Tomatoes

This is all I'm gonna say-- do not store whole tomatoes in the fridge, never-ever-ever-ever.  If you've pre-diced some for your chili or salsa, or pasta, okay, fine, because they're cut up and you need to keep them from spoiling. But the whole ones? Room temperature.  Always. 

They will be so much more sweet, pleasantly textured, and not mealy, gritty and cold. It's an actual fact that cold temperatures make the cells in tomatoes burst, which is why they change texture.  I'm pretty sure most people who think they don't like tomatoes are basing that belief on having eaten mealy, pale, and unpleasantly bland tomatoes from a fridge.  Think about the peachy-pale colored ones sliced on top of the average hamburger, and you'll know what I'm talking about.  So remember: Tomatoes stay at room temperature. 

Otherwise, stay tuned for a yummy couple of recipes when time allows-- on deck, I have a potential recipe for eggplant-pork stir fry, brie-stuffed chicken breasts with cranberries and fresh herbs, as well as a segment on kitchen organization that I have been wanting to do for a while. 

Gluten Free Kale and Pepper lasagna

Happy New Year.  I don't make resolutions in general, but I hope to get my recipes rolling again.  So it's more of a hope, and not a resolution!  I'm happy to say I have recently hit 12,000 page visits since I started this blog and they just keep a-rollin' in, despite my failure to generate new content on a regular basis.

Black Bean Chili with Cilantro

I promised in the last entry that there will be a "Chili" theme on the blog. Quite overly ambitious as I tend to be, I may have even promised a "Chili Week" but then I realized that would involve cooking chili multiple times in *ONE* week, and that led to the sure knowledge that I'd probably quickly tire of both cooking and eating chili.  Thus, to be realistic, I will just make a reasonable attempt to blog all the chili recipes by the end of November.

Ratatouille

RATATOUILLE

Onions, celery, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, potatoes... and some fresh herbs= one delicious and hearty soup. 

Time for The Off The Cuff Chef to butcher a traditional French recipe.   Ratatouille (ra-ta-TOO-ee) is a vegetable stew, although mine always ends up more like a soup, so that is what I'm showing you how to make below here.  For more information about more authentic versions, please consult this link.  Please don't report me to Julia Child's estate.  I know my recipe is not quite up to par, but it's a darn good version, in my humblest of opinions.  And isn't that basically what always happens? Alternate ingredients come into the picture, substitutions are made, etc.  So here's something similar to a traditional ratatouille, that I make every so often.  I regret that I did not have a nice crusty loaf of bread to go with this, but alas, you can't always have everything.