it's a livin' thing
tomato things, corn chowder, and the best veggie patty
Hi friends. Are you all surviving the retrograde? It’s fun to have something to blame our troubles on, is it not? I have only a vague understanding of what a Mercury retrograde is actually supposed to be affecting, but I do love to pretend it’s the cause of everything from dropping food on the floor to another driver cutting me off on the bridge. Over the weekend I helped my sister-in-law put together an IKEA bed/storage system for my nephew and I feel like it should not have been so difficult? I used to love putting such things together but this took us the entire afternoon and a lot of cursing (we rewarded ourselves with delivery pizza).
Anyway, can I blame the retrograde for my lack of motivation to do… almost anything this week? I made food, but it was usually sort of reluctantly, by listing food items I knew we had out loud while standing in the kitchen until my brain coalesced them into something to cook for dinner. I hope some of them are helpful to you.
If you (or someone you know) are in Puerto Rico dealing with the effects of the hurricane, or on the east coast of Canada about to be hit with what could be a generational storm, my thoughts are with you. Here’s a link with options to help Puerto Ricans in need, if you’re able. Stay as safe as you can and let’s take care of each other.
It’s early enough in the season that I’m not yet resentful of beets, so I was pleased enough to have them show up in my produce bin. I made my favourite thing to make with them: beet veggie burgers. This is a standby from Isa Does It, with brown rice and lentils making them filling, and ground fennel, garlic, and dry mustard making them uniquely savoury. Even non-enjoyers of beets usually enjoy these burgers. They don’t taste like beets really once they’re cooked, but they have a really appealing earthy quality and they look impressively meaty due to the colour. They’re great on the grill, of course, but still good in a cast iron on the stove when the weather’s no longer good for grilling.
I usually add an egg to the mix which makes it not vegan, but means I can skip the refrigeration step in order to get the mixture to hold together. If I have a lot of beets I sometimes like to make a double batch, and put half the patties into the freezer for an easy meal another time, a little gift from my past self. We didn’t have any lettuce, which resulted in sort of fast food-style burger with only pickles and tomato, but made up for it with a basic kale caesar salad on the side instead. Not too bad for a workday dinner.
It’s getting to be about the time where I have more fresh tomatoes than I know what to do with, either from my garden or as gifts from other people’s, so I knew I had to make the tomato-cheddar crostata I attempted last year again. I mean, I did make it last year, but I messed up two pretty important steps, so I was determined to do it again with no mistakes. It’s somewhat time-consuming because of all the resting for the dough and the tomatoes, but making the thyme honey and the garlic oil can be done during that time and then the assembly doesn’t take long at all.
Visually, this is really lovely with a bunch of different colours of tomatoes, but will be good with any kind. I think this could do with even more garlic than is in the recipe, and I also spread some tarragon dijon mustard on the inside of the crust before adding the rest of the filling. I wouldn’t say the flavour of the honey is especially prominent, but the sweetness does balance the tomatoes. Overall I think I slightly prefer the tomato-zucchini-corn galette, which is a little more straightforward to make, but this was still delicious and really showcases some of the beautiful heirloom tomatoes of the season. I love the texture of the crust with the little bit of cornmeal that’s in it, too.
Speaking of corn, the season for it is coming to a close soon, so I’m buying cobs while they’re still decent. I made a chile-corn chowder with potatoes from our garden, since the weather is cooling down and I’m not mad about soup anymore. This Melissa Clark tip about cutting corn from the cob with it laid flat on the cutting board is really helpful— natural instinct seems to be to stand it upright, which has me retrieving escaped corn kernels from all over the counter and floor afterwards.
I spiced the soup with two kinds of chili powder, cumin, and coriander; added a tomato for colour and acidy, and oat milk to thicken the broth some. I think beans might have also been nice, but I couldn’t be bothered to make any, and it was just fine without. We finished it with feta, lime, yogurt, and tajín on top, but any combination of these would have been good, or with some fresh cilantro too. This is a nice soup for early fall; sweet with fresh summer corn but spicy and comforting now that the evenings are cool and the sun’s setting earlier.
And in further tomato news, I let Erin Alderson’s instagram inspire me once again, and used up a bunch of the Roma and San Marzano tomatoes from the garden after seeing her eggs in purgatory in tomato miso cream sauce. Again, this is a recipe in one of the Casual zines, but I just approximated my own based on the flavours involved, adding onto my usual method of making tomato sauce. I also added a bunch of kale to make it more of a full meal, and because we still have loads of it in the garden.
This is a great dish for two to share right out of the pan. The sauce was wonderfully savoury with just the right amount of richness (I used shiro miso, and Greek yogurt since we didn’t have cream). The eggs would have been great except I forgot to toast the bread while the eggs were cooking, so they ended up a little hard by the time the toast was ready to serve. The feta, Aleppo pepper flakes, and basil on top made up for it, but one day I will poach the perfect egg and finally destroy my haters.
Media:
I liked this for Eater, about the Instant Pot’s decline in popularity as the air fryer simultaneously rises to stardom. I actually thought about how many instant pots we might be seeing at thrift stores later on when we bought ours a few years ago, because as the article discusses, this is hardly a new phenomenon. I remember the bread makers of the 90s, the spiralizers and panini presses of the 00s, the k-cup machines people got tired of buying replacement pods for. Buying a popular item that promises to change your approach to food
“can be motivation in a particular direction, or it can taunt as another thing that didn’t work, pushing us deeper into capitalism’s maw: If I buy this one more thing, my life can be better.”
The instant pot has definitely changed aspects of my life as a cook— I never used to cook dried beans, and now I do. If I forget to put rice on, I can make it in the instant pot in a few minutes. Jeff makes dairy-free yogurt for a few dollars a litre. Of course I’ll tell people it was a huge asset to me if they ask, which is part of how items like this start trending in the first place. But it can’t necessarily make you want to cook, or give you ideas about what to cook, which is the problem I think a lot of people actually have that they tend to look to these ‘game-changing’ appliances to solve. (And like the author, I won’t be buying an air fryer, either.)
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And I know most of us were probably sick of the Adam Levine memes as soon as they started, but this one was still good.