An Old Favorite:

Tomato Soup and Bee El Tees



Back in the days of old, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, wayyyyyy back when I was first wooing J, we hade a night of ol fashioned goodness. Goodness that can only be found in the depths of a bowl of homemade tomato soup. Campbell's you can kiss my tuchus. I do believe the night we made this delicious dinner it was snowing, it was mid January, and we were full swing of our love affair with Sex and the City. What better way to keep warm and aware of the next Jimmy Choo? Tomato soup and Bee El Tees with avocado.



The soup itself is simple. The hardest element in making this soup is avoiding the urge to put garlic and onion in it because if you do... you end up with tomato sauce and at that point you should just throw on a pot of water and boil up some pasta, chump. The soup gets it's delicious earthy and tangy flavor from the melting of sauteed leeks and fire roasted tomatoes. Do I hear wedding bells? You will need some veggie stock for this soup and if you don't make your own than I suppose a box version will do.



Tomato Soup

1 28oz can of Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted whole tomatoes
1 8oz can of Muir Glen tomato sauce
1 bunch of leeks (tops cut off) chopped into small pieces
2 cups of veggie stock
Butter for sauteeing (about a pat)
1/2 cup heavy cream *

Heat up a good size pat of butter in a dutch oven on med-high heat. My Le Creuset is 3 1/2 qts so anything that size or larger will be sufficient. To that butter add the leeks and sautee until the leeks get transparent and fragrant. Add the can of tomatoes and the tomato sauce and stir. Toss in a pinch or two of salt and pepper. You will cook this concoction till the whole tomatoes break down. At this point you have the base for your soup. Transfer the soup into the food processor or blender and add a cup of veggie stock to achieve a soup constistency. The tomato mixture resembles a thick chunky mama sauce and that's not what were aiming for. Once you have reached a full bodied soup consistency transfer your soup back into the dutch oven. Heat on low, and right before serving add 1/4 cup of cream to your soup. Stir and serve. *soy milk can be substituted for a vegan rendition.



My infatuation with sandwiches started when I was young. I'm not afraid to tell the world that my mom packed me a brown bag lunch until I graduated high school. Everyday, I had a sandwich, a veggie, a fruit and a juice box. My sammies were usually a p.b. & j, back when you could eat peanut butter in public schools without the child sitting next to you going into anaphylactic shock (no disrespect to the allergy prone) or a cheese sandwich with spicy brown mustard on jewish rye (raise up your cup, mazel tov). Fast forward future, I still love sandwiches, they're easily my favorite food. There are many haters in the world who don't think that a vegetarian sandwich can be any good, and to that we at O.M.G Food say "STFU". Over at Eat to Blog, they have an incredible vegetarian banh mi recipe. Here is our recipe for a Bee El Tee with Avocado.



Bee El Tees with Avocado

*We substituted traditional bacon with Tempeh Fakin. That's something to squeel about.

The recipe is for one sandwich so double the amounts if you're entertaining or just damn hungry!

4 strips of tempeh fakin (Bee)
3 pieces of red leaf lettuce (El)
4 cherry tomatoes (Tee)
1/2 of a ripe avocado (save the pit for planting)
1 tbls of home-made mayo
2 pieces of crusty multi-grain bread

In a grill-pan, heat up a tblsp of olive oil and grill the tempeh. While the tempeh is grilling, slice the tomatoes, and prep your lettuce (shred or not to shred, that is the question). Slice and remove the pit from your avocado, set other half aside. Cut the avocado into strips.



Toast your bread at this point, and don't forget to flip your tempeh strips so both sides get crispy and brown. Whip up the mayo, or just dive into the jar that sits in your fridge. Once your bread is toasty, schmear it with some mayo, lay down the avocado, the tomato slices, the lettuce and the tempeh, finish with the other slice of toast, and cut in half. Serve with the tomato soup and dunk like #23.




--R

Straight Forward Pesto

Pesto is pretty straight forward. A simple sauce with no frills or gimmicks. Roughly 7 ingredients are needed to make this delicious sauce. Some people like to make things complicated by making "arugula pesto" and in my book using arugula to make pesto isn't kosher. So let's not get confused from the get go, this is a basil pesto. Got it? Good. This pesto is best in the summer when basil can be purchased at the farmers market or grown on your sunny windowsill (ahhhhhh sustainability). Moving along... This recipe can be made vegan with the omition of parmigiano reggiano. Also, if need be you can go ahead and make this in the winter using basil from who knows where but please let's keep it as local as possible or organic. I don't want this green magical sauce giving unborn children gills.

Pesto

1 or 2 bunches of basil
3-4 cloves of garlic (vampires?!)
1/2 cup of extra virgin cold pressed olive oil
1/2 cup pignolia nuts (pine nuts)
Salt to taste
A few cracks from the old pepper mill
1/4 cup parmigiano regiano (don't try and get away with pecorino or romano)

For a vegan option simply omit the cheese.

Methodology:

Wash and spin the basil till all sand and silt is out of the picture.

Heat a skillet up on med-high heat and add the pine nuts. Keep those babies moving around the pan so they toast evenly and don't burn. Once they are fragrant and light brown remove from heat and let cool.

In a food processor add all the ingredients and pulse til you have achieved an even and creamy consistency. If the pesto isn't creamy enough add a tablespoon of water or a lil bit more olive oil till you have reached your desired consistency. Hey, some people like it chunky so this part is up to personal taste.

Once you're done blending taste to make sure it has enough of everything. There should be enough bite from the garlic and enough sweetness from the basil, and enough nuttiness from the pine nuts. Is there enough salt? Enough pepper for your liking? 

With a flexible silicon spatula scrape all the pesto out of the food processor and divy it up into the ice cube trays or freeze in a lump. As. You. Wish. I learned this freezing trick from my parents--small, ice-cube sized portions of pesto are great for individual dinners, and they take much less time to thaw out than a huge container of pesto.

A few weeks ago, we we roasted brocoli and brussel sprouts and added them to the pesto and pasta mix. It was delicious, nutty, salty and satisfying.

To do this:

Boil water. Add pasta, cook as instructed. 

Chop brussel sprouts and broccoli. Add to pan. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper. Roast in the oven at 425, mixing often, until tender. Add pesto ice cubes, mix well, and cook until pesto melts into veggies. Remove from heat.

Drain pasta. 

Mix pasta, pesto and veggies together.

Enjoy!

--R