Category Archives: tomato sauce

Salsa romesco, awesomely saucy

04 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Sauces, spanish, tomato sauce, vegan, Vegetarian

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romesco sauce
red pepper
Romesco sauce is served with fish or chicken if you’re not veggie but I like it with tortilla (Spanish egg and potato omelette), a dip for bread or for any kind of roasted vegetable. Honestly, it’d be good with anything–it’s rich, garlicky, tangy and a little spicy if you like. This was my first time making it and it turned out great (yay! success!), but I did have to correct myself: I started with red bell peppers, but it’s ñora chilies I needed, not the red peppers. I used a dried ancho chili as a replacement for the nora chilies and tossed one in at the end. Delicioso!
ancho chilies
Ingredients
for 2 jars of romesco

12 almonds
10 hazelnuts (or pine nuts)
1 bulb of garlic
2 tomatoes
2 fire roasted red peppers and 1 dried ancho chili (or 2-3 ñora chilies)
1/2 to 1 cup of spanish olive oil
1/4 cup nice vinegar
salt and pepper
1 dried red chili or 1 fresh jalapeno (optional)
1 piece of crusty bread, fried in olive oil

1. Start by roasting the bulb of garlic in its skin and the nuts in a baking tray. (The tomatoes can be roasted as well, but I didn’t.) The nuts need to be lightly toasted and the garlic should be completely soft. It won’t take long so take care to not over cook and dry out the garlic. You should be able to squeeze the cloves right out of their skins and into the blender (or food processor).

2. Fry the bread in olive oil till crispy on both sides. Then fry the dried ancho chili in plenty of oil on both sides till soft.

3. If you have a food processor, grind the bread and the nuts first or put everything into a blender and pulse until smooth. Add more salt and pepper and olive oil if needed.
salsa romesco ingredients

4. Keep for a day to let the flavors develop.
romesco sauce

Fresh enchilada sauce… Who knew it was this easy?

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in quick and awesome, tex mex, the basics, tomato sauce, Vegetarian

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tomatoes for enchilada sauce

Fresh enchilada sauce. Who knew it was this easy?! Well, I did. But only after I read about it on the Mija Chronicles food blog. I make this any and every time I want enchilada sauce. ** Except that I frequently use a can of tomatoes as I don’t always have enough fresh ones to hand.

I recently made fresh tomato sauce with some extremely ripe tomatoes from the farmers market. Phew! No good food gone to waste. But shortly thereafter, what should appear but five more overripe, on-their-way-out, juicy red tomatoes. Am I not eating enough salad? Didn’t I just buy these guys?

Fresh enchilada sauce:

Ripe tomatoes (or a large can of unsalted tomatoes)
3-6 cloves garlic (about 3 cloves for every five tomatoes)
fresh jalapenos–I was out, so used the jar version
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop the tomatoes roughly and toss them in the blender. You should peel and deseed them for perfect sauce. ** I HARDLY EVER do this on a week night. I usually chuck it all in, skins and seeds and all.

2. Roughly chop a few cloves of garlic and a deseeded jalapeno. Add as much jalapeno as you like for mild or spicy sauce. If you are unsure, start with less. You can add more spice but you can’t take it away.

3. Add the garlic and jalapeno to the tomatoes in the blender and blitz. You now have a strawberry-colored tomato pulpy mess that smells fantastic.

fresh enchilada sauce

4. Heat up a heavy frying pan with a generous glug of olive oil. When oil is hot pour in the blitzed tomato mix, heat till it’s nice and bubbly and then turn the heat down to simmer and cover. In a sense, you are frying or sautéing the sauce.

5. Cook this until it turns from the pale pink color to a deep red. About 20 min. Add in salt and pepper to taste.

I used mine for some kale and three-cheese enchiladas, which I will post about soon.

enchilada sauce