Peach Pineapple Pepper Salsa

A very lovely friend of mine came over on Friday and she brought me all kinds of goodies. (My friends rock, have I mentioned that?)  Among the goodies were a ton of the most gorgeous peaches I have ever seen.  Vibrant and juicy and absolutely delicious.  We ate some and shared some and then tonight I used up the remainder of them to make this incredible salsa.

3 bell peppers (I used 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 orange) seeded and chopped
4 med. peaches, peeled and chopped (just slice around the pit, a little bit of the red part isn’t going to hurt anything)
1 can pineapple chunks, chopped (of course fresh would be better, but I’m doing that pantry thing, remember?)
2 scallion, trimmed and chopped
1 teaspoon red pepper flake
juice of two limes
big squirt of honey
big glub of extra virgin olive oil
salt (to taste)

Combine all the ingredients, toss well, but gently to coat, cover and chill at least 30 minutes. A couple of hours would be even better.

We spooned it over mahi and couscous, but it would go with chicken, pork, steak, vegetarian meals, rice… I can’t think of much that this wouldn’t be great with.

There really is nothing like fresh, good ingredients – you almost can’t screw them up.  I think I might go have another spoonful right now.

Cooking Out of the Pantry Part IV

So today these are the things I got used from the pantry.  Notice, there is prepared pesto.  I prefer to make my own, but when Classico is BOGO, I always pick some up.  It’s really quite good and sometimes I don’t have access to fresh basil (it’s so hot that my plants seeded then died) and in a pinch, you can stir some into just about anything, as you’ll soon see.

I decided to make some hummus for snacking, sandwiches, etc, so I used the basic recipe, tahini, chickpeas, lemon juice water, garlic, throw the garlic in the processor (just whole peeled cloves) and process, add the chickpeas, process till almost smooth, add tahini (to taste, it truly doesn’t matter much – just depends on how you like it), then lemon juice, water if necessary and whatever flavoring you might want to add.  If you want a more “proper” recipe you can check my Roasted Eggplant and Garlic Hummus.

I did this in two batches.  To the first batch I added a couple of spoonfuls of pesto and processed one more time.

To the second batch, I picked a large pepper from some leftover chipotles in adobo, chopped it fine, added it to the processor along with a little of the adobo juice and process.  (This one is Travis’ favorite)

But.  I still needed to make dinner.

2 boxes whole grain penne
2 heads of broccoli (cut the florets and freeze the stalks in a ziploc bag to use for a stock – we’re going to experiment with that before the end of next week)
Olive Oil
5 cloves of garlic chopped
2 cups vegetable broth
a whole lot of marinated sun dried tomatoes.

I put up a large pot of generously salted water to boil, cook the pasta according to package directions but set the time for two minutes before the pasta will be done.  At the two minutes left point, add the broccoli to the pasta and water and allow to cook for the remaining two minutes.

Drain into a colander and then put the empty pot back on the stove.

At this point, I had a bit of an emergency.  I realized that I had no olive oil in the house other than the $22 a bottle blood orange extra virgin.  With a heavy heart, I decided that I didn’t have a choice but to use it.  I thought that the flavor would get lost and worse, might even ruin the dish – but I decided to try.

Heat the pot back up, add the oil and when it’s hot, add the garlic.  Cook for a minute or two until you can smell the garlic filling the room (I think that must be what heaven smells like, you know?).  Anyway, at that point, add the vegetable broth and allow to boil for a while.  Maybe 5 minutes.  You want it to condense a little – not much, but just a little.

Add the pasta and broccoli back to the pot, add lots of the sun dried tomatoes and toss well, but gently.

I have to tell you, the orange oil that I was so concerned about, was amazing!  This was like Blood Orange Scented penne, broccoli, garlic and sun dried tomato.  It’s way too expensive to do this very often, but it was everything I could do not to wear it like perfume. And it tasted amazing.

I’m making some great progress with this pantry, but now I have to go buy olive oil and salt.  I’m out.

Cooking Out of the Pantry Part III

Hello Day Three… For day three I thought I would invent something that has never been tasted before in the history of human kind.  I was so thrilled with my new invention that I decided to google the ingredients.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only did I not invent it, it’s actually a staple in tropical island food.  (Further proof that I moved right where I belonged!) So, without further ado – here’s Grilled Chicken on a bed of brown rice with pineapple and black beans.   Here’s what I did:

6 thin sliced boneless, skinless, chicken breast
2 onions, diced
3 cups of brown rice
3 cans of Pineapple Chunks in pineapple juice (pour the pineapple juice into another container – do not discard it!)
1 28 oz. can of black beans
Olive Oil
3 hearts of romaine
1/2 red onion sliced thin
honey
apple cider vinegar
cayenne pepper
paprika
dried thyme
chili powder
salt and pepper

I used brown rice, which takes 45 minutes to cook, so I started with the rice.  Prepare according to package directions.

Heat a non stick pan on med/high heat.  Pour about a tablespoon of oil in the pan.  When it’s hot, add the onions. Allow to cook until they’re caramelized.  If they’re going too fast, lower the heat.

Drain the beans, separate the pineapples from the juice

Clean and chop the lettuce and onion, put in a large bowl.  Refrigerate until dinner.

In a jar with a screw top lid, put 1 cup of the reserved pineapple juice, 1/2 cup of cider vinegar, a large squeeze or two of honey and 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil.  Shake and set aside.

Lay the chicken out on a dish or cutting board (that you won’t be using for anything else – we all know about cross contamination, right?), sprinkle with the dried spices, salt and pepper to taste.  (remember the cayenne is hot, so use according to your taste)

Heat your grill pan to high and when it’s hot, put the chicken (spiced side down) in the pan and spice the other side.  Grill until done on one side, flip and grill till it’s done completely (check to make sure it’s not pink) and put on a plate.  Cover tightly with foil to keep it warm.

Add the pineapple and the black beans to the onion and cook until the pineapple starts to brown on the edges.  Remove from heat.

When the rice is done, add the pineapple, bean, onion mixture to the rice and stir.

On a plate, put a little salad, a nice pile of rice, and a piece of chicken on top.  Shake the dressing again and pour a little bit over the whole plate. Dig in.  It was very yummy.  The rice needed a little more salt at table and I think next time I’d use jasmine rice – but other than that, this was a big hit with the whole family.

So here’s the picture of my pantry tonight.  What’s that you say?  You notice that there’s more in there than there was yesterday?  Well.  My husband and children decided to overrule me and bought ramen.  Again, I will say that I do not condone that behavior, but you have to pick your battles right?

Also, my very supportive friends (not) pointed out that my cans were not all facing forward.  I thought I had fixed that, but looking at the picture, I see that the canned pumpkin is not facing forward.  Drats.  Foiled again.

Cooking Out of the Pantry Part II

So, here’s last night’s dinner from the pantry – It was pretty great.

Tonight I decided it was Sunday and Jim was off so we’d have a traditional Sunday Evening Dinner.  Linguine with tomato sauce, crusty bread and a tossed salad.

I used up two boxes of linguine, 4 cans of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of tomato paste, some balsamic vinegar, onions, garlic and olive oil. (As well as got rid of a tube of tomato paste that I obviously never felt really good about because it had expired in July… of last year!)

Make a simple tomato sauce.  You really don’t have to measure any of this.  I used 5 cloves of garlic, 2 large onions, 4 cans of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of tomato paste, a little bit more red pepper flake than usual…

Saute the onion and garlic until glossy, add the red pepper flake and cook for about 2 minutes.

Look at how much pepper flake is in there!

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and stir and cook until combined.  If it’s a little too thin, let it boil for a while to thicken it up.  (I had two kinds of canned tomatoes and it was a little thin, so I boiled it down till it was thick enough.  Then I added the secret ingredient.

Balsamic vinegar.

Pour in a couple of glugs stir and let it cook a bit more.

Mix the prepared pasta into the sauce, stir, plate and serve.

Served with crusty bread and a big salad dressed simply with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and the same balsamic vinegar you used in the sauce.  Shred a little locatelli over the pasta and the salad and enjoy!

Here’s what the pantry looks like tonight.

A little bit better.  Tomorrow, I think we might try to get rid of some of those Goya cans on the upper left side. I’ll keep you posted.

Cooking Out of the Pantry Part I

So, y’all know that my husband is back from his Arizona experiment, right? And he’s back to work in the car business and things are going well,  but we’re a little bit behind the eight ball and in an effort to save some money, I’ve decided to make as many meals out of our pantry for as long as I can, only purchasing fresh vegetables, proteins and absolute necessities.  I use our local supermarket’s weekly flier and stock up on things when they’re on sale, so there’s a lot of stuff in my over sized pantry.  I thought it might be fun to document it and see how creative I can get.  Want to play along?

Clearly I’ve been trying to do this for a while as two months ago this pantry was packed! Also, don’t judge me by how ugly it is, this is a rental and I’m not redecorating a pantry that I probably won’t be seeing for more than another year or so.

So.  What do we have?  Pasta, couscous, oats, cooking spray, tuna, pineapple, A1 sauce (lots of it, I’m addicted to it and I buy some every time it’s BOGO), chick peas, black beans, all kinds of canned tomatoes, spices, vitamins that I should be taking, but don’t, sun dried tomatoes, chipotle in adobo, green chiles, vinegars, oils, pop corn, ramen (that’s my son’s particular addiction, not mine…  hot dog buns.  Hmm.

I know I bought hot dogs because Hebrew Nationals were BOGO this week, I have baked beans, the hot dog rolls up there and a head of cabbage in the fridge.  Easy.  Dinner tonight is slaw dogs and baked beans.  1 meal down, 3 items gone from the pantry. And we used up some mayo, all the splenda, some red wine vinegar (I love slaw, have I mentioned that?)

While I was doing this I realized I hadn’t eaten yet, so I made a big thing of tuna salad (4 cans, mayo, celery seed, white vinegar, relish, salt and pepper), and had some on a bed of sliced cucumbers.  Even more out of the pantry.  Yay me! And we have lunch for tomorrow done already!

What would you make looking at this ingredient palette? I’ll keep posting and see if we can get this thing emptied!

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