Tiny Tomato Parade

Man, I must have tomatoes on the brain.  With our little garden razed for winter, I'm already mourning the idea of moving back into the land of the supermarket variety tomato.  It's just not the same.  But, since the last peach received a memorial, so shall the tail end of the tomatoes.

In case you couldn't tell by the earlier shot, these suckers were tiny. Here's some perspective.

Farewell tomatoes. I loved you and shall do so again.

Sincerely,
Eightch

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Mediterranean Quinoa Salad

Over the summer I enjoyed a few different versions of Mediterranean Quinoa Salad at various restaurants around town.  Well, with a revolving cycle of cherry tomato harvests I figured I might test my memory and attempt to recreate my own version.  Here's my best current effort, it's quickly become a favorite of mine.

Quinoa is super easy to cook, just quinoa and liquid.  My quinoa has worked well with a ratio of one part quinoa to two parts liquid.  Some suggest rinsing the quinoa prior to cooking to reduce a taste of bitterness.  I didn't rinse my dry quinoa before cooking and still ended up being pleased with the taste.

Mix the quinoa and water in a saucepan and place over high heat.  Bring to a boil, occasionally stirring.  Once it reaches a boil reduce heat and simmer until all of the water has been absorbed.  This should take somewhere between fifteen to twenty minutes.  Once the water has been absorbed remove from heat and allow to sit for five minutes.  Fluff with a fork, now it's ready to serve/use.

You could really play around with the amount of quinoa in the recipe depending on how hearty you want the salad to be. I enjoy the balance this recipe provides.

While the quinoa was cooking I chopped up my remaining ingredients.  I mixed them all up in a bowl, added the lemon juice and olive oil...I must say I was tempted to start eating right then.  It never dawned on me to make this type of dish, just a bunch of chopped ingredients with no main base.  I'm thinking I may need to try this very soon.

But!  With that said, the quinoa was not going to be left out on this round.  And after tasting the final product?  Well, I'm glad I was able to hold out.  At this point, I added the quinoa, mixed it all up, then added salt and pepper to taste.  Yum!

 
Within a day or two Arie and I went through the entire salad.  Since I still had all my ingredients laying around I went ahead and made round two.  This time I was out of black olives so I substituted with green.  I may have liked them better, but both were great. 

Do you have any quinoa salad recipes?  I'd love to hear about them, I'm afraid they may already have grown into a new obsession of mine.

Enjoy,

H

P.S.  Apparently I love making salads. 

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Garden Harvest Salsa

What you see above is my first round of tiny tomato harvesting.  It may not look too impressive, but this is an over sized bowl.  I'm wishing I would have left one tiny tomato on the counter for some perspective.  Anyhoo, upon bringing another batch of fresh picked amazingness inside, Arie and I looked at this already brimming bowl and figured we had better hurry up and figure out a way to consume the majority of these babies before they all went to waste.  Well, salsa was the front runner as far as usage ideas were concerned.  So I gathered up the rest of the harvest, searched the fridge and shelves for some extra ingredients, and set off with tediously halving/quartering this bowl of tiny tomatoes.  It took a lot of time, but man was it worth it.  Here's what I ended up with.

Usually I make salsa without a recipe. I just take whatever I have that is salsa related and throw it in a bowl. I season to taste then enjoy.  Today I thought, "But what if it's really good and I want to repeat this in the future?"  So, as an answer to myself I did my whole 'no recipe' thing, but decided to measure things before putting them into the bowl.  Here's what I wrote down as far as measurements are concerned:

4 cups chopped cherry and sun sugar tomatoes
3/4 cup chopped tomatillos (five small/medium tomatillos)
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped peppers, seeds removed (random garden peppers, added quite a bit of heat)
1 small/medium sized yellow onion
4 limes, juiced (I really like limes, you could probably use less if you wanted)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Mix and refrigerate.  Done and yum!  I spooned some of this hearty, super fresh salsa over some Tostaditas a.k.a. large round and thick tortilla chips Arie and I found at a Mexican market today.  We went in for the humongous fresh tortillas.  We walked out adding Tostaditas to our bounty.  I really hope these are a commonly stocked product, I'm going to need them often.

Sheesh! I'm not even hungry and I want some right now. Tomorrow, stomach, tomorrow.

Until next time,

Heather

P.S.  Wishing I had some of this right about now.

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