Summer tomatoes, how do I love thee?

On BLT's, oven-dried, oven-roasted, in a sauce...

I had some less-than-stellar farmstand beefsteak tomatoes last week taking up space in my fridge. Actually, just several slices from one large tomato. The flavor was only so-so in the BLT's we'd sliced them for, but I was reluctant to throw them out, so there they sat.

Then something (probably something on Pinterest) made me think of oven-dried tomatoes. Which are basically sun-dried tomatoes, with more control and fewer bugs.

Tried it: uh, YUM!

Below are links to several recipes, but since most of them call for Roma or cherry tomatoes, I was kind of improvising. The first one on the list is the process that I more-or-less followed. Here's mine:

• oven preheated to 200 F
• large tomato, sliced into 1/4" slices
• seeds and the jelly around them poked out and set aside
• tomato slices on a cooling rack; rack nestled in my favorite baking sheet
• checked after a couple hours.

Because mine were thin and mostly jelly-less, they dried out pretty quickly. In two or three hours, some of them were already crispy. So crispy, in fact, that the pieces with a fair amount of peel were like super-tomatoey potato chips. And the tart, intense flavor? Hugely improved over the disappointing fresh version. I chowed down! (Hubs thought they tasted kinda burnt, but I thought they tasted great! Maybe he just got a bad one.) I'll probably try some more next week, to see if I can recreate that great accident.
> Oven-dried tomatoes from About.com
> Oven-dried tomatoes from Food Network
> Oven-dried tomatoes from Tomato Dirt

I mentioned that I had poked out the juices/goop from the slices before baking. One of the recipes I read mentioned "tomato water;" never heard of that, so I googled it. One "recipe" required a food processor, cheesecloth, and eight hours. But I wasn't up for that, so I just took the goop, seeds and liquid and poured the whole mess through a sieve. It yielded about a couple tablespoons of tomato-pink liquid. There wasn't enough of it to use in a recipe, but I tasted it -- then added a wee bit of salt -- and tasted it again, and it was delish! I can see it being a great liquid to poach fish in, or to put up in the freezer to add a little genuine summer taste to a winter marinara or soup.
> About tomato water, from Bon Appetit
> About tomato water, from New York Times

Also, if you want something a little less dehydrated, here's a recipe for roasted tomatoes, which just takes them to a concentrated but still fairly moist stage. I haven't tried this method, but if I did, I would make them without the herbs, to make them more versatile. 
> Oven-roasted tomatoes from Kalyn's Kitchen

DIY fruit and flower centerpiece

I like to decorate simply for holidays, and one way I often do that is to gather bit and pieces from my own yard to create centerpieces for tables, the mantle, etc.

Inspired by this lovely image at StyleMePretty, I decided to also incorporate some fruit for our Thanksgiving tables this year.

Here are some of the components I used...

Top left: twigs with berries off a flowering tree in our front yard, whose species I don't know. Hawthorne, possibly.

Top right: a $4.88 bunch of carnations. Small mums would be lovely, too. In retrospect, I wish I'd picked something more golden to help the color palette lean more toward autumnal colors, but oh well! Not a big deal.

Lower: greenery from my yard -- on the left, a small-leafed variety of trailing euonymus; tendrils of vinca minor on the right. If I were doing this for a Christmas table, I would definitely use some evergreen sprigs, too.

I also purchased some clementines and small Gala apples. I was hoping to get plums, since I loved the darker hues in my inspiration image, but alas, no plums at the store today. I would have liked to include pears as well, but they were too big for this arrangement. 

Now to the steps...

I started with a large pasta bowl, and placed in the center of it a votive candle holder, filled it 3/4 full with water, then arranged three apples and three clementines around it in an asymmetrical pattern. (Top left image.)

Next, I snipped the carnations down till they were just long enough to sit in the votive of water with their heads resting on the fruit, and tucked them into the votive holder until the blossoms filled the space. I used three or four, depending on how full they were. 

Then I pruned the euonymus down to just one or two bunches of leaves, so that they functioned more like a flower. I tucked a few of these in between the carnations, just barely peeking above them.

Then I tucked a few berry sprigs in around the perimeter, as well as a few pieces of vinca, then stepped back to assess (the lower right image in the montage above). Hmm... definitely needs more filling in around the perimeter.

So I kept adding things in. I tucked a couple flowers into the especially bare spots, and gathered some more and longer strands of vinca, and kept adding till I was happy with the fullness. The photo above shows it from directly overhead, so you can see how things are arranged. As you're making an arrangement, be sure to assess it from all angles that it will be seen from. A table centerpiece needs to look good from all sides, while something to go on a mantel, sideboard or buffet has a more limited view.

We have two tables, so two arrangements are needed. And because these arrangements are going on fairly narrow rectangular tables, I made the vinca only extend out on two sides of the bowl. 

Here are the finished pieces. I'm very happy with how they came out!

I also love the price! Here's how it breaks down...

• Bowls, votives, berries and greenery: Free; I already had them.
• Fruit: Total of about $4. The apples were three for $1, so two bucks there, and probably about the same for the clementines. I've tossed the package, but it was a two or three pound bag, and under $7. I only used about a quarter of the bag.
• Flowers: Less than $5.

So my two arrangements came in under $10. -- for both of them! Sweet!

Really, truly, the best and easiest way to cook bacon!

I've tried 'em all -- stovetop, grill, microwave, and oven on a slotted broiling pan -- but this method makes crispy, evenly-done, flat bacon with substantially less mess than any other method.

Here's the summary:

• use good quality, fairly thickly-cut bacon (I like Wright brand, at Dillon's)
• preheated 400 F oven 
• good quality cookie sheet: half sheet for 8 oz of bacon; full sheet for 16 oz.
• cover the cookie sheet with aluminum foil completely; up the sides and around the edge, for the easiest clean up
• lay the bacon on the foil, close but not touching
• bake for 12 minutes, pour off excess oil, return to the oven
• check every two minutes till done to your liking, minus a bit (it will continue to cook a bit after being pulled from the oven)

Clean-up consists of carefully draining off the rest of the grease, wadding up the foil and tossing it in the trash!

For more details, check out the original article from The Kitchn. (Photo from The Kitchn.)

How To Peel, Cut, Core, and Dice: Tips for Fruit and Vegetable Prep

The Kitchn has compiled a super-handy list of 20 tips and how-to's for prepping various fruits and vegetables. Some of the more interesting entries:

How to peel a head of garlic in 10 seconds. Two bowls, a solid surface, and you're 10 seconds away from a bunch of naked garlic cloves.
How to peel roasted red peppers.
How to cut a mango.
How to dice an avocado.
How to dice an onion.
How to core a head of iceberg lettuce.
How to seed a pomegranate.

See the full list of 20 items.

Kicking the sugar habit? Here's the most important thing to know.

Sugar really can be quite addicting.  Dr Eric Stice has famously said, “Sugar activates the brain similar to the way cocaine reacts”. I think that those who call it "toxic" are going overboard, though. As Dr. David L. Katz says, "the dose makes the poison." And Americans are definitely over-dosing. On average, American adults eat about 100 pounds of sugar a year. (Source.)

(Click these links for some stunning graphics showing how much sugar and corn syrup the average American consumes in a day, week, month, year and lifetime. Care for a dip in a hot-tub full of corn syrup, anyone?)

I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia in high school, so I was trained early on to stay away from or at least go easy on sugar, but later in life, I got a little sloppy with it. Eventually, between my weight gain, migraines, and moods, I finally realized that I needed to get back to that super-cautious approach to sugar.

Here's a short video by "Mama Natural" with some tips for kicking the white stuff:

I especially want to note this point that she mentions in passing:

Eating sugar creates craving for more sugar. 

Understanding this made a big difference for me. Before I realized this, I might indulge in some sweets a few times a week because, hey, a little now and then isn't that bigga deal, right? But the sweet itself isn't the only cost: it can kick off bigger cravings one or two hours later, and depending on your vulnerability, those cravings might last for days. As I've made clear before, I do believe in the occasional indulgence for very special occasions. But when I do, I know I've got to get back on the no-sugar horse the very next day and tough out the cravings until they subside.

The great thing is, the reverse is also true. The more you stay off of sugar and other white carbs, the more your cravings will subside. The first week or two is gonna be tough, but after that it gets lots, lots easier. If you are physically addicted to sugar, you may need to do a slower withdrawal in order to manage bothersome side effects. For more info, see this article on how to get through sugar withdrawal.

So if you're trying to punt the sugar monster, hang in there! You'll be glad you did!



* Find Just Me(gan)'s blog at http://tallydogs.wordpress.com/