this website, which is a wealth of information.

The Gluten File
Interested in the effects of gluten on fertility? Go to the right menu on the home page of The Gluten File and click on Infertility and Miscarriage. Cara painstakenly searches the PubMed abstracts regularly and links them on her website. Most of her links are from abstracts of published medical literature.

If you think about it, bowel health and reproductive health go hand-in-hand. If you are familiar with your anatomy, the female reproductive organs are sandwiched between the rectum and the bladder. I don't know who thought to put the baby making organs between two septic areas in the body. I think it's a bad design, personally. Take my anatomy for instance. Normally, the uterus lies over the bladder. I'm special in that I have a retroverted uterus, which means it's tipped back more near my rectum. I used to have leaky-gut syndrome, so I can't help but think that all that poo was leaking next to my uterus. This also happens to be the area I tend to get the fibroids, on the back side of my uterus where it's close to my rectum. I know, eww! You can also find information on Leaky Gut Syndrome on The Gluten File.

What's the big deal about Leaky Gut Syndrome? I'm glad you asked. Leaky gut syndrome can lead to gluten sensitivity, as in my case, as well as lots of other food sensitivity issues. Taking lots of antibiotics and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), like ibuprofen, can cause leaky gut syndrome. After my laproscopic myomectomy in 2006 to remove uterine fibroids, my intestines were a wreak. I took a lot of ibuprofen, which I thought was safer than the other heavy duty pain killers I was prescribed, but they destroyed my small intestines. I did not know this at the time, and I did stool test after test with my GP to figure out what I had. All the tests came back negative. I think my doctor was beginning to question my sanity. At one point, my doctor had me tested for HIV. I was a bit insulted, but I did the test to humor her. I knew it wasn't all in my head. I just had to find the right doctor to work with.

I finally figured out by doing my own research that my local hospital did not test for all possible intestinal pathogens. I got fed up and went to an acupuncturist who specializes in gastrointestinal disorders. I got the proper testing, and was diagnosed with bacterial dysbiosis, which means I had an imbalance of bad bacteria in my gut. He treated me with Chinese herbs, and the problem was solved. We also did a lot of work on my food sensitivities, and now I have it down to two food groups I can not eat, gluten and most dairy. At one point, I also could not eat corn, soy, and nuts, which made for a very limited diet. I still avoid corn and soy, but eat them occasionally. Most corn and soy in the US is genetically modified anyways, so I don't want to be eating it.

So what does all this have to do with fertility? You are what you eat. When I could not eat gluten or corn, I discovered that these two items are in EVERYTHING, at least all processed foods. I had to start cooking all my own food from whole ingredients, which in the long run was the best thing for my health. Crap in, crap out, I say. If you want to have good egg quality, look at what you are eating. How many times do you eat out a week? Even places like Whole Paycheck Foods do not use their top quality ingredients in their deli. You don't know what crap they are cooking with to save money. Plus, I know many people who are celiac or gluten sensitive who end up getting sick eating from there. If you don't have time to cook for yourself, then ask yourself why? You probably have too much going on in your life and are stressed out. Stress is the fertility killer.

A lot of women freak out when they find out they have high FSH or are told they have bad egg quality. The average lifestyle of a US woman is not conducive to reproductive health. We work too much, we do too much, we don't sleep enough, and we don't take time to relax or cook a good meal for ourselves. Exercise? Who has time for that? Or we do too much of it to fit into some image of a coat hanger skinny model that the media too often pushes off as desirable. Plus, we live in a toxic world. If we took care of ourselves and identified and eliminated the toxins in our lives, our egg quality would be a lot better.

I was one of those women I'm describing here. My uterine fibroids were a wake up call for me. I had an FSH of almost 18 and was told my eggs were toast two months shy of 39. I changed my lifestyle, cleaned up my diet, and did a lot of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. My FSH dropped and my RE couldn't figure it out. He chalked it up to a faulty lab test. My embryos at age 41 looked like those of a woman 10 years younger than me. One of the key things to turning my health around was getting to the bottom of my intestinal problems and healing my gut. It wasn't easy, and I had to work with a whole team of health care professionals to figure it all out. I'm hoping I can make at least one aspect easy for you by providing recipes for healthy meals. I'm notoriously bad at eating the same things over and over again, which is really bad for leaky gut syndrome. Luckily, I also get bored with what I eat and am constantly looking for new and interesting recipes. Enough talking, let's eat!

Kale and White Bean Soup

This soup became a staple in my house this year. We had an abundance of kale in our garden, and I was looking for new recipes to cook with it. This can be made with sausage or without. I make it both ways, depending on my mood. I will start with the version with sausage. It can be served with rice pasta or spaghetti squash, as pictured above.

1/2 lb. bulk sweet Italian sausage or buy links and take off the casings
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
5-8 cloves of garlic, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 cups chicken broth
one 15oz can of cannellini, white kidney beans, or great white northern beans, drained & rinsed
4 cups packed chopped kale (stems removed)
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice OR one 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 cube of frozen basil or 2 tsp of dried Italian herbs (can be a mixture of basil, marjoram, thyme, & oregano)

Toppings:
minced fresh parsley (optional)
grated romano cheese

1. If serving with spaghetti squash, bake spaghetti squash by cutting in half, scooping out the middle with the seeds, and placing in a baking dish cut side down with about 1/4" of hot water. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until done.
2. Start the soup by browning the sausage first. In a skillet, break the sausage up into bite size pieces and brown. Set aside when done.
3. In a soup pan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent.
4. Add browned sausage, 3 cups of chicken broth (reserving 1 cup), kale, salt, pepper, Italian herbs, and half the rinsed beans (reserving the other half).
5. With the other 1 cup of chicken broth, put in a blender with the other half of the rinsed beans. Puree until smooth, and add to the soup.
6. Add tomatoes, if desired. Otherwise, add lemon juice at the end.
7. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
8. If you are not serving with spaghetti squash, cook pasta while you are waiting for the soup to finish.
9. Add lemon juice to the soup at the end if you did not add tomatoes earlier.

Vegetarian version:
Substitute chicken broth with vegetable broth or water.
Instead of sausage, use another can of cannellini beans. Blend one can of beans with 1 cup of water or broth, and put the other can of beans in the soup unblended.

Serve with grated romano cheese and minced parsley. Yum!

Gluten Free Fridays: Minestrone Soup

I'm cheating a little here because I'm actually writing this post on Saturday. However, this is what I ate yesterday on Friday. No, not a cupcake, minestrone soup. I recently added gluten-free blogs to my blogroll, as cooking and eating are two of my favorite past times. Blame my Italian genes.

I am gluten sensitive. I do not have celiac disease, but personally, I don't see much of a difference. If you can't eat gluten, you can't eat gluten. I guess with my gluten sensitivity, I do not get vilely ill if I eat a little bit of gluten. I might get depressed or I might feel achey in my joints or muscles. Gluten can cause a lot of problems if you are sensitive to it, including infertility.

Gluten 101
Gluten is a protein in wheat, rye, barley and oats that is responsible for making breads, pasta, and other baked goods stick together. Actually, oats itself does not have gluten, but it is usually contaminated with wheat, so unless you buy oats from fields and factories dedicated to process oats only (2 or 3 companies in US & Canada), just figure it has gluten. The oat grain and the wheat grain look almost identical, so it is difficult to process wheat grains out of oats. Wheat is slightly larger, though these pictures are not to scale:

Wheat grains

Oat grains

Modern wheat has been bred to have higher gluten contents than historical wheat varieties. Gluten is the sticky stuff that holds bread and other baked goods together. Plant breeders figure the more gluten the better, but modern wheat is harder to digest as a result. Some people can eat spelt or kamut. These are basically old varieties of wheat that have not been messed with like modern wheat, but wheat just the same. If you can't have gluten, spelt or kamut won't do either.

Interestingly enough, my little old Italian grandmother had asthma, so way back when people were not so savvy about gluten sensitivity, her progressive doctor told her she could not eat wheat, only rye. Rye has less gluten content in it than wheat.

Every Friday, I will try to include little tidbits of interest on the effects of gluten on the body. I know a lot of women who are told to avoid it if they have fertility problems. I decided to cut it out for several reasons, including mental health, digestive problems, fibroids and fertility. I recently found out I have osteopenia in my hips, which is the first stage of bone loss before osteoporosis. It's probably from all those years I had digestive problems and was not absorbing calcium properly, just another reason not to eat gluten. Enough talking, let's eat!

Minestrone Soup

I miss eating minestrone soup from a can. If you can't have gluten, you can make your own and it's much healthier than the processed canned stuff! I use gluten free elbow pasta. To date, I have not been able to find GF ditalini in the US, and I live in gluten free central. If you have the time, you can cook GF penne and cut them in half or thirds to approximate ditalini. Sorry, no picture, but trust me, it's good!

~1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp butter: substitute with ghee if you can't have dairy or omit
2 cloves minced garlic
1 large onion diced
1-2 medium carrots diced
1-2 stalks celery diced
1 medium potato diced
1 15oz can diced tomatoes
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1-2 Tbsp tomato paste to taste
1 small zucchini
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp salt, or to taste
4 cups GF chicken broth
1 cup fresh or frozen green beans in 1/2" to 1" pieces
1 15oz can kidney beans - drained & rinsed
1 cup dried GF pasta (Tinkyada brand elbow pasta works well)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (optional) or 2 cubes of frozen homemade basil pesto
black pepper to taste
Romano cheese to top (optional)

Add olive oil, ghee, & onion to a large soup pot and saute until the onion is translucent. Add garlic about half way through this.

Add celery, carrots, potato. Saute for another 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano, salt, chicken broth, and tomato paste.

Bring soup to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15-30 minutes. Veggies should be tender. In the meanwhile, start your water boiling for the GF pasta.

Add green beans, kidney beans, zucchini, and fresh or frozen basil. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes. While this is simmering, cook your GF pasta separately and add to the soup after the soup is fully cooked.

Serve hot and top with freshly grated romano cheese. Yum!!

Show and Tell: Tomatoes Comin' On!

It's my favorite time of the year, fall. The nights are getting cooler, the hummingbirds are getting sparser, and the bounty in the garden and farmer's market is plentiful.

Where I live, the nights get too cool, even in the summer, to get an abundant tomato harvest. I've planted tomatoes in other places I have lived in the state, but I've never bothered here since we get a lot of cool nights in the summer. Warm nights are crucial to tomato fruiting. But what the heck, I gave it a go this summer, and I did actually get some tomatoes.

I planted two San Marzano tomato plants. Normally, I'd go for the Romas for plum tomatoes, but the Master Gardener at the plant sale convinced me I'd like these more than the Roma variety. The other tomato variety I planted, the Thessalonika, was excellent in flavor, but I got a disappointing harvest. I'm getting a decent harvest on the San Marzanos, but I don't think I am going to have enough to can. So what's a gardener to do?

It's a cool, rainy morning today, so it's a perfect morning to make a leisurely breakfast that includes San Marzano tomatoes! I'd like to share one of my favorite recipes with you, courtesy of Suzanne Somers. Yeah, the girl can cook! If you are bored of cooking eggs the same old way, this is a refreshing new way to start your day.

Eggs in Tomatoes and Red Peppers

1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium-size red onion, sliced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
about 10 fresh San Marzano plum tomatoes from the garden, or one 28-oz can of plum tomatoes, drained and chopped (this is what the recipe actually calls for, but I usually put in one 14.5-oz can of diced tomatoes)
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 eggs
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)

Heat a 10-inch saute pan on medium heat. Add the olive oil and the red onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the bell pepper and cook for another 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. If using fresh plum tomatoes, you can remove the skins first, if you like. To do that, boil a pot of water. Put the plum tomatoes in the boiling water. Remove them with a slotted spoon when the skins split. Cool a little, and pull off the skins.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Prepare for the next step by breaking each egg into a separate custard cup or small bowl. This is important so that you can put all the eggs in the pan at the same time for even cooking. You will be basically poaching the eggs in the tomato mixture you just created. Increase the heat to medium-low before cooking the eggs. Make four small wells in the tomato mixture (see picture above). Pour each egg into a well. Cover with the lid and cook until the whites have set but yolks are still runny. I've timed it to exactly 3 minutes. If the tops are still runny, you can put the pan under a broiler for 1 minute, but you need to have it ready ahead of time. Timing the eggs is crucial if you like runny yolks, like I do. Remove the eggs from the pan immediately after cooking to prevent the yolks from cooking anymore.

Since I don't eat dairy, I skip the feta cheese part, but you can sprinkle the feta over everything and serve immediately. Yum!!

S & T: Life is too short for bad olive oil

or how to make killer pesto

summer basil harvest means pesto-a-plenty!

In my house, two things will cause a riot: running out of garlic or olive oil or both. Milk we can live without for a day. If there are no eggs, then it's oatmeal for breakfast. But no olive oil?! There really isn't anything you can substitute for it. The same goes for garlic. I grew up with good home Italian cooking. My parents bought olive oil by the gallon. I think olive oil is necessary to keep my motor running properly. I've even converted my Jewish Eastern European descent husband to crave olive oil and garlic.

I am constantly trying different brands of extra virgin olive oil to find the best one at the cheapest price. Some people look at the color and appreciate the taste of a fine wine. I do the same with olive oil. The bottle of olive oil I recently bought on sale was so bitter, I stopped making dinner and went out to buy a fresh bottle. Life is just too short to eat bad olive oil. It's so bad, I'm going to return it.

The reason I taste olive oils is that a fine olive oil is critical to good tasting pesto. It's pesto harvest season in my garden. If the olive oil is too bitter, it will ruin your pesto. Some extra virgin olive oils do have a bitter aftertaste. I usually save those for sautéing. Choose the smoother tasting olive oils for your pesto. Lean in closer while I tell you how to make the finest pesto that money can't buy.

First, you need to grow your own basil, unless you have wads of cash lying around that need to be spent. You'll burn through a small fortune buying fresh basil at the farmer's market or grocery store if you make pesto the way I do, with LOTS of basil!

It's hard to believe that I'm a die hard basil lover now. My mom always grew basil, along with flat leaved parsley, for her Italian cooking. My brothers, knowing that I didn't like the smell of basil as a child, used to chase me around the yard, trying to shove basil up my nose. I managed to survive that trauma to grow up as a gardener of basil. In fact, I realized in horror the weekend before last, that I was not going to be able to freeze enough basil to get me through the winter on the eight plants I had already planted. I only had enough frozen basil and pesto to get me through January last year on six plants. Luckily, the farmer's market had lots of basil plants on sale this weekend, so I bought two more.

Ingredients for Pesto:
lots of basil
1-2 cloves of garlic
pine nuts, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup
romano cheese (optional), about 1/4 to 1/3 cup or to taste
salt, about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp
olive oil

In order to become a good Italian cook, or a good cook in general, you have to give up the need to have exact quantities. The first time I asked my mom for a recipe for pasta fagioli, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Can you give me your recipe for pasta fagioli?"
Mom: "Well, you need tomato sauce, cannellini beans, some celery with leaves, ditalini, garlic, some olive oil, and salt and pepper."
Me: "How much do I need of each?"
Mom: "Oh, I don't know. I don't measure quantities. I just sort of wing it."
Me: "But I have no clue what I'm doing!!"

My mom never had the patience to teach me how to cook as a kid. I did manage to inherit the family cooking gene, and now I'm able to use my intuition when I cook. I'm doing the same thing she does, adding ingredients based on experience, intuition, and taste-as-you-add. I'll at least try to give you relative quantities, though every time I make pesto, it's a little bit different. A lot of making pesto is relative to how much you like of each ingredient. I like a lot of basil, and you'll never find that in store bought pesto.

The How to of Pesto Making
I make pesto in a food processor. A blender will work if you don't have a food processor. First, fill the food processor with basil leaves. Grind them down. Put more basil leaves in if you like a lot of basil in your pesto.

Next, add a clove or two of garlic. I don't like a lot of fresh garlic in my pesto, even though it would seem that you can't have enough garlic. A little fresh garlic goes a long way. There are many different types of garlic too, but that's a whole 'nother discussion that I'm not really qualified to get into. I like a mild garlic, which is usually the standard grocery store type.

Then, add the pine nuts and romano. I have never found a good substitute for pine nuts. You just have to bite the bullet and spend the money on them. You can use walnuts, but I think they are too bitter. Process the pine nuts enough that it chops up the nuts, but not enough to make pine nut butter. Pulse the processor if you have to. When it's starts to stick together, stop processing! Ideally, you would want to stop before it starts to stick together, because that's when it tastes like pine nut butter. You'll know what I mean once you've made this mistake. I've done it more often than I'd like to admit.

For cheese, I prefer romano to parmesan. Again, it's what I grew up with. We always had a jar of fresh grated romano cheese in the frig for sprinkling on all our Italian dishes. Romano has more flavor than parmesan, in my opinion, but use what you prefer. For a long time, I could not eat dairy, so you can leave the cheese out and the pesto will taste just fine.

Lastly, add the olive oil and a little bit of salt to taste. Try adding the salt in at 1/4 tsp at a time and taste it as you go. The romano will make the pesto salty tasting, but I like more salt than that. I don't measure the olive oil. I just keep adding it until I get it to a consistency I like. You can pulse or run the food processor each time you add the olive oil. My husband likes his pesto creamier, so he usually puts in the olive oil in first with the basil. You can experiment with which technique you like best.

In the winter time, we often make pesto the same way but with arugula. The taste is different, but it all looks the same in the end:


Ahhh, heaven!