Zucchini Pakoras (Fritters)

Another great way to use up extra zucchini!

These look entirely too much like batter-fried sea creatures, but I SWEAR they're entirely vegetable and very, very yummy!!! (Yes, they're FRIED, no wonder they're yummy, right?)

Adjust the spices if your family prefers things more mild or more spicy. These are a huge hit with my kids.

Zucchini Pakoras or Fritters

1 cup chickpea/garbanzo/besan flour (it's all the same thing)

1/8 tsp. (pinch) baking soda

pinch ground cumin

pinch ground coriander

pinch cardamom

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 tsp. ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garam masala OR "Old Bay seasoning"(optional but so yummy!)

2 cloves garlic, crushed/pressed

3/4 cup water

3 cups oil for deep frying

1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (or some carrot or cabbage is nice here too!)

1/4 cup grated onion

Sift the chickpea flour into a medium bowl. Mix in the baking soda, salt and spices.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Gradually pour the water into the well and mix to form a thick, smooth batter; it should be thicker than pancake batter.

In a medium-sized heavy saucepan, heat the oil to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Squeeze extra moisture out of shredded zucchini by wrapping it in a paper towel and wringing. Add shredded vegetables and garlic to batter and stir to coat. Spoon into hot oil by the scant Tablespoonful and fry in small batches until golden brown, about 2 - 4 minutes, turning to brown both sides.

Drain on paper towels before serving.

Green Tomatoes

I was asked for some suggestions in using up green tomatoes a few days back, which immediately sent me scrambling to the garden and the interwebs for some good ideas.

My Grandma used to use green tomatoes in a chow-chow relish sort of thing, but I was curious what else was out there. I had no idea there were so many great recipes!.

This has been a fun few days of experimenting!!

First, pretty much everyone has their own version of Fried Green Tomatoes. So I'll spare you there, though we did make these babies for supper one night and they were DEEELISH as always. Crunchy-fried stuff, who can't like that?!! If you haven't made them, please do, everyone needs to experience these!

Next, we tried Czech Green Tomato Soup from an old, yellowed cookbook called "Recipes From The Czechoslovakia" which (as the title suggests) seems to be a somewhat poorly translated version of old Czech recipes. Someone gave it to me years ago because I have Czech heritage. It's all pretty meat-centric but I tried this one (veganized of course) because I was basically curious. And I loved it!!

It was a little bit "weird and lumpy green" for my kids. Here's the recipe though, if anyone wants it, I thought it was simple, different and quite yummy. Don't let my kids palates discriminate for you...

Czech Green Tomato Soup

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 oz any vegetarian faux-meat sub for "ham", chopped (1/2 cup) I used Smart Bacon because

that's what I had, not "ham" exactly, but work with me here...
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced scallions
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 bay leaf
2 lb green unripe tomatoes, chopped
1 carrot sliced very thin
1 cup vegetable or vegetarian "chicken" broth
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Garnish: Tofutti or any vegan type sour cream and fresh cracked black pepper(optional)

Heat oil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then cook vegetarian "ham or bacon" bits, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Add scallions, garlic, carrot and bay leaf and cook, stirring occasionally, until scallions are tender and lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes.
Add tomatoes, broth, water, salt, and pepper and simmer, partially covered, until tomatoes and carrots are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Discard bay leaf and season soup with salt and pepper. I blended this just a bit with my immersion blender but left it still fairly chunky. Really good the

next day!!

But the hit of my green-tomato cooking frenzy has got to be this wonderful spaghetti sauce I "veganized" from the FoodDay section of The Oregonian - everyone loved it and we've made it TWICE already. Here is my version:

Sausage and Green Tomato Pasta

2 Apple-Sage Field Roast Sausages, sliced thickly
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound green tomatoes, cored and cut into 1/4-inch dice
Salt
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons minced pepperoncini (little pickled peppers)
1/2 pound pasta of your preference
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup soymilk
1/2 cup coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
Freshly ground black pepper

In a 12-inch skillet over medium heat, pan fry the sausage slices until lightly browned. Remove sausage and set aside.

Raise the heat to medium high. Add the tomatoes, salt and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften and start to turn golden brown, about 7 minutes. Add the wine and pepperoncini and cook until the some of the liquid evaporates and the tomatoes are a bit saucy. Add sausage back in to pan.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta of your choice in salted boiling water according to the package directions until al dente (if you like it that way). Drain the pasta.

Put the drained pasta back into the pot and add the cooked tomatoes and sausage, nutritional yeast and parsley. Toss until combined, adding soymilk to moisten and make sauce a bit creamy, as necessary. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper.

Pour into serving bowl, sprinkle with lots of additional parsley and serve immediately.

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Now go pick those last green tomatoes and ENJOY!!!

Vegan Goodies Package Exchange / Chipotle Spanish Rice

Over at VeggieBoards, the Internet Vegetarian/Vegan Discussion Forum I belong to; we have several package exchanges throughout the year.

Members in good standing, exchange boxes of fun vegan stuff with each other through the mail, and then share photos and amazement as we unwrap our surprises. It's rather like Christmas, really!

I don't always participate, but decided on a whim, to add my name to the list for this fall's Vegan Goody Exchange. And I am so glad I did.

My package was from the far-away deserts of Arizona, and completely STUFFED with awesomeness! (See the picture!!) It's always fun to sample things from different parts of the country and this package seemed tailor-made for me, my Sprouts and our spicy tastes!

Spicy nuts, seasonings, spices, chiles, jalapeno jelly, chipotle olives, spicy chocolate, wasabi peas - crazy good!! And check out the darling fleece underneath the goodies. Yes, my sender MADE me a blanket and included that as well. Oh, and sunshine-yellow potholders too! Talk about royal treatment!!

As you can see, my youngest Sprout dug into the chipotle olives before we had the package unwrapped all the way, she's that big an olive/spicy-foods fan!! Can't blame her, they were amazing!!

So how to use some of this bounty of spicy-chile-loveliness in some of our meals?

I decided on a chipotle-pepper seasoned Spanish rice and threw in some Field Roast (also Chipotle flavored) sausage and zucchini. It made the most incredible burritos we've had in ages.

And since the Field Roast sausages are a bit spendy, and thus, a special treat in this household, it stretched two of them into at least five large servings. An extra bonus!! Totally have to repeat this meal again VERY soon!!! Please don't tell me this is unauthentic, not-Mexican, not-Spanish, not-burritos. It was good.

Spicy Spanish Rice with Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Grain Sausage

• 4 cups cooked rice - cooked with three dried chipotle peppers in the cooking water (did that in my rice cooker and the rice got all smoky-spicy-orange-ish tinged)
  
  
• 2 Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Grain Sausage, crumbled
• 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 2 small zucchini (about the same size as the sausage) cut in medium chunks
• 1/2 a yellow onion, chopped small
  
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup sliced green pimento-filled Spanish olives (or in our case, Chipotle Spanish Olives! OH YUM!)

In a large skillet/wok, stir-fry the sausage, zucchini and onion in oil until vegetables are cooked. Add the chipotle peppers from the rice and mash around with:

• 1/2 cup water or white wine
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce (or salsa)

Add rice to the pan, and stir vegetables/sausage into rice until everything is nicely incorporated and heated through, if too moist, leave over heat for a bit longer. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir in green olives.

Serve wrapped in warm flour tortillas, with avocados on the side, if you like.

LOTS of Tomatoes, OH MY!!

Well, I experimented with growing tomatoes this summer, after several dismal failures some years back.

This year, for whatever reason, the Vegetable Gods smiled on me, and my tomatoes took off! We've been enjoying

them, but now that school and work have started, I'm again pressed for time, and faced with way WAY more tomatoes than a family of four can deal with.

Yes, the Internet is full of wonderful "What-To-Do-With-Tomatoes" pages. And they are very good suggestions, but most involve time-consuming peeling, seeding, sauteeing, chopping, canning and standing over a stove as your sauce simmers. Projects I, sadly, don't have time for...

However, with a little thought and research we were able to make use of the entire tomato harvest and not take long hours doing so.

Here's my easy busy-day tomato ideas:

SAUCE

The large tomatoes were quartered and a batch cooked in the slow cooker/crock pot every night, run through the food mill to remove seeds and skin the next AM, resulting in 8 cups of lovely tomato sauce for the freezer (I don't have

time to can, sorry!) for each pot-full.

I'm on my 4th round of this and will probably do a few more. Lots of cheerful, tomato-red freezer bags lining my freezer! Use whatever tomatoes you have, beefsteak, plum, Marzano, yellow, striped, black, red...

Slow-Cooker Tomato Sauce

10 - 12 medium-sized tomatoes (or as many as will fit in your size cooker)

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 onion, chopped

1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1/2 to 3/4 cup red wine (preferably Cabernet Sauvignon)

Wash and stem tomatoes, cut into quarters, add to slow-cooker with rest of ingredients. Cook overnight or up to 12 hours (depending on how juicy the tomatoes are) on low in crock-

pot/slow-cooker WITH LID CRACKED so steam escapes and tomatoes cook down (I run the

vent- fan in my stove hood to keep my kitchen from steaming up and smelling super-tomato-y).

Turn off heat, allow tomatoes to cool a bit. Pour into food mill or ricer and process

until all skins and seeds are removed and you're left with smooth sauce. Season sauce to taste with a bit of salt, pepper or whatever you prefer.

Freeze in zip-loc freezer bags. (I fill quart-size half-full and lay them on cookie sheets until frozen, then stack them like pretty red bricks.) This basic sauce can then be seasoned, cooked down more to thicken more if you want, use it any time you need tomato sauce!!!

I use sauce from the freezer all winter; preserving 'guides' recommend using in 3 - 6 months for best flavor, but we have never noticed a problem even after a year!

"SUN"-DRIED TOMATOES

We have gallons of cherry tomatoes just falling off the vines, and even though we eat them like candy, there's only SO many cherry tomatoes a person can eat.

So we cut them in half and dehydrated in a low oven overnight. Store them in olive oil, and they taste JUST like

those expensive "sun-dried" tomatoes from the specialty store. They also perk up soups and sauces and add a whole lot of tomato flavor with just a few tomatoes...

Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes

6 - 8 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half

1 tsp Kosher salt or flaked salt

Spread tomatoes, cut side UP, over a foil-lined, lightly oiled cookie-sheet.

Sprinkle with salt.

Place in a low (150°) oven overnight or as long as it takes to dry tomatoes not QUITE to a crispy

stage.

They should be a bit leathery, like raisins, but not moist.

Remove and cool.

Store in zip-loc bags in the freezer or pack in a sterile pint jar and fill jar with olive oil and keep refrigerated.

(The oil will solidify but doesn't hurt it's quality any).

Fruit Cobbler (Today it's Blackberry!!)

It's towards the end of blackberry season here in the Pacific Northwest. You can see them along every roadside and vacant lot hanging in shiny black, forgotten clusters.

Once in a while you'll see a car parked and people filling container after container with free fruit, but they're so ubiquitous that most people

don't bother.

Friends invited us over to pick blackberries in their backyard a few days ago, berries they had cultivated; much more accessible and easy to pick. (Virtually unheard of in the land of blackberries as hated and uncontrollable weeds)

These berries were HUGE, often bigger than my thumb, and in just a few minutes we had buckets overflowing and purple stained fingers.

My youngest Sprout helped me gently put berries in pint freezer containers, we now have a lovely little stash for later this winter.

We (she!) made Blackberry Cobbler with the rest.
Our recipe for Fruit Cobbler works with most any juicy fruit, you just adjust the sugar for the sweetness of your fruit and your taste.

Blackberry (or any fruit) Cobbler

¾ - 1 cup sugar (depending on sweetness of fruit)

4 tsp. cornstarch

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. lemon juice

a few DROPS vanilla* extract

(*or almond extract if using apricots or pitted pie cherries)

tiniest pinch of salt

Mix cornstarch with water.

Bring above ingredients to a boil and boil 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add 4 - 5 cups berries or other fruit.

Add fruit to the sauce, and with any accumulated juices. Stir gently.(Peaches, plums, apricots,

berries; You'll need to peel peaches or the skins float off in an unappetizing way. Chop or slice into desired size pieces.)Pour fruit into 1½ - 2 quart baking dish. (an 9 X 12 glass pan or similar, you don't want it too full or it will bubble over). Dot fruit with a bit of margarine (And I usually add a bit of cinnamon if I'm using peaches)

1 cup flour* of your choice

(I like part white and part spelt)

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. coconut oil

½ cup milk

Heat oven to 400°. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Use a pastry blender or two forks to cut in coconut oil until mixture looks like crumbly 'meal'. Stir in milk. Drop dough by teaspoon fulls over hot fruit. Cover as much of the top of the pan as possible, it will

spread during baking though...

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until cobbler top has puffed and browned. Serve warm.

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Two of my Sprouts and I went to Pike Place Farmers Market for Labor Day (along with half the state) and enjoyed looking at the beautiful flowers and end-of-summer produce there.

Glad we got our berries for free!!

My children also wanted to visit the infamous "Gum Wall" on Post Alley which I personally thought was wildly disgusting.

They seemed to LOVE it, I may be traumatised for life. I'd much rather look at fruit and flowers.

Hope you all had a great weekend!!