Cabbage and Tomato Stir Fry

This is a simple and healthy side dish. That's all there is to it, really. If I ever need a quick veggie dish, I whip this up in a few minutes.

Ingredients:
- Cabbage
- Tomatoes
- Garlic
- Salt
Directions:
- Mince the garlic and set aside.
- Cut the cabbage into strips, about a quarter inch thick or so.
- Slice the tomatoes into thing wedges.
- Heat some oil in a pan.
- Add the garlic and stir for a few seconds, until fragrant.
- Add the tomatoes and a bit of water and cook until the tomatoes soften a bit. Adding a sprinkle or two of salt will help with this.
- Add the cabbage and salt to taste.
- Stir everything in the pan until the cabbage is cooked through.
- Enjoy this healthy side dish guilt-free!

Nachos Grande

The hubz pointed out that we eat a lot of Mexican food. I never noticed but suppose it's true. Maybe that's a product of growing up in San Diego, but honestly, I didn't eat much Mexican growing up. I eat as much as I can every time I visit these days, but as a kid, it was always Chinese food, even when we went out. It's interesting though. Mexican food is one of those cuisines that you can't really find outside of Mexico, California and Texas. When I was living in Hong Kong, boy did I crave a good burrito! I was really excited when we planned a trip to New York and I thought I was finally going to get some decent Mexican, but nope, I was sorely disappointed.

On that note, we love Chevy's. Yes, I know it's "gringo" Mexican food, but that doesn't make it any less tasty. They have the best chips and salsa. So light and flaky. And you can't beat El Machino, pumping out fresh tortillas right before your eyes! A great bonus is that Chevy's has the absolute best happy hour. $3 margaritas (and beer and cocktails) and $3 for select appetizers. Full-sized appetizers, and their appetizers are big!

Even before we tried out their happy hour, the hubz and I always enjoyed going there for a few margaritas and getting a nachos grande to share. Now with the discovery of happy hour, we can't go back to paying full price. So when I came home from work too late to make it to happy hour, we decided to make our own at home.


Ingredients:
- Tortillas chips
- Salsa
- Refried beans
- Chicken
- Shredded cheese (mexican blend)
- Additional things that I didn't have on hand but would be super tasty if I did are tomatoes, avocados, corn, black beans, sour cream, guacamole etc.

Directions:
- Lay a thin layer of salsa on the bottom of a oven-safe plate. (I used a casserole dish)
- Put down a single layer of tortilla chips.
- Put a few dollops of refried beans every few inches.
- Put a few dollops of salsa every few inches.
- Put a few pieces of shredded chicken on the chips, also a few inches apart.
- Sprinkle everything with shredded cheese.
- Lay another layer of chips and layer of beans, salsa, chicken and cheese.
- Pop it in the oven until it's warmed through and the cheese is melted.
- Top it with diced tomatoes, avocados, sour cream, guacamole, etc.
- Serve with margaritas.

Fresh salsa

I love fresh salsa, it's so much better than jarred, and summertime is the best time to make it because all the ingredients are fresh and readily available. In fact, most of these ingredients came from our own backyard!

Here's our first tomato of the season! He's a small little bugger. In fact, all the romas seem to be small little buggers, but the beefsteak and heirlooms seem to be growing quite nicely. Oh, and I'm happy to announce that I have not lost a single plant to gophers this year, hooray! The hubz helped me line the bottom of our raised bed with the chicken wire and that seems to have done the trick. I've also been setting out gopher traps and have had quite a few successes. Those efforts, combined with the fact that I have 10 thriving tomato plants means that we'll be eating lots of fresh tomatoes this year!

I know that homegrown tomatoes are sweeter than store bought, but ours were so sweet that they didn't make a good salsa at all. I had to put a TON of lime juice in before it tasted "normal". Luckily I just planted a lime tree in our last year and it's producing fruit too.


Letting them sit in the fridge overnight also helped tone down the sweetness, so we ended up with something pretty tasty.

Ingredients:
- Tomaotes
- Red onion
- Jalapeno
- Cilantro
- Lime juice
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Dice the tomaotes into small cubes.
- Finely dice the onions (I skipped these this time because I didn't have any and didn't feel like going to the store)
- Finely mince the jalapeno
- Mince the cilantro (also skipped because I was too lazy to go to the store and let the ones in my garden die on me)
- Mix the tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, cilantro, lime juice and salt & pepper to taste.
- Put everything in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors mellow together.
- Serve with tortilla chips or on a taco or other your favorite Mexican dish.

Corn salad

In lieu of corn on the cob, I decided to make a corn salad for our 4th of July BBQ. It's very simple and quick to make. You can also make it ahead of time to save yourself a bit of stress when you're having over 30 people over :)

Ingredients:
- 2 or 3 cans of sweet corn, drained
- 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 red onion finely diced
- 1 red bell pepper finely diced
- Basil leaves
- Olive oil
- Vinegar
- Salt & Pepper

Directions:
- Mix all the ingredients together and serve or cover and keep it in the fridge until your guests arrive.

I told ya it was easy!

Bruschetta

Aaaww, I'm really loving our mini garden. This year was my first attempt at gardening, so I started small with just a few tomato plants (two of which got eaten by gophers) and some herbs including basil! It's so nice to be able to walk outside and pluck a few leaves and not worry about having to go to the store and paying way too much and then worry about using it up before it goes bad. I've really learned a lot and have big plans for next year. And hopefully, the provisions that I plan on putting into place will be enough to protect my hard work from those darn gophers. I've been setting traps out for them for months now and have yet to catch anything! They keep detecting the traps somehow and kicking dirt into them while closing off their tunnels. We've got some smart gophers in our yard. One trap has even gone missing! I doubt the gophers are THAT smart though!

Anyway, back to the food. Bruschetta! Easy peasy and oh soooo yummylicious!

I even made my own baguette! Now, if I just learn to make my own olive oil, salt and pepper, this entire dish would be homemade =P

Ingredients:
- Baguette
- Garlic clove
- Tomatoes
- Basil
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Method:
- Slice the baguette and toast it. Even better would be grilling it! Then rub it with a clove of garlic.
- Dice the tomatoes.
- Chiffonade the basil.
- Mix everything all together and pile it onto the bread.

BLT with a Twist

Yum. My hubby makes the best BLT's (and his other sandwiches are pretty darn good too). You would think that sandwiches are pretty straightforward and if you use the same ingredients, it would taste the same no matter who makes it, but somehow, that's just not the case. Hubby's sandwiches are waaay better than mine, and one of his favorites to make is the BLT. Who doesn't love some crisp bacon and lettuce with some juicy tomatoes? This time, for an extra little twist, I asked him to add a bit of blue cheese. It's hard to improve on something as simple and great as a BLT, but personally, I liked this even better! If you are a fan of the smelly goodness of blue cheese like I am, I encourage you to give this combo a try.

And just because I want to, here's a picture of my first tomato ever! It was small and the skin was a bit on the tough side, but the flesh was oh so sweet. And look, it's shaped like a heart <3>
P.S. - I just learned from the hubz that one key to making this sandwich is to put the cheese on the mayo because it helps it stick better. See, I told sandwich making is more complicated than it seems! He was also the one who taught me to put peanut butter on one slice of bread and jelly on the other when making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I used to try to put the jelly on top of the peanut butter and always had such a difficult time. I mean, duh! Doesn't that just make sense? How come I never thought of it?

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread 2 slices of bacon 1/2 tomato sliced 1 leaf of lettuce Mayo Blue cheese

Method:
Toast the bread and smear on a layer of mayo. Add the blue cheese, bacon, tomato, and lettuce. Cut in half and savor the goodness.

Tomato with egg

This dish is the very first dish my mom taught me to cook. I think it was in the early years of elementary school - I learned while standing on a step stool so that I could see over the counter and reach the stove. At 5' 1/2" (don't you dare forget that 1/2 inch!), I still have a step stool in the kitchen that I use more often than I'd like to admit.

Anyway, eggs and tomatoes. Really? Growing up, I thought this dish was something my mom made up. First of all, it was a combo that I had never heard of and seemed weird to me. On top of that, besides the occasional spaghetti, my mom didn't cook any non-Chinese dishes - and this certainly didn't look "Chinese" to me. Where's the soy? Yes, we ate it over rice, but that doesn't make it Chinese. But I have since learned that it is a Chinese dish. I've seen other Chinese moms make it and have even seen it on a restaurant menu once or twice! Who knew?

The theme ingredient for this month's Weekend Wokking happens to be tomato, so I'm going to submit this recipe to Blazing Hot Wok who's doing the roundup. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's a fun event created by Wandering Chopsticks and the roundup will be posted the first Wednesday of the month.

I'll also have a lot more tomato recipes coming soon since my tomatoes have been ripening (yay). Unfortunately, I'm a little behind, so it might be a while before I get to writing up the posts. But I hope you enjoy this one for now!

Ingredients:
- 1 tomato

- 4 eggs

- 1 tsp salt (or to taste)

Method:
- Slice the tomato into thin wedges. I try to get at least 12 wedges out of a single tomato. You can even cut some wedges in half if you'd like. The reason I like the tomatoes in thin and smaller pieces is that it cooks faster and the more pieces you have, the more likely you'll get a bite of tomato along with that bite of egg.

- Beat the eggs in a bowl. Set aside. (You can add the salt here if you'd like, or with the tomatoes in the next step, or do half/half)

- Heat up your pan and add a bit of oil. Put the tomatoes in and if you'd like, the salt (see the previous step for details). If you have one, put the lid on the pan to help the tomatoes cook and soften. If you feel like it needs it, add a teaspoon or two of water to keep it from burning and to help it steam. The tomatoes will release liquid on it's own, so this may not be necessary, it's up to you.

- Once the tomatoes are soft and more or less mushy, add the eggs in and scramble everything together. I know some people who like to add shrimp or a few pieces of thinly sliced chicken or pork, but I like it best without any of that. If you'd like to add those things though, I'd toss them in before the eggs and then add the eggs after the meat is cooked through.

- Serve over a bowl of fluffy white rice and call my mom to tell her how good it was. Actually, skip that step and call me instead =)

Pico de Gallo

Pico de gallo. It's been a while since high school Spanish class, but that translates to "rooster's beak" doesn't it? How the heck did it get that name? I don't see the resemblance at all. With my "ants crawling on a tree" dish, the noodles are tree branches and the pieces of ground meat are ants. That makes sense. This one, who knows...

Regardless of the name, I love pico de gallo. It's so fresh and tasty, I could eat it all by itself. I served it with tortilla chips this time, but really it goes well with any mexican dish.

Ingedients:
- Tomatoes (diced)
- Red onions (diced finely)
- Cilantro
- Lime juice
- Salt
- Pepper

Method:
Mix everything together and let it sit for a bit so that the flavors can infuse each other.

deep dish pizza - my first experiment

i loooove zachary's pizza. it was always a special treat in college to get zachary's because it's a bit expensive on a college student's budget. and these days, it's still a treat because it's so freakin' far!

i've always wondered why no other place (that i've tried) can replicate it because it didn't seem too difficult. as i usually do with things i want to make, i have an idea of how to make something, then i google it to confirm, revamp, or tweak my initial thoughts and then give it a whirl!

i gotta say, this was pretty darn close and i will no longer be making the long trek to berkeley and paying their ever increasing prices. my only complaint is that the crust that we made wasn't "flaky" or "buttery" enough, but i intend to try a few different things in future attempts to achieve perfection! until then...

it's still YUM!

i used our castiron skillet to bake this and it was super easy to get out of the pan. i suppose you could also use a cake pan or springform pan too.

here is my version. you'll probably find that i'm not too great about measuring things or doing things consistently, but the link that i adapted it from has nice measurements that probably work out great.

Crust (enough for 2 pizzas):
1 tbsp sugar
1 pkg (1 tbsp) yeast
2 cups lukewarm water
.25 cup vegetable oil
4 - 6 cups all purpose flour

* proof yeast, sugar and water in mixer bowl (I used my KA Mixer) until it's bubbly (~15 mins)
* add oil
* stir in 4 cups of flour, and mix until smooth (add more flour if it looks like it needs it)
* knead until the dough forms a ball
* turn into greased bowl and let rise until doubled (an hour or two)
* knead the dough by hand and split into 4 and let it rest
* roll the 2 sections of dough (all 4 if you're making 2 pizzas) out pretty thinly (1/8" or less?) or until it covers at least the bottom of the pan you're using. make sure the bottom layer has enough excess to go up the side of the pan at least an inch.

Tomato Sauce
olive oil
4 minced garlic clove
1 large can of whole tomatoes packed in juice
oregano
basil
sugar
salt
ground black pepper

* heat a bit of olive oil and saute the garlic
* cut the tomatoes into chunky dices (~3/4"x~3/4" cubes or larger)
* dump the tomatoes with the juice in the pan, along with the oregano and basil (to taste)
* add salt, pepper and sugar to taste
* simmer on low until it's not too watery (but not too thick either - about 20 mins)

Filling
Fill it with whatever you like. We decided to half chicken and half spinach and mushroom, our two favorites.

Grill one chicken breast seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper and cut into ~1/2"x1/2" cubes.

Pizza
*Lay one of the rolled out pieces of dough in your pan and make sure it goes up the sides a decent amount (~1" at least).

*Sprinkle mozzarella cheese along the bottom, one thin layer, just enough to coat the bottom. It doesn't seem like a lot for a "deep dish" pizza, but is was enough for us and we didn't think it differed from zachary's in this respect. if you want it super cheesy, feel free to add more, but one thin layer seemed just right to us.

*Sprinkle in your toppings of choice (grilled chicken breast, spinach and mushrooms for us). Again, you don't need as much as you might think for a "deep dish" pizza. The bottom of the pan was by no means even close to being covered and had lotsa gaps, a lot more than your traditional non deep dish pizza, but like i said...we thought it was great!

*Sprinkle a bit more cheese on top of the toppings (we used 2 small handfuls for a 12" pizza) and a bit of parmesan. The parmesan is really just for a bit of extra flavor. To be honest, I'm not really sure if it made any difference at all and probably wouldn't have been missed if we omitted it.

*Lay the second rolled out piece of dough on top and "seal" the sides (it's okay if there are gaps, in fact it might be good, to let some of the steam out). Cut off the excess dough around the edges, or if you like more crust, fold it in. Poke a few holes in the top layer too. One time we made it, I opened the oven door to be greeted by the biggest pizza bubble ever!

*Ladel the tomato sauce on top.

*Pop it the oven and enjoy! (450 deg for 30mins)

adapted from: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.food.cooking/msg/14b2ffbe1f674b93?hl=en