• Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 241 other subscribers

  • Noshing on

    raw blueberry pie with microwaveable filling and graham cracker crust

    This mostly-raw blueberry pie is a snap to make and very versatile--the filling microwaves in a few minutes, and you don't even have to bake the zippy gingered graham cracker crust--perfect for a hot Fourth of July and all summer long.

  • Recent Posts

  • Contents

  • Archives

  • Now Reading

  • The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

  • See also my Book Reviews

  • Copyright 2008-2024Slow Food Fast. All writing and images on this blog unless otherwise attributed or set in quotes are the sole property of Slow Food Fast. Please contact DebbieN via the comments form for permissions before reprinting or reproducing any of the material on this blog.

  • ADS AND AFFILIATE LINKS

  • I may post affiliate links to books and movies that I personally review and recommend. Currently I favor Alibris and Vroman's, our terrific and venerable (now past the century mark!) independent bookstore in Pasadena. Or go to your local library--and make sure to support them with actual donations, not just overdue fines (ahem!), because your state probably has cut their budget and hours. Again.

  • In keeping with the disclaimer below, I DO NOT endorse, profit from, or recommend any medications, health treatments, commercial diet plans, supplements or any other such products.

  • DISCLAIMER

  • SlowFoodFast sometimes addresses general public health topics related to nutrition, heart disease, blood pressure, and diabetes. Because this is a blog with a personal point of view, my health and food politics entries often include my opinions on the trends I see, and I try to be as blatant as possible about that. None of these articles should be construed as specific medical advice for an individual case. I do try to keep to findings from well-vetted research sources and large, well-controlled studies, and I try not to sensationalize the science (though if they actually come up with a real cure for Type I diabetes in the next couple of years, I'm gonna be dancing in the streets with a hat that would put Carmen Miranda to shame. Consider yourself warned).

A Dream of…Marmalade?

Posted on April 21, 2009 by DebbieN

For years I assumed that only the truly gifted home ec queens, most of them from the deep South, were qualified to make jam. I love to cook and I love to play with my–or anybody’s–food, but I knew instinctively that the combination of 1) me and 2) hot vats of boiling fruit and sugar was a recipe for disaster. Or hospitalization. Or outrageous cleaning bills. Or all three. So I stayed far, far away from pressure cookers, Ball ™ jelly jars, and anything involving bushels of fruit and all-day productions.

And yet…once in a while I’d walk by the produce section, see something unusual, and fantasize about making a new kind of jam they didn’t have in the store. The kind with just fruit and maybe sugar, but no corn syrup to cloud up the flavor. Something that didn’t cost $6 for a 10 oz. jar. Something that didn’t taste like all the freshness had been boiled out of it.

There’s nothing more disappointing to me than the difference between ripe strawberries and strawberry jam. It should be so good, and it just tastes so tinny, with all the life and brilliance cooked out of it. Oranges are, if possible, even worse cooked. And yet I do love marmalade, which seems even more mysterious than jam.

This week, I stopped by my neighborhood corner grocery and found a small cardboard box perched atop the large open bins of walnuts and almonds. In the box were a couple of pounds of kumquats for $2/lb. A decent price–but was I really going to do something with kumquats?

Since discovering the microwave, I’ve taken on an unwise and very brash attitude about tackling new challenges that basically boils down to “Just nuke it!” I realized if I microwaved the marmalade it would either succeed or fail, but at least it would do it quickly. Continue reading →

Filed under: cooking, fruits, sauces and condiments | Tagged: , | Comments Off on A Dream of…Marmalade?

Hot Tomato: Microwave Marinara

Posted on August 25, 2008 by DebbieN

Microwave Marinara on SlowFoodFastGreat tomato sauce was the backbone of a great Greek-owned, Italian food student diner in my hometown. You know, the kind with the red vinyl-covered banquets with the brass rivets that have seen better days. The formica tables in faux wood grain. And the waitresses who never bother to hand you a menu because they already know what you want. You want The Sauce.

The sauce was so good you didn’t care if the ravioli was bland. You didn’t care if the eggplant in the parmigiana was limp or crushed or gummy with too much breading. No. The sauce was the thing. You could smell it from way down the block, and it was as good the last time I ate it as the first. In all, that was probably several hundred dinners through the end of college and into my working life. If you were a student on a $25 a week food budget, you’d put 5 bucks aside for Saturday night dinner at that diner because you knew once you ate something with The Sauce, you’d never go hungry again.

I don’t pretend my marinara is as good as theirs. For one thing, my family doesn’t like fennel nearly as much as I do, so I have to leave it out of the main batch. For another, mine has no salt and takes five minutes. By most gourmet estimates and all traditional ones, both facts should mean it’s awful. But it ain’t.

My sauce is pretty d**n good, as it happens. And a lot less bland than all those souped-up sauces by the jar with the 450-700 mg sodium per serving. And it takes five minutes. And it gets better the next day. And it’s one of the simplest recipes I can think of.

Microwave Marinara

  • 1 28-oz or 2 x 15-oz cans no-salt plum tomatoes in their own juice (e.g., Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, sometimes Ralph’s/Kroger/etc.)
  • 1 t. no-salt tomato paste if none was included in the canned tomatoes
  • 1/4 med. yellow or red onion
  • 1 FAT clove garlic, about 1″x3/4″, mashed or grated
  • Couple of shakes of red wine vinegar, maybe 1-2 t.
  • Sprig or two of fresh thyme or 1/2 t. dried-but-not-dead
  • couple of basil leaves if you have them
  • Pinch or two of fennel seed if you have it and like it

Blend everything in a food processor (or you could grate or chop everything by hand if you insist, and you’ll feel and look so much more whole wheat). Microwave in a 2.5 cup pyrex bowl with a loose cover on HIGH (1150 W oven) for 5 min. The sauce will have thickened slightly at the top and edges. Use some, then cool and refrigerate the rest in a covered microwaveable container. Reheat for 1-2 minutes on HIGH the next time. Serve on everything. Everywhere. With abandon.

Filed under: cooking, DASH Diet, sauces and condiments | Comments Off on Hot Tomato: Microwave Marinara

The Tzatziki Variations

Posted on July 19, 2008 by DebbieN

One of my favorite easy dips is tzatziki–a combination of yogurt, chopped or grated cucumbers, garlic, onion, and dill, maybe a little mint, some lemon juice…all blended together in whatever proportion tastes good to you–. Good with felafel, good with grilled fish, good with cold beans or cooked potatoes, good on a chopped salad, good with grilled vegetable salads, good with bread dipped into it, good (if a bit strong on garlic in my version) just as it is, by itself. Good scrambled into eggs, as well. Why not?

The other night I was trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of cilantro and thought about the pungent, fresh green cilantro-and-mint chutney my local Indian restaurant serves with its tandoori salmon kebabs. That too is one of my favorites.

I have no idea how they really make it; I can only tell you that this yogurt-based improvisation tastes pretty close to me. The preparation was completely parallel to tzatziki, or at least the way I would make tzatziki. The key here is to get the cilantro and mint ground down as finely as possible–to a soft green silt if you can manage it. That means processing it by itself, then throwing larger, harder ingredients (onion and zucchini) into the processor in several passes to grind down fully, and only then adding the lime juice and yogurt. The combination of savory herbs, tartness, and garlic make this a very satisfying (and if you add a fairly large clove of garlic, breath-defying) dip without any added salt.

  • 1/2 bunch cilantro leaves, washed, picked over, and lightly chopped
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and grated
  • 1/2-1 zucchini, washed, with the peel on if it’s organic.
  • 1/4 or a bit less–maybe 1/8–medium onion
  • sprig of mint if you have it
  • 1 c plain nonfat just-milk-and-cultures yogurt

Chop the cilantro and mint a little, then put in a food processor bowl with the onion. Process until the onion pieces are too small to grind the cilantro down any further. Add the zucchini in large chunks and the lime juice, and process until it’s a paste. Add the yogurt and the grated or mashed garlic and process again until it all comes together as a pale green sauce. Serve it with Indian dishes–dal, saag paneer, kormas, etc.–grilled fish, grilled vegetables, bread, fresh vegetable platters, etc.

Or make a sandwich with it: Good foccaccia, ciabatta, or other relatively flat Italian bread without too many holes, or a similar Armenian “finger bread,” sliced in half flatwise (I know, that’s not a real word; I mean “laterally”) and toasted, then the cut sides slathered in the cilantro sauce, with arugula and mozzarella or provolone and maybe tomato etc.

Filed under: cooking, Dairy, sauces and condiments | Comments Off on The Tzatziki Variations

« Previous Page