Fried Green Tomatoes

Last tomatoes of summer

Sob! I looked sadly at the basket of green unripe tomatoes that we just harvested. Autumn is definetely here and with the change in temperature, our tomatoes are simply not ripening as they did a month ago. Rather than letting them rot when the rains come, we decided to make the most of them.

Green... green... everything and anything with a green theme:
1. Green tomato ketchup
2. Green tomato and Green Chilli Sauce (anyone who has been to Nepal knows this one)
3. Green tomato chutney
4. Fried Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes are great for any of these recipes. They are firm, tart and have a lovely flavour quite unappreciated by many.

Fried Green tomatoes are a quintessential Southern side dish (or a fancy seasonal appetiser!)
Very easy to make - but it does leave a mess on the stove top - so I probably won't make this too often. The sharpness nicely cuts the grease from what is essentially a deep fried item.

Slice tomatoes into 5mm thick rounds

Coat with cornmeal and fry

Drain on kitchen paper

Simply slice the tomatoes into 5mm slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in egg, then cornmeal and fry till golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper. Enjoy!

Pizza Night

Thin Crust Zucchini Pizza

We've been here for more than a year now and have not found good authentic thin crust Italian pizza. Now that most of the unpacking has been done and our pizza stone unearthed, we decided to give it a go. (also that we've just purchased a pizza peel as we weren't sure if MAF would've allowed our old wooden one into this country). Anyway, tried we did and the results were rather good. Browsing through our books we found a copy of an easy and good recipe for pizza base (adapted from Jamie Oliver, thanks to Food Network). The pizza sauce, we were rather proud of, was a passata made from ripe red Tommy Toes from our own vege garden, as were the zucchini and basil. Yum. Nothing better than really fresh fruit and veg.

Kneading dough

Pizza Base:
7 cups bread flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
2 (1/4 oz) sachets dried yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2.5 cups luke-warm water

Sift the flour and salt onto a clean work surface or large metal bowl and make a well in the middle.
In a measuring cup, mix yeast, sugar, olive oil and warm water and leave for 10min to activate the yeast.
Pour into the well
Mix with fingers, gradually working flour in from the sides.
Knead till smooth, about 10min

Dough rising in bowl

Place in lightly greased bowl, turn over once to coat and cover top of bowl with damp towel or cling film and leave in warm place to double its size, (about 1h)
Punch dough down, divide into 8 portions (8 pizzas).
If you don't want to make so many pizzas, just pinch off what you need and place the rest into a ziplock and freeze till required.

Pizza Sauce / Tomato passata:

• Ripe tomatoes
• Garlic (to taste)
• fresh basil (to taste)
• salt

Roughly chop tomatoes.
Heat olive oil in saucepan, lightly saute garlic.
Add tomatoes, cook till soft, add a bunch of basil leaves, simmer for 5min.
Pass tomatoes through sieve.
Reduce sauce till desired consistency, add salt to taste.

Thin Crust Mushroom Pizza

Pizza toppings:
Anything you like - zucchini, mushrooms, we used our own hand made mozzarella :)

Pizza stone (removed from oven to illustrate proper placement) with pizza on top

Assembling and cooking:
Place pizza stone in middle shelf in oven.
Preheat at least 30min (1hour is better) to at least 200C (real Italian pizza ovens are heated in the range of 300C).

Rolled out pizza dough

Roll out the dough as thin as desired (tossing is a bit tricky and messes up the kitchen)
Transfer onto a pizza peel liberally coated with flour or cornmeal (the flour / cornmeal acts as a slippery base so that the pizza slips off the peel onto the stone)
Spread passata onto the base - you can also use pesto for a non tomato base
Add toppings - don't overload as it will be difficult to deliver the pizza successfully
Open oven door, place peel right over the stone and with a swift motion pull it back so that pizza is now on the stone. This may require a bit of practice. Quickly close door so as not to lose too much heat.
Bake for 5-10min
In the meantime, prepare another pizza (it works better if you have 2 peels)
Removing the pizza from the ovens is just reversing the steps for placing it in.

Enjoy!

Autumn sunshine

It's my day off and having the luxury of rising later, I lazed in bed for a while watching the shards of light slicing through the venetian blinds and piercing the curtains of the bedroom. Such sights fill me with excitement as it promises warmth and light for the day.
Getting out of bed, flinging wide the curtains and drawing the blinds brings a delicious warmth into the house and makes one feel wonderfully alive.
I'm excited; today's chores do not seem onerous, partly because some of them are in preparation for a long anticipated journey, a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. In fact, I should stop now and get on with them.