You Say Tomato

Ever since I was a girl, my mom has had a cookbook called "You Say Tomato."  There are recipes for anything and everything you can think of to do with a tomato, even desserts!  What I appreciate about the book is that each page has a brief history of where the recipe came from and how it has been modified over the years.


In the summer season especially, my mom's house is bursting with tomatoes from her garden.  So naturally, we turned to the "You Say Tomato" cookbook a couple weeks ago when I was visiting.  We decided on the traditional Spanish cold soup of gazpacho.  But with our own twist!

Apparently what makes gazpacho, well.....gazpacho, is that it contains a slice of stale bread.  So call us untraditional, but we left out the stale bread (we're German, not Spanish).  Joanne's recipe in the "You Say Tomato" book also uses croutons and a garnish, as well as heavily puréeing the soup ingredients.  My mom and I like our gazpacho to be finely chopped, almost like pico de gallo.  Hence, we used the salsa maker instead of a blender.  Here is the modified recipe:

6 large red tomatoes
1 large bell pepper (we used 2 small green ones)
1 large onion
1 large cucumber
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c plus 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
dash of salt and pepper, to taste
dash of cayenne pepper (we added that for extra spice)

Place all the ingredients in salsa maker (or blender) and chop finely until desired consistency.  Place in bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.  This recipe is supposedly for 6 servings, but it's an easy one to modify for larger groups.  If you enjoy fresh food as much as we do, this cold gazpacho will go quickly on a hot summer night!

Spice Up Your Life!

The best outcome of making your own meals at home is that your food has so much more flavor.  You can cater to your own specific taste preferences.  The earth is full of hundreds of herbs and spices to put that extra bang into your meal.  Why not use your resources?

With more and more people discovering the rewards of cooking for themselves, many specialty spice stores have popped up across the country.  I visited one such store a few weeks back in Littleton, CO.  A native Colorado company, the Savory Spice Shop offers an assortment of not only traditional spices (e.g. cinnamon, basil, dill weed), but also blends and rubs (e.g. Cherry Creek seafood seasoning, lavender vanilla bean sugar, Renaissance Gardens seasoning).  They have everything from rum extract and rose water to celery seed and lavender.  And the Savory Shop also makes their own blends that cater to salads, poultry, steak, and seafood.

In addition to their large supply of gourmet spices, many of which are organic, they provide complimentary recipe cards both in-store and online.  The Savory Spice Shop is a great resource for the novice chef, as well as the experienced one.  With friendly, helpful workers, my experience at the Littleton shop was wonderful.  They answered my questions thoroughly and gave advice on spices based on the type of meals I cook.

Having started in 2004 in Denver, the store is now a franchise and offers locations across the country including California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, and Texas.  If you don't live in one of those areas, you can also order their product online!

My purchases: ground nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, California basil,  cilantro, parsley, and Renaissance Gardens

Almond-Pecan Nut Butter Recipe

On a recent visit to my parents' house, I discovered a jar of Almond-Pecan Nut Butter in the pantry.  It sounded intriguing and before I knew it, I was eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon.  The nut butter was so tasty that it didn't last long.  But as we know, purchasing almond butter at the store is expensive, and most places don't even sell a mixed nut butter.

Hence, my mission began to find out how difficult it would be to make my own nut butter.  The only dilemma was that I don't have a food processor.  But as it turns out, a woman can do wonders with a hand-blender!

A simple hand-blender works too!

Taking a few tips from friends who make almond butter on occasion, I combined and modified their recipes to make this delicious almond-pecan nut butter.

Ingredients:
1 c. raw almonds
1/2 c. raw pecans
2 Tbsp grapeseed oil
1/8 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

(I used grapeseed oil, because it doesn't have much flavor and therefore preserves the taste of the nuts.)



1. Place all the nuts in food processor (or hand-blender, in my case).
2. Grind nuts, occasionally stirring with a spoon.
3. Keep going!  It takes several minutes to grind the nuts completely.
4. Gradually add oil, one tablespoon at a time.  Add cinnamon and salt.
5. Continue grinding until you reach the desired consistency.  I don't like creamy nut butter, so it did not take long for it to be done after I added the oil.
6. Eat and enjoy your own homemade almond-pecan nut butter!

Prep time: 20 minutes

Voila, delicious homemade almond-pecan butter!

By the way, I found an organic website that sells an 8oz. jar of almond-pecan butter for $15.  For the same amount of money, you can make this recipe about 4 times!