ketchup

After our late winter storm at the beginning of the week spring arrived in Saturday. The ride in the sun the sun made the trip down to the musty basement to retreive the bike. I decided to leave without the Trainer and rode to Target, through my old neighborhood, before going to the gym.

Outside the Queens Mall and Queens Tower folks were out enjoying the day and all the street food carts were out in force. The smells or grilled meat hovered over the street and made my stomach growl. It seems like the heat brings everyone out of the woodwork, and all the smells of delicious food along with them. I think of lunch hour at the United Nations.

By the time I got to the gym, I had bar-b-cue on the brain. Grilled sausages, hamburgers and chicken. And what is a hamburger without ketchup? And after a stop at the grocery, and an afternoon of simmering on the stove, I now have ketchup for my new batch of burgers.

I'm looking forward to one later, but right now the Trainer and I are lounging on the bed with the gerbils, Toni and Tavo, running around and over us. Tavo seems fascinated with the computer today and keeps coming to sniff my keyboard and make his own additions to the post.

I used Emril's recipes, only changing it a little bit as I went along. As I tasted it while it was cooking it really tasted like Big Boy's cabbage soup I remember from road trips pf my youth. As it cooled down it tasted more and more like the ketchup I remember, although I haven't had Heinz in a long time.

Ketchup

3 pounds tomatoes
1 small onion
1 large clove garlic
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch ground cinnamon
1/4 cup cider vinegar
salt

Wash the tomatoes, cut them in half and remove seeds and chop in quarters. Puree tomatoes in batches and transfer into a medium non-reactive saucepan. Puree the onion and garlic with the last batch of tomatoes. Add honey and spices and bring to a boil. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, fora about 1 hour. Add vinegar and continue cooking until it achieves desired consistency. Add salt to taste. Cool and store in a non-reactive container.

neat & easy roasted garlic

Lately I've been feeling a bit under the weather. I had a nasty cold last week and I ended up using my new day off to sleep and recover. I've been resting and trying to do everything I can to keep my immune systems up. At home Mom's advice was always hydration, orange juice and turkey soup with lots and lots of garlic.

Vitamin C is great for you immune system and I've been eating a grapefruit ever morning and orange cake in the evening. Garlic is also supposed to be good for your immune system, but how do you incorporate more garlic into your diet without eating it raw, and driving your loved ones and coworkers away? (Well, in some cases I wouldn't mind driving a certain coworker away)

Roasted garlic is a great condiment or appetizer. On salads, with salmon or roast beef or especially with chevre or SCD yogurt cheese and toast. The roasted garlic that my aunt taught me required a lidded, oven-safe dish and hours of cooking. Mom made this version at my cousin's house but when I got home, and got sick, I needed something quicker and easier. This is it.

Roasted Garlic

2 heads garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Italian herbs

Preheat oven to 350 F. break apart garlic heads into individual cloves, remove as much of the excess papery skin as possibly, leaving each clove in its own peel (if the individual peel does come off, it's no big deal). Trim the hard ends of each clove. Make a pouch out of two or three squares of aluminium foil. Place garlic, olive oil and herbs in pouch and twist closed. Place directly on oven rack and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. When foil is cool enough to touch, open foil pouch and extract roasted garlic from peels.

Serve with SCD yogurt cheese and toast/crackers or on a salad or with your favorite meat dish.

sugar free scd mint jelly

Have you ever prepared a meal for the sake of the condiments? I remember when I was little my used to say that fish sticks were just a vehicle for catsup. Thanksgiving was all about the cranberry sauce, on everything. I can't remember what Dad's lamb chops tasted like, but I sure remember that jar of bright green mint jelly! What treat for those rare occasions we did have lamb.

This past weekend boneless leg of lamb was on sale, and being one who can never pass up a good deal, I got one. No time like the present to learn how to roast a leg of lamb. I did my research and already knew pretty much how I would do that. That's not the exciting part.

The exciting part would be the mint jelly. In deference to my childhood memories, I simply could not have lamb with out mint jelly. The challenge was to make a mint jelly without using cups and cups of sugar or artificial food coloring. I recalled Dad frequently reminding me that we weren't having mint jelly, we were having mint flavored apple jelly. And then I saw Helen's verrines and she gave me the perfect starting place for my SCD, sugar free apple-mint jelly.

Mint Jelly

2 cups (1 bunch) fresh mint leaves

2 cups apple juice, 100% juice not from concentrate

1/2 cup cold water

1 packet (1 tbsp) gelatin

Pour the water into a small dish and sprinkle the gelatin over top to bloom, set aside. In the blender, mix the apple juice and mint in a few short bursts. Transfer mixture to a small sauce pan and heat to boiling. Remove from heat and cover to steep for about 1 hour. Pour mixture through a fine sieve or cheese cloth, pressing to get as much liquid as possible. Discard mint (or use it again for tea). Return mint infused apple juice to the sauce pan and heat, slowly mixing in the gelatin until it dissolves completely. Transfer to a glass jar for storage and allow to cool and set in the refrigerator.

blueberries and cream

One of my coworkers most vividly resembles a brick wall, both in appearance and attitude. Just conversing with her is difficult. Trying to achieve some sort of understanding can be painfully frustrating. I drink an awful lot of tea at work because of this woman.

After one especially exhausting encounter I found myself craving whipped cream. Now, I try very hard not use food as a source of comfort, hence the tea, but this one just wouldn't go away.

Most folks can stop at the corner and pick up a can of Reddi-wip but when you're sugar and lactose free as well, things are not so simple. I did a little research and lots of thinking, and then got foiled at the grocery store.

I took home a quart of goats milk, which wanted to try culturing in any case, rather than the heavy cream I was hoping to find. I had to culture the goats milk for yogurt before I could try anything. By the time that was done I still had the craving so forged on with my experiment.

The result was not whipped cream, just slightly tangy sweat cream, which was still very good and satisfied the sweet-creamy craving just fine. When I put it over frozen blueberries one night it froze, like rootbeer in a float, and it was an absolutely delicious sweet ending.

I'm sure this would work with any creamy, full fat plain yogurt if you are inclined to try it.

Sweet Cream Goats Milk Yogurt

1 tsp cold water
1/2 tsp gelatin
2 cups whole goats milk yogurt
2oz honey

Put the water in a small cup and sprinkle the gelatin over it.

In a saucepan heat yogurt and honey over medium heat, stirring until honey dissolves. Stir in gelatin, pour into a heatproof container and chill.

spiced plum preserves

Thursday is fruit day. Well, really it's pay day. Every Thursday after work I deposit my check and get some cash and head to 46th street to get a money order. On my way back to 5th avenue I always visit my friend with the fruit cart.

His fruit is generally better than the other local fruit guys, and he always gives me a good deal. Whatever he has that looks like a good deal, that's what I get and prepare on the weekend.

And so, with fresh-minted money burning a hole in my pocket, I found myself with toting home a half dozen plums to make into preserves to have with my yogurt.

Spiced Plum Preserves

2 Lbs plums
2tsp cinnamon
2tsp orange zest
1/2tsp cardamom
1/8tsp cloves
1tsp vanilla extract
Water
Honey

Wash and dice plums. Place plums in a small saucepan with enough water to cover the bottom. Cook on low heat, stirring frequently, until plums are warmed through. Add spices and continue to simmer until plums break down to desired consistency. Taste mixture and add honey if it is needed. Cool and place in a glass jar or airtight plastic container. Store in the refrigerator.

the pomegranate

No art historian can speak of early renaissance illuminated manuscripts with out uttering these three words: jewel tone colors. We students feverishly wrote this down over and over in our notebooks and dutifully spit it back out in classroom discussions and essay questions.

It always made sense to me. All the slides we were shown had vivid colorings; rich blues, verdant greens, bleeding scarlet and glittering gold. I knew the printed photographs in our books and the slides in our lectures barely did justice to the actual works, and yet they were still astounding.

In the lounge of our Gothic dormitory, my friend K introduced me to the pomegranate. The moment I held one of those tart scarlet seeds, I knew what a jewel tone was. As a student of art and jewelry I knew the color of gems; richly saturated with the play of light within. Never before had I seen a color like this fruit.

The flavor of the seeds are equally multi-faceted. Sweet and tart, red and white, sparkling across the tongue.

I knew about pomegranates long before I started eating Ks. When Hades kidnapped Persephone, Demeter was so distraught she allowed all the green things to stop growing. In order to restore life to the plants Zeus went to retrieve Persephone from the Underworld. She could return to her mother only as long as she had eaten no food of the Underworld. But Persephone had eaten half of a pomegranate and Zeus decreed that she would spend half the year with her mother and half the year with Hades. The seasons we know are said to come from Demeter's joy and grief.

The Roman's thought that pomegranate seeds had contraceptive qualities. The ancient Assyrians and Egyptians ate them. Pomegranates are symbolic in Judaism and Christianity and appear in art and family crests. They are one of Buddhism's three holy fruits. Each little seed is a tangy, juicy bite of history.

In her book, gluten-free girl, Shuana has a recipe for pomegranate molasses braised chicken thighs. I love the way she writes and her creativity with food and I was intrigued by this pomegranate molasses. I assumed that it was some type of molasses infused with pomegranate. Something that I was pretty sure I couldn't eat.

Upon doing research, probably while I ought to have been working, I discovered that pomegranate molasses was simply a very thick syrup made from pomegranate juice and sugar. That is something I can handle.

I decided to do things the hard way and picked up six pomegranates from the fruit cart near my office. I opened the pomegranates one by one, popping the seeds out in a bowl of water. The seeds sink and the pith floats, making separation easier. I briefly ran the seeds through the blender, in batches, to break the skins. I then pushed the pulp through a cheese cloth sieve with a spoon, collecting the juice and discarding the seeds. And then I made my molasses.

This was certainly a time consuming process, and not necessarily any less expensive that buying the pomegranate juice, but there is a certain satisfaction one gets from holding up the finished product and saying "I made this, from start to finish, with my own hands".

pomegranate molasses

3 cups pomegranate juice
4 tbsp honey

In a small sauce pan slowly heat the pomegranate juice and mix in the honey. Simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, until it is reduced to about 3/4 of a cup.

See? That was easy! Although it does take several hours, it's totally worth it if you can't use the store bought kind.

A Little Jar of Summer

The weekend I returned from Alaska, I was craving something bright. Pesto, to be exact. Bright, spicy little bites of summer that remind me of warm afternoons with my Nonna. I think I got the last batch of local basil from my green market, and now I have my own little jar of summer, sitting in the door of the refrigerator.

Pesto

6oz fresh basil
3cloves garlic
1/2c. pine nuts
1-2tbsp olive oil
Kosher or Sea salt



Wash and dry the basil, removing any browned leaves, stems are fine. Peel and lightly chop the garlic.

Place basil, garlic and pine nuts in the blender and blitz quickly. Add a drizzle of olive oil and pinch of salt and blitz again. Stop when it resembles a paste.

Pesto is best when everything is not completely blended and homogeneous.

Store in a jar or airtight tub it the refrigerator