sauce

Cilantro Heaven and Pesto

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ 1 Comment

Hey there followers,

just wanted to let you know that we are still here and we have not forgotten about you 🙂 On the contrary we have thought about the blog every day since leaving Denmark.

When first arriving to Atlanta on April 1. we had no place to stay and was so lucky that we could stay with some family friends for the first week. The following we stayed at a hotel on downtown and then left for Savannah and Charleston to celebrate my 30th birthday. Being back from our trip we moved in to a nice little town house in Roswell, 20 minutes north of Atlanta. When we moved in we had nothing, and mean nothing, except our two suitcases with cloth.

You might think that it is a womans biggest dream to go and shop for EVERYTHING, and so did I until it was my turn to do it… So instead of buying everything at once we ended up buying the most necessary things to begin with and then buy more as we need it. This has had a huge influence on our cooking and therefore also our blogging. However, we now seems to have enough kitchen stuff to make every day cooking easy and delicious and we will therefore strive to blog as much as possible again.

Cilantro Heaven

Cilantro has been one of our favorite herb for years, but in Denmark it can only be bought in small amounts at well-stocked super markets and then it was pretty expensive – at least compared to the amount needed. Over here, in the US, you can get huge bundles of cilantro on every street corner and I just love it – for me it is like cilantro heaven… And even though I can buy it every were I have sown some seeds and are now waiting impatiently for it begin to grow so that I can go out on out patio and pick it fresh and put in my chicken and cheese panini or as garnish on top of a delicious curry dish.
I buy cilantro every time I get to Farmer’s Market or the local super market and sometimes I get a little to excited and buy too much, which is what happened the other day when I bought 3 bundles when I only needed 1. When I opened the fridge this morning I realized that the last of the 3 bundles looked a little tired and needed to be used immediately or it would go to waste, and as a new thing in my new American life I have decided that nothing should go to waste unless it is dangerous to consume. So I thought “why not make a cilantro pesto?” and so I did…

 

Ingredients (1 cup)

1/2 cup roasted cashew nuts

2 cups cilantro

1/3 parmesan cheese, grated

2 garlic cloves

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp. extra verging olive oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Cilantro Pesto 1

Put all the ingredients in a blender and mix at medium speed until smooth. Taste and add more lemon juice if necessary. The same goes for salt.
If you are the type that likes it a bit more chunky, you can stop the blender for every 5 seconds to take a look and stop when it has the wanted consistency.

Place the finished pesto in an air tight jar and store in a dark place. When you have opened the jar the first time, you can help preserve the remains by pouring some olive oil over the pesto, just so it is covered, before closing the jar.

Cilantro Pesto 2

Bon Appétit!

Ingredients (2.5 dl)

1.25 dl roasted cashew nuts

5 dl cilantro

0.8 dl parmesan cheese, grated

2 garlic cloves

1.5 dl extra verging olive oil

1 tbsp. lemon juice

0.5 tsp. salt

0.25 tsp. pepper

Advertisement

Yellow Tomato Sauce

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

The number of tomato varieties are HUGE and comes in several different colors and shapes. My (Ann) parents has been growing tomatoes as long as I can remember and my dad always wants to try new varieties. This year he decided to to the yellow pear tomato and he sowed several seeds hoping to get a plant or two – but unexpectedly they all grew and he ended up with 7 or 8 plant of this specific sort (and then came the 3 others sorts he sowed the year).

Some of the pants were given to family and friend (we got a plant to – the picture below) and then he kept the 3 plants himself. Having kept three plant himself means that one needs to be creative when cooking, if not having tomato salad every day 🙂

Last week there were an over float of tomatoes and my parents agreed that we should make try and make some yellow tomato sauce. Normally when we make tomato sauce we add red wine, but this would ruin both the taste and color of this sauce, so we decided to use chicken stock instead, which turned out to be the perfect match 🙂

IMG_0972

Ingredients (4 cups)

2 large onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tbsp. thyme leaves

1 tbsp. ground pepper

1 tbsp. butter

1-2 jalapeños, sliced

2 lb. yellow pear tomatoes, chopped

2 cups chicken stock

1 tbsp. salt

IMG_1309

 

 

Melt butter in a saucepan, add chopped onions, garlic, thyme and ground pepper. SautĂ© for a few minutes until the onions begins to soften – then add the chopped tomatoes and jalapeños.

Stir and let cook for about 5-8 minutes until the tomatoes gets soft.IMG_1312IMG_1314

When the tomatoes has softened, you can the chicken stock and bring to a boil. IMG_1315 IMG_1316

When boiling add salt and turn down the heat. Let simmer for approximately 2 hours or until it looks like the picture below. Stir occasionally.IMG_1318

Transfer the cooked tomatoes to blender and blend until smooth. Pour into sterilized jar, close immediately and fridge until use. Can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.IMG_1319 IMG_1321

Bon Appétit!

Ingredienser (1 liter)

2 large onions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tbsp. thyme leaves

1 tbsp. ground pepper

1 tbsp. butter

1-2 jalapeños, sliced

900 g yellow pear tomatoes, chopped

1/2 liter chicken stock

1 tbsp. salt

Creamy and Tasty Tomato Sauce

~ Ann & Chris Demant ~ Leave a comment

Most people buy a pre-fabricated tomato sauce in the super market, because it is easy, comfortable and cheap. But have any you considered how many additives it contains, as it can be stores at room temperature for several years?? It sounds a bit holy, but we are not – we often buy ingredients with 2-3 years expiration.

As we both love to cook and often but organic products, grow our own herbs and a small variation of vegetable (we live downtown and do not have the space to grow an awful lot, so we look forward to moving to place with a huge (vegetable)garden), we have decided to try and cook as much as possible ourselves and only buy things that we are too unexperienced to make ourselves or food from delicacy stores 🙂

The recipe for this tomato sauce is made with the ‘add-and-taste’ method, meaning that different ingredients were added until it reached the perfect taste and consistency. This also means, that we have made many different recipes before ending up with this one and we a portion of 5 cups only lasts for day or two in our household, as everyone loves it and it can be used for many different purposes 🙂

 

Hope that you will love it too!

 

Ingredients (5 cups)

2 large onions

4 garlic cloves

15 sun ripened tomatoes

1/2 cup red wine

1 handful fresh basil leaves

1 tsp. freshly grounded pepper

1 tsp. chili flakes

1 tbsp. butter

IMG_1048

Chop onions, garlic cloves and tomatoes. Melt butter in a medium sized saucepan and sautĂ© the chopped onions and garlic cloves for a few minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, stir and let cook at medium heat until the tomatoes has softened – it takes 5- 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add the remaining ingredients and cook for 5-10 minutes or until the alcohol in the red wine has evaporated (when the smell of red wine has disappeared). Reduce heat and cook for an additional hour.

Remove the cooked sauce from the heat and let cool for 15-20 minutes. Transfer to blender and blend until completely smooth. Store in a sterilized jar in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.IMG_1049

Serve as a healthy tomato soup, as a regular tomato sauce for pasta, lasagna or as shown on the picture below with gnocchi and meat balls 🙂

IMG_1068

Bon Appétit!