For single cooks at Slo Coast Journal, like David Myer of Morro Bay, this one's for you!
Our strip of coastline might be considered a high cost of living area, yet we have a bounty of fresh foods available year round and some of the best neighbors anyone could wish for! Our next door neighbor volunteers every week at both the local Thursday Farmer's Market and the Friday Senior Food Program. Still active at 90, Boomer occasionally stops by with free, overflow produce. One recent delivery included a half crate of ripe grape tomatoes. You may be asking, "What on earth could I do with so many tomatoes?"
I asked myself the same question, but trust me, I was not going to discard pounds of FREE tomatoes.
Sort, rinse, and freeze some of the tomatoes whole in quart sized, air tight freezer bags. They'll stay safely tucked in your freezer for months, ready for cooked recipes. My dear friend, Lynn, gave me that tip when our garden produced a bumper crop of tomatoes last fall and I didn't have time to can them. Frozen and thawed, whole tomatoes make terrific sauces and stewed dishes.
Aside from tossing in salads, use fresh, ripe grape or cherry tomatoes for a ready-in-minutes, restaurant quality salsa!
Modelo Fresh Salsa
- 4 cups fresh grape (or cherry) tomatoes
- 4 fresh, medium to large jalapeño peppers, sliced
- 1 fresh, small to medium red onion, chopped
- 1 cup fresh, chopped cilantro
- ¼ cup (or less) Modelo beer
- 1 teaspoon salt
Arrange all ingredients in layers in a food processor; pulse until finely diced. Transfer salsa to glass or plastic containers with covers and refrigerate for up to one week. You can also freeze for up to a few months, thaw, strain and serve. The recipe makes about 5 cups of salsa. If you refrigerate or freeze 4 cups, the extra cup can be spread over meat before roasting.
Beef Tri Tip is a classic Central Coast dish. At Coastal Cooking I share step-by-step pictures for trimming a whole beef tri tip to save money per pound. If you go to the web page and click on "tri tip roast" in the right hand margin, that blog (and others with recipes) will appear.
Here's another super simple recipe for oven roasted tri tip using 1 cup of the Modelo Fresh Salsa:
Modelo Fiesta Tri Tip Roast
- 2-3 pound beef tri tip roast, trimmed
- 1 cup Modelo Fresh Salsa
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking dish with heavy duty aluminum foil. Arrange beef in the baking dish, spread one cup of fresh salsa evenly over the top of the meat, and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes per pound. Remove from oven and allow to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes before carving.
Serve with sides of rice, refried beans and salad, or (if desired) during the last 30 minutes of cook time, heat frozen shoestring potatoes in your oven on a cookie sheet; include a side salad for your meal. A quarter- pound of roasted meat equals one adult serving, so you can feed a family with leftovers from this recipe.
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From where I cook . . . trimming your own meats in bulk buys can often save a bundle! Every few months, Cookie Crock Warehouse offers a 10 pound bag of chicken leg quarters for $5.90. How often do you see meat of any kind at 59 cents per pound?
You might be thinking that 10 pound bag contains more dark meat chicken than you could cook, store, or eat, yet soaked in a saltwater brine, cleaned, trimmed, and prepped for the freezer, $5.90 will provide enough chicken for up to 20 servings.
Think about it. You can have healthy heat and eat work day lunches for less than Ramen noodles!
The steps are simple and take about 15 minutes:
- Remove the chicken leg quarters from the bulk bag, rinse and soak them in a clean sink filled with cold, salted water.
- Using poultry shears (available wherever kitchen utensils are sold) cut off any tails and excess skin or fat.
- For skinless chicken legs, simply work your fingers carefully between the skin and meat at the top of the thigh, then peel off as you would a glove. Use the poultry shears to cut loose skin off at the bottom of the drumstick if necessary.
- To separate the thighs from the drumstick, again using poultry shears, cut through the meat and skin (if left on) until the blades reach bone. Using two hands, carefully twist the sections away from you until you hear a pop; the poultry shears will cut through connective tissue with one snip.
- Sort the clean, trimmed chicken into portions for cooking and freezing. Sprinkle with seasoning and roast in the oven and/or freeze in airtight freezer bags with or without marinade.
