There is nothing like tomato sauce made from fresh tomatoes in the summer. But, no worries, if you have an abundance of tomatoes the rest of the year, you can easily turn them into tomato sauce, too.
Condiments
Balsamic Caramelized Onions – a Condiment or Side
These balsamic caramelized onions go very well with the Roasted Duck with Raspberry Sauce, as well as on burgers, with cheese, on toast, just about anywhere – they are sweet and tart at the same time.
Crab Balls – The Month of Burgers
Crab Balls
I have always liked crab balls, ever since my mother used to buy Mrs. Paul’s Frozen Crab Cakes when I was a little kid. As I grew up, I realized I could make them myself and used Zatarains, which had a lot of salt, so I decided to make my own and do better.
These make a great appetizer or a light lunch with a salad or chips. When I made this, I threw a thinly sliced potato in the fat and made potato chips.
San Marzano Style Earthquake Ketchup
So, what do you do on the morning of the 4th of July when you want to make Boswell Barbecue Sauce that goes with Barbecued Ribs in the Instant Pot, but you don’t have ketchup? Well, you grab a can of San Marzano style tomatoes and you get cooking.
How to Make Butter in a Braun Food Processor
You will be absolutely amazed at how easy it is to have fresh butter just using your food processor. If you have a Braun food processor, even better because it has a variable speed that makes the job even easier. All you need is a food processor and cream – that’s it! For your troubles, you get butter and buttermilk that you can use for scones or biscuits, pancakes, Red Velvet Cake, or other recipes that require buttermilk. This is real buttermilk with little bits of butter in it – not the stuff they sell at the supermarket – this is real buttermilk.
Boswell Barbecue Sauce – Smokey, Sweet, Sour and Hot
I started making barbecue sauce a couple of years ago when I ran out of storebought and didn’t feel like going to the store to get more. How hard could it be? So, I’ve been working on this sauce and this is just the way we like it. I think you might like it, too. It’s sweet from brown sugar, honey, and molasses, and it’s sour from red wine and apple cider vinegar, and it’s hot from several types of chili. I’m going to put this on our Nesco Baby Back Ribs, but it’s also great on Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Chicken, or anything else you want a sweet and sour hot barbecue sauce.
Peaches Preserved in Vodka
These Peaches Preserved in Vodka are wonderful to have when peaches are not in season. Give them as gifts. Not for children!
Thousand Island Dressing with Balsamic Toasts
Recipes in this Post
Why would anyone want to write about Thousand Island Dressing? It’s yucky! It’s that reddish stuff that sits on the salad bar and congeals because no one wants it, and rightly so. It’s the “secret” sauce on the Big Mac and has become so common that you probably don’t even notice it on your sandwich anymore. That’s a pity because this is a grand dame of salad dressings with an interesting and honorable history.
Thousand Island Dressing is named for the archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada-U.S. border in the Saint Lawrence River. Some of the islands are very small indeed. The one pictured above supports a single tree and two bushes. The dressing was popularized by May Irwin, a Canadian vaudeville star in the 1890s. She had a home in Grindstone Island, one of the Thousand Islands. She said that the dressing reminded her of the Thousand Islands, and enjoyed the dressing so much that she requested the recipe from Sophia LaLonde, a fishing guide’s wife who frequently made the dressing for her husband. Miss Irwin then gave the recipe to George Boldt, the proprietor of the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, who instructed his the hotel’s maître d’hôtel, Oscar Tschirky, to put the dressing on the menu. In 1950 the dressing became a standard and started its decline into the gloppy mess we have today.
One of the things we do at The Good Plate is to reconstruct packaged foods, so they taste better, and don’t have the preservatives common in packaged foods. I knew that venerable Thousand Island Dressing deserved a better place, and making it from scratch would make it one of my favorites, especially for seafood salads.
I made a crab salad for the dressing, and some Balsamic Toasts to go with them. This was amid Spane and his friend making Play Dough on the stove. There are little bits of homemade Play Dough all over the place. Time to clean!
Mediterranean Lentil Salad with Olive Toast
Recipes in this Post
It had been so hot lately in Los Angeles, and even though the day promised to be only in the high 70’s, I still did not want to heat up the house. It was also Friday, which in our house, means no meat. We had some leftover grilled sweet peppers that I wanted to use, and some remnants of other vegetables. My friend, Amber, had planted a basil plant I had brought home into two larger containers, and they had plenty of leaves to go with my vegetables. So, what kind of good, cool salad could I make and still have the protein that our bodies require? Lentils were the perfect answer!
As I was checking out at my favorite store, the Adams Supper Market in Glendale, I mentioned my plan to the cashier and said I would be back later to get some nice crusty bread to go with it if I didn’t have any at home. As it turned out, I did have bread at home, but by the time I discovered I didn’t have any butter, Adams Supper Market was already closed. No problem, Olive Toast to the rescue!
It’s a recipe for a cool, protein-rich salad on a hot day.
Basil Pine Nut Pesto – Freshly made with love
Basil pine nut pesto is one of the most delicious and easy things to make. It’s even better in the summer when your basil plant is fat with big green leaves.