Dealing with the cherry tomato glut

Building the original Little House of Concrete involved a strict budget, working on the principle that payments of $300/month were affordable, and around fourteen years to pay it off would allow Hughesy to escape from the workforce at a relatively early age.

It also meant that apart from the actual house there wasn't much else on the block, apart from a garden shed, so from the get-go it was a case of filling things in as I could afford them, starting with the garden bed on the corner, which had its first incarnation as the Chilli Patch, but was subsequently turned over to the current bougainvillea extravaganza.

We followed that with the garden bed that occupies the other front corner, planting assorted fruit trees and other odds and ends to fill it. The filling in the block activity was ramped up significantly once 'Er Indoors appeared on the scene, with a carport at the rear of the premises, the fence down the side and the garden beds inside it and once Madam's Extension had been added to the end of the original building, there wasn't too much left to do.

By that stage we had Hughesy's retirement firmly on the horizon so it made sense to finish off the filling in before it happened, and a paved pathway and a couple of raised garden beds on either side of the olive tree seemed the way to go.

With the benefit of hindsight, of course, we'd have gone in other directions, but the two bed vege patch seemed like the best option at the time.

The first crop that came off the patch was reasonably abundant, being described at the time as the zucchini plague and the cherry tomato glut, and while subsequent years didn't quite deliver the same abundance, but we've slowly got our act together, particularly in the compost bin department, and this year's cherry tomato glut has left all previous efforts well and truly in the shade.

Here they were back in June, looking promising

while now they've reached this stage

and this is what's sitting in the kitchen after last night's cherry tomato and sausage risotto.

Much of the credit for that goes to the Neighbour Who Knows About These Things, and a proper trellis system that has allowed us to get to an abundant crop.

It took a while for the little devils to ripen, however, and their refusal to start doing so in a timely manner meant that dinner arrangements when The Staggster lobbed on the doorstep moved from chicken with cherry tomatoes towards a curry option, but now, two months later, we've got a serious and on-going glut and the prospect of something similar if we can match this year's trellis arrangements, so what do you do when you've got cherry tomatoes literally coming out of your eyes?

Here are a few of the ways I've tried to keep the incoming flow under control.

First, what I was planning to hit The Staggster with:

Chicken with cherry tomatoes, olives and capers

4 chicken breast fillets
1 onion, cut into wedges
4 whole cloves garlic, skin on
250 g cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup kalamata olives
2 tbsp capers
1 tsp dried herbs (I generally go for basil and oregano, but I figure any of those more or less Mediterranean herbs would do)
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 200°C.
Place the chicken breasts in a baking tray lined with baking paper, add onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes, olives and capers, trying to avoid having too much on top of the chicken breasts.
Sprinkle the chicken with herbs, salt and pepper and drizzle with oil.
Roast for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Serve with a basic risotto, parboiled and stir-fried potatoes or steamed broccoli or zucchini. This one's a long term pre-cherry tomato glut favourite, so we've tried it with all of the above. Actually, thos was the reason I wanted to plant the cherry tomatoes in the first place.

Spaghetti with cherry tomatoes, tuna, olives & capers

500 g spaghetti
Extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
500 g cherry tomatoes, halved
185 g can tuna in olive oil, drained and flaked (if you're inclined towards tuna with chilli, use the oil from the tin in the cooking, and top up with the extra virgin)
125 g pitted black olives, chopped
4 tbsp capers in brine, drained and chopped
A dash of white wine
4 tbsp fresh basil
Salt & freshly ground pepper

Cook spaghetti in salted, boiling water and cook until al dente (follow cooking time on the packet, they're usually close to spot on). Drain pasta.

Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok over medium heat and gently fry garlic and chilli flakes until softened. You don't want this to brown, much less burn. Add the tomatoes and cook until softened. Stir in tuna, olives and capers and heat through.

Add drained spaghetti and enough white wine (I use Tahbilk Classic White #2 Cleanskin, allowing myself a glass while the cooking's going on) to prevent things from sticking. Sprinkle with basil and season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Serve immediately, though in our situation there's usually enough left for leftovers the following day - add a tablespoon of water to the container and auto-reheat in the microwave)..


Spaghetti with zucchini and cherry tomatoes

Per person:
125 g spaghetti
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 small zucchini, grated (or one larger one, your call)
125 g cherry tomatoes, halved
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Cook spaghetti in salted, boiling water and cook until al dente (follow cooking time on the packet, they're usually close to spot on).

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add garlic, zucchini and tomatoes. Cook, stirring often until tender.

Drain pasta and add to the zucchini/tomato mixture along with enough white wine to prevent things from sticking and salt and pepper to taste. Toss over low heat, top with parmesan and serve.


Sausage and cherry tomato risotto

Olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A reasonable knob of butter
1.5 cups arborio rice
1 litre salt-reduced chicken stock, brought to a simmer with a dash of white wine added
4 interesting sausages from the butcher on the corner*
250 g cherry tomatoes, halved
Flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Freshly grated parmesan cheese, to serve

Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until softened.

Add butter and once it has started to melt, add the rice, stirring to ensure it gets coated in the butter and onion mixture.

Add a ladle of stock, stirring until stock has been absorbed, then continue adding stock at the same rate (a ladle at a time) until all stock has been added and absorbed.

Meanwhile, cook the sausages in a frypan, under a grill or however you usually would (I whack them in the oven, but your mileage may vary) until cooked through. Remove from heat and slice reasonably thickly.

Stir sausage, tomatoes and parsley through rice mixture on the stove, then remove from heat, stand for a couple of minuteswhile you're opening the wine, top with parmesan cheese and serve.

* I've only done this once, with Merlot & Cracked Pepper from the butcher on the corner. If I was cooking for myself (Madam's chilli-averse) I'd be tempted to try it with their Texas Chilli or Hot Mexican.

Things to do with the rest of a bottle of passata

While the capability to make pizza wasn't the sole consideration behind the kitchen renovation, the particular model of oven Madam selected after extensive research was, I was informed, very highly rated in the pizza department.

As a result, very early on in the piece round slabs of dough with a tomato, mozzarella and something topping started passing through the oven on a fairly regular basis.

We haven't progressed too far beyond the tomato base with anchovies and fresh basil under the cheese stage yet, but after an initial exploration of the ready made pizza base we're now at the total do it yourself stage with one notable exception.

While my basic tomato sauce would do the job rather well we tend to keep a jar of passata in the pantry so we're ready for pizza action at the slightest provocation.

Unfortunately jars of passata tend to be rather large and a pizza only requires a tad from the jar, which means that even if you've lined up for pizza on successive nights (one serve of dough makes two pizzas, and a single pizza does the two of us) you're going to have most of the jar left over.

At the moment we tend to split the dough into serve one today and freeze one for later portions, so we've also got a fair chunk of the 80g jar of anchovies left, which, in turn means that we need to use them asap as well.

Fortunately in these circumstances there's an old favourite in the form of pasta al sugo di pomodoro e accuigne, as found in the Ursel Norman Pasta! Pasta! A Collection of Pasta Recipes recipe book that has formed the basis of Hughesy's long term attraction to pasta over the past thirty-five years.

I've made this one so often that I don't need to consult the book other than checking the correct spelling of the name. Madam tends to shy away from this one, so it's a single serve on a hungry night or a two night split if we're only mildly famished.

PASTA AL SUGO DI POMODORO E ACCUIGNE

INGREDIENTS:
around half an 80g jar of anchovies
a little non-anchovy olive oil
some of the oil the anchovies were packed in
one or two garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
parsley or similar herbal flavour enhancer to taste
400g tin of diced tomatoes or a substantial portion of the leftover jar of passata
around 150g pasta of choice per person depending on size of appetite (150 does me, mileage may vary)

METHOD:
Heat the oil in a small saucepan, add the garlic and simmer briefly without browning. Add anchovies and herbs, cook long enough to heat through then add the tomato content, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer long enough to thicken. How much you thicken the sauce depends on the pasta. Anything hollow gets a slightly more liquid sauce, otherwise you want something thick enough to coat the pasta loosely.

Cook the pasta till al dente, drain, mix into the sauce and you're ready to roll. I happen to like the sauce enough to wolf down the whole lot in one sitting, but otherwise you could halve the sauce before adding the pasta.

That still leaves about half a jar of passata to consume, and I found this one in a Women's Weekly pasta cookbook. It also uses up the rest of the pepperoni if you've opened a 125g package to go on the pizza.

TOMATO SAUCE WITH SALAMI AND BASIL

INGREDIENTS:
Olive oil
An onion, chopped or thinly sliced, depending on your own preference. I tend to halve and then slice.
125g sliced salami or pepperoni (I go for pepperoni, but if it was a standard salami I'd be adding a seeded and chopped chilli)
the rest of the jar of passata
400g can diced tomatoes
fresh basil, chopped, to taste (work from two tablespoons, then round up or down)
2 tsp sugar
200-300g pasta

Method:
Heat the oil in a frypan or wok (we have a dedicated use this with chilli wok), add onion and salami and cook over medium heat until the onion starts to soften. Stir in passate, tomatoes, basil and sugar , stir, bring to the boil and simmer about five minutes until sauce thickens.

Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and combine with sauce.

So there you go. One serve of pizza dough, one jar of passata, somewhere between four and six meals for a reasonably healthy appetite and an interesting exercise when it comes to a wine match. I'd go for the Thorn-Clarke Morello Nebbiolo, a Barbera or Sangiovese, a GSM blend or something in the chilled Rose line. Well, four to six meals, four to six different wines, eh?

Sugo alla Bolognese

I’ve been playing around with this one for a while, and the results have generally been pretty pleasing. When we get away from the Deep North, I might be tempted to experiment by adding, say, a few dried-and-reconstituted mushrooms and the liquid they’ve soaked in and there’s some suggestion that a splash of cream might be an interesting addition just prior to serving.

INGREDIENTS:
500 g quality mince
120 g diced bacon
3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
1 carrot, grated finely
2 stalks celery, minced
1 cup dry red wine
400g tin diced tomatoes
500ml beef stock, warmed on the stove
Salt
Pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

METHOD:

Sauté the vegetables and the diced bacon with the oil in a heavy-based casserole or Dutch oven until the onion is translucent.

Add the mince breaking it up and stirring until the meat is browned. then stir in the wine and let the sauce simmer till the wine  evaporates.

Add the tomatoes, a ladle of the warm stock, and check the seasoning. Simmering over a very low heat, stirring occasionally, and adding more stock a ladle at a time as the liquid evaporates without letting the sugo dry out completely. This process should take at least two hours, in fact the longer the better....

At the end of the process, the result should be  a rich, thick sauce to go with your preferred pasta and a liberal helping of freshly-grated parmesan, and whatever’s left goes into the freezer....

A good roast chook

I picked up a couple of versions of this roast chicken from David Herbert’s columns in The Weekend Australian Magazine. The secret apparently lies in resting the chicken on its breast and leaving it breast-side down for most of the cooking time.

INGREDIENTS:
A large hormone-free chicken
1 lemon or lime, halved
1 or more cloves of unpeeled garlic
Sprigs of rosemary
A couple of bacon rashers (depending on size)
Olive oil

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 180C.

Rinse chicken and pat it dry with kitchen paper, then place it in a baking tin or casserole and squeeze the juice of half the lemon or lime over the bird. Place the other half inside the cavity, with the garlic and rosemary.

Cover breast of chicken with the bacon rashers, and drizzle a little olive oil over the legs and thighs.

Place the casserole in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, lift off bacon and set aside.

Bring the oven temperature back to 180C, turn the chicken over so that it’s breast-side down, return to oven and roast another 50 minutes.

Increase heat to 200C and turn chicken again (it should now be breast-side up). Remove string.

Season breast with salt and pepper, then return to oven and roast a further 10-15 minutes, or until nicely golden. Check if chicken is cooked by piercing the flesh between the thigh and leg - if juices run clear, it's ready.

 Transfer chicken to a warm dish. breast-side down, and leave to rest in a warm place for 30 minutes (yes, 30 minutes) white you make a gravy, if you can be bothered, and cook and finish off any vegetables. Return bacon to oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp before serving with chicken.

When you carve the bird, juices will pool on the platter. As you slice the breast meat, dip it into the juices before serving.
Serves 4-6

Pasta Carbonara

I first encountered this dish about thirty years ago in a book by Ursel Norman (Pasta! Pasta! Pasta! : A Collection of Pasta Recipes). Over the years it has become a regular breakfast item, which I tend to use as a reward after a lengthy workout in the garden on a weekend. If you’re after a version with a little more oomph a couple of drops of Tabasco or similar chilli sauce makes for a nice pick me up after a heavy night.

Over the years I’ve slowly moved away from the Norman version of the recipe. Here’s my current version

INGREDIENTS
2 or 3 large eggs
Chopped parsley
Plenty of freshly-ground black pepper
50 g diced bacon pieces
Plenty of freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
150 g pasta (penne or other hollow shape)

METHOD

Bring a large quantity of salted water to the boil, add the pasta and cook according to package directions.

Break the eggs into a bowl and add the freshly ground pepper. Whisk thoroughly and set aside while pasta is cooking.

Place the bacon in a glass dish and microwave on high until cooked to your liking.

As soon as pasta is cooked, drain quickly and add the pasta to the egg mixture before it has a chance to cool. Add bacon and parsley to the mixture and stir until all ingredients are well mixed. The idea is that the heat of the pasta cooks the eggs. If you’re not happy with the result, microwave until the eggs are just set. Add cheese and serve immediately. Serves one as a substantial brunch.

Most versions of this dish that I’ve encountered in restaurant menus include cream in the sauce. According to the Wikipedia:

The original recipe from the Italian region of Lazio is made from eggs, garlic, parmigiano reggiano, pecorino romano, guanciale (unsmoked pig cheeks), black pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Cream is not an ingredient in the original recipe, and is not generally used with pasta in central Italy...... The original recipe does not result in a heavily saucy pasta; the eggs and cheese form a coating on the noodles, with pieces of pancetta scattered throughout.

My version may not be overly authentic, but I like it...

A basic tomato sauce

We need to start somewhere, so let’s kick off with something I’ve been messing around with for years. Just about any Italian cookbook will contain something similar to this, so I’ve made it as non-specific as possible...

INGREDIENTS:
2 400g tins chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Herbs, spices and other flavouring ingredients of your choice. I usually go for sprigs of aromatic herbs (rosemary, thyme, marjoram etc.) or chillies..


METHOD:

Put tomatoes in a large saucepan. Peel garlic cloves and add them whole, with whatever other flavouring ingredients you’ve chosen, to tomatoes. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer gently for long enough to reduce and thicken to sauce consistency.

Where you go from here depends on the way you’re planning to use the sauce. Start by removing the garlic cloves (unless you’re planning on keeping vampires at bay, in which case they can stay). If you’ve used herb sprigs for flavouring, they should be removed at this stage.

If you’re after a chunky sauce for a pizza or pasta dish, use the sauce as is.

If you’re after a smoother version, purée sauce in an electric blender until smooth.

Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and use as desired.

I like to serve this with meat-filled pasta shapes (ravioli or tortellini) rather than using a standard bolognese sauce.

For a start

A tight budget when the original Little House of Concrete went up meant there were certain things you'd take for granted in the average home that had to fall by the wayside, and over the past fourteen years we'd managed to catch up with most of them, with one substantial exception. We needed an oven.

For years we'd managed to get around not having an actual in-built roasting and baking device, first by avoiding those activities altogether, then by sitting a small combination grill and oven on the benchtop, but, eventually something had to be donebecause, for a start, if we ever look like wanting to sell prospective buyers are probably going to look at the kitchen, and the first thing they'd have noted would be the absence of an actual oven.

There isn't a dishwasher or a decent sized pantry either, but those matters were more or less an addendum to the oven question, and fitting an oven into an existing kitchen where there isn't a provision for one is likely to be a rather tricky exercise, so it was always going to be a matter of a whole new kitchen..

Now, having run considerably over the initial budgetary estimates in the process the LHoc Kitchen boasts all three, along with substantially enhanced work and storage space.

You can't see the oven and pantry in the accompanying photo but rest assured they're there.

The refurbished kitchen has brought with it a renewed interest in culinary matters in these parts, and with the impending close of MobileMe the content from the original LHoc wesite needs to be relocated, so it made sense (at least it did to me) to kill two birds with the single metaphoric projectile and port the old content over here to join the musings on more recent adventures in the culinary arts.

Much of the same content will be found in the intermittent posts to my food blog, of course, but the plan, at least at the moment is to use the two as a sort of condensed version of the recipe library that's gradually been built up over the years.