More peasant food.
Ratatouille minus eggplant and onion.
Yellow and green squash.
Juliet tomato.
Orange and yellow sweet peppers.
Pecorino romano cheese on top.
Everything resting on a bed of extra virgin olive oil.
Squash drizzled with same.
Seasoning just salt and black pepper sweet paprika.
No boatload of spices to kill the taste of the vegetables.
Ready to cook just for a wee bit.
First on the stove top for the bottom and in the oven for the top.

An old southern family favorite.
Fried yellow summer squash.
Slice squash salt to get the sweat going and dust in cornmeal and let the cornmeal get damp.
Put in hot fat and fry.
Oli temperature is important if you want them crispy but not burned.
I like mine on the brown side.

I managed to cook myself out of an appetite.
After eating squash scraps, tomatoes and testing fried squash I lost my desire for food.
I think a simple cold salami sandwich is in order.

All the other stuff was prep cooking.

I made an Indian dish with those 5 eggplants I picked yesterday - a one-dish sambar, with 2 dals and some steel cut oats, which isn't traditional, but a good combination with the dal. I started with a chopped purple onion sautéed in a little olive oil, and when lightly browned, I added a tb each of minced garlic and ginger, and stirred for a minute, then stirred in the cut up eggplants. I switched it to sauté/high, and stirred frequently, about 7 minutes, until a lot of the eggplant pieces were browning. Then I stirred in 3 tb of sambar masala powder, about 30 seconds, then added 5 c of water, and stirred to release anything on the bottom of the pot. Then I added 2/3 c steel cut oats, 2/3 c channa dal, and 1/3 c masoor dal, about ten curry leaves, 3/4 tsp turmeric, and salt to taste. I then hit OFF, then MANUAL and set it to 13 min. After finished, I let it release naturally. Meanwhile, I measured out the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal, dried peppers, asafoetida, and a dozen or so curry leaves, and made the tarka, and added that at the end, along with some chopped cilantro.
Eggplant sambar, with tarka on top, ready to stir in by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished eggplant sambar, topped with cilantro. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Tacos Interrupted.
After several failed attempts at making a crispy taco shell for crispy fish tacos I came upon a most fantastic idea.
I had fried the fish already.
So why not fold the corn tortillas over the fried fish and fry it.
British fish and chips step aside.
Extra crispy crunchy fish from Texas.
Simple dipping sauce of Duke's mayonnaise and rooster sauce.
Ladies and gentlemen.
I present to you tacos de pescado from Bastrop Texas.

Homemade Pizza Sauce! First time making this. Took about four and half pounds of trimmed and stemmed fresh tomatoes, Pruden’s Purple, Beefmaster, Bear Creek, and True Black Brandywine. Used about half of the dried oregano, red pepper flakes and sugar pictured. Super tasty sauce. Makes me want to do this again.

Tomorrow, July 4th,is homemade pizza day. All the ingredients, pepperoni, mushrooms, various cheese, have been bought. We’ll make a white sauce tomorrow. Children and spouses will be here.

Try a white pizza with Basil pesto instead of sauce some time. It is also very good,

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Mon Jul 03, 2023 8:09 pm Try a white pizza with Basil pesto instead of sauce some time. It is also very good,

We are going to make a white sauce tomorrow.

Why's it gotta be a "white" pizza and sauce.

I need to fry up some hot spicy chicken (Pollo Frito Picante) and make some Agua de Sandia.
Water of watermelon. AKA agua fresca.
Water sugar and watermelon in a blender.
Then Helado del Demonio.
Ice cream of the devil.
Made with vanilla ice cream finely chopped habanero with a hint of anise and some annato/achiote powder.

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 6:27 am Why's it gotta be a "white" pizza and sauce.

If one tops the pizza with shrimp, clams, scallops and lobster, one knows why it's gotta be a white sauce.

Tormato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:24 am

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 6:27 am Why's it gotta be a "white" pizza and sauce.

If one tops the pizza with shrimp, clams, scallops and lobster, one knows why it's gotta be a white sauce.

A Béchamel /dairy on seafood.
Perish the thought.
You'll have every Italian in the country up in arms..

Ratatouille for breakfast.

Amazing and I'm not for sure why.
The sliced Juliet tomatoes didn't turn to mush in the oven.
They took on a firm meaty texture.
Maybe the days in the lighty salted.
Maybe the cheese.
I browned the bottom of the pan to get rid of moisture and baked at 400 for about 10 minutes or so.
Whatever it was they were delicious.

A new one.
2 habanero peppers chopped.
1 cap of anise extract.
2 caps Amsterdam gin.
1 tablespoon annato.
Mixed in the vanilla ice cream and out back in the freezer.
Tatse is fantastic.

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:45 am

Tormato wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:24 am

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2023 6:27 am Why's it gotta be a "white" pizza and sauce.

If one tops the pizza with shrimp, clams, scallops and lobster, one knows why it's gotta be a white sauce.

A Béchamel /dairy on seafood.
Perish the thought.
You'll have every Italian in the country up in arms..

Maybe the old crusty Italians in Italy. But not the new creative Italian/Americans.

The doubters can be easily won over with lots of garlic in the sauce.

The chicken is fried.
The ice cream is made and the Agua de Sandia is made.
Added sugar and freshly ground black pepper to the mix
Now I need to wait for it to settle so I can add a little crushed ice for the water.
Not going to strain out any pulp.
Made 1/2 gallon.
Stuff is delicious.
Going to have a watermelon water cocktail with gin.

4th of July cocktail.
Watermelon water with gin and fresh lime.
Very refreshing.

My favorite 4th menu ever!

Triple-garlic gazpacho (cukes, tomatoes, onion and peppers from my garden)

Spice-rub grilled chicken thighs, with seasoning adapted from our Puerto Rican nephews pork rub.

Saffron jewel rice.

Gazpacho here, too!

I would never have enough tomatoes ripe by now, to make gazpacho with (need at least 3 lbs), but I made some gazpacho today anyway, surprisingly with frozen tomatoes from 2021! I went to my freezer yesterday, to pull out what I thought was the last bag, that I had taken a few tomatoes out of already. But way in the back, there was another bag, that somehow I had missed, but it was still in good condition. I had just over 60 oz of tomatoes, which I split into two batches, and made it in 2 parts in the Vitamix. I put a small cucumber, a half of a large pepper, half of a small garlic clove, half of a shallot, 2 tb EVOO, 1 tb sherry vinegar, salt to taste, and blended it briefly. Then I added 1½ tb chia seeds to it, let it gel about 5 minutes, then blended on high each time, until totally smooth. I mixed these two together, then refrigerated it all day. I got close to 4 qts of gazpacho! I diced up some more cucumbers, plus some fresh tomatoes and some chives to serve with (didn't have any more peppers), along with some croutons.

Frozen tomatoes, from 2 years ago, ready to use for gazpacho. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



Here's the soup, before I topped with the croutons.

Gazpacho, made with frozen tomatoes, everything else from this season. by pepperhead212, on Flickr



Earlier in the day I cooked the only thing I "cooked" all day - 3/4 c toor dal, which I cooked 13 minutes with 2 c water in the Instant Pot, which I cooled some, then ground in the food processor with some oily dried olives, pitted, along with some olive paste - both things I get all the time at Lidl - and added about 2 tb nam prik pao to it. I used this for a dip, for carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, and celery sticks.