Fried Green Tomatoes with Soy-Garlic Aioli

Well, the last of my garden’s tomatoes were taken from their vines. It had to be done. They were no longer growing and the short days of Fall had made it impossible for them to turn red. I gathered about 12 of them in all and although this event was a bit sad, I also found it exciting that I was about to make a southern fried treat- Fried Green Tomatoes.

Fried Green Tomatoes is one of the South’s trademark dishes. The recipe varies the farther south you go, but here I have taken it to the vegan arena. Typically dipped in milk, I used soy milk and the aioli I made as a dipping sauce was created with. You can create any number of seasoned flours to dredge them in as well, say for instance a smoky thyme infused breading, which is what I did.

Straight from the vine, these guys were a little smaller than tennis balls.

I made 1/2 inch thick slices.

Set them aside.

I combined 1/2 cup of soy flour, 1/2 cup of cornmeal and a teaspoon each of the other spices.

I used soy milk creamer.

Heat the oil before you begin coating the tomatoes, but watch the heat. You don’t want it smoking hot or your coating will burn.

Coat the tomatoes in the soy milk first….

Then dredge the tomatoes in the flour mixture until thoroughly coated.

Carefully place them in the hot oil, browning each side about 1 minute each.

Place them on a paper towel to drain the excess oil.

Make an aioli of soy sour cream, garlic, lemon zest and chives and enjoy ya’ll!

Fresh Spinach with Garlic-Yogurt Sauce

This was, well, interesting. I thought it had a nice flavor. The garlic yogurt really pulled it all together. Next time we’ll pre-cook the rice though – it took much longer than the 10 minutes in the recipe and use much more than a few tablespoons of water before the rice was even close to tender. By that time our spinach was so far beyond wilted… so much for ‘fresh’ spinach!

Excuse the bad photo… like I said, the spinach was overcooked. It’s better than it looks! I promise!

Fresh Spinach with Garlic-Yogurt Sauce

Recipe from Bon Appetit. Makes 6 side/appetizer size servings. Maybe we should stop trying to turn intended appetizers into main courses, eh?

INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 tablespoon tomato paste
4 dried chilies de arbol
1 1/2 pounds fresh spinach leaves (four 6oz bags), divided
1 1/2 tablespoons uncooked medium-grain white rice
2 garlic cloves
6 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS
Heat 3 tablespoons oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste, stir 1 minute. Add chiles and 1/3 of spinach. Cook until spinach wilts, adding remaining spinach in 2 additions and tossing often, about 4 minutes.

Mix in rice. Cover and simmer until rice is tender and moisture from spinach is absorbed, adding water by tablespoonfuls if needed for rice, about 10 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook until mixture is dry, about 2 minutes. Discard chilies.

Meanwhile, press garlic cloves into small bowl, stir in yogurt, and season with salt and pepper. Melt butter with 1 tablespoon oil in small skillet. Mix in cayenne and remove from heat.

Spread spinach mixture on platter; make indentations with back of spoon. Spoon yogurt into indentations and drizzle with cayenne butter.

Gourmet BLTs With Green Garlic Aioli

Commence the week of Green Garlic (I mentioned Fresh Garlic in last weeks recipes… what we’re using is actually called green garlic. It looks a lot like green onions). To start we made these yummy BLTs with a gourmet twist. Quite good. The Brioche bread is fabulous, and definitely makes the sandwiches that much better. Worth it if you can find it.

Gourmet BLTs With Green Garlic Aioli

Makes 6 sandwiches. Recipe from Epicurious. If you can’t find green garlic, just use a regular clove of dried garlic and blanch it to take away some of the bite (to blanch, put the peeled clove in boiling water for 1-2 minutes).

INGREDIENTS
Aioli:
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped green garlic or 1 regular garlic clove, blanched
1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel or coarse kosher salt
3/4 cup mayonnaise, divided
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Sandwiches:
2 (3-ounce) packages thinly sliced pancetta (Italian bacon; about 30 slices)
12 (1/2-inch-thick) slices brioche or egg bread, lightly toasted
1 large bunch mizuna or arugula, torn into 2-inch pieces
3 beefsteak tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds

DIRECTIONS
For aioli: Blend olive oil, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel in processor until garlic is minced. Add 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and blend well. Transfer to small bowl; whisk in remaining mayonnaise and lemon juice. Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill.

For sandwiches: Preheat oven to 450°F. Arrange pancetta slices in single layer on 2 large rimmed baking sheets. Bake until crisp, about 10 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

Place toast on work surface. Spread with aioli. Divide mizuna among 6 toast slices; top with tomatoes, then pancetta, dividing equally. Top with remaining 6 toast slices, aioli side down. Cut each sandwich in half and serve.

Green Garlic Soup

I’m not a big soup fan, but I enjoyed this one. Especially dipped with sourdough bread. It was not overwhelmingly garlicky in flavor, surprising considering the amount that goes into it. Though it was quite the ordeal to make it… it took us almost 2 hours. Good for a chilly spring weekend maybe.

Also, whatever you do, don’t try to blend the soup while it’s hot. Taylor found that out the hard way (no where in the recipe does it say to cool the soup first), but hot soup+blender=big mess. Give yourself extra time to let it cool significantly before you blend it.

Green Garlic Soup

Makes ten 6 oz portions (or 6 standard-ish size portions). Recipe from Chez Panisse Cooking.

INGREDIENTS
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
24 young garlic plants, white part only, halved lengthwise (8 oz)
3/4 cup water
1 lb + 6oz small red potatoes, peeled and quartered
1.5 quarts broth (recipe calls for chicken, we used vegetable)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
Melt butter in 6-quart noncorroding pot. Add the garlic and 1/4 cup of the water. Bring to a simmer, cover tightly, and cook for 15 minutes. Add the potatoes and remaining 1/2 cup water and cook at a simmer for 20 minutes. Add the broth, cover, and allow to bubble gently for 20 minutes.

Allow to cool. Puree the soup in batches in a blender for 2 minutes. Pass the puree through a medium-fine sieve into a bowl. Stir in the cream and salt. Add the vinegar, 1 teaspoon at a time, tasting the soup after each addition, until it tastes good to you.

Reheat the soup gently and serve in warm bowls. Grind black pepper generously over each portion and serve with slices of toasted or grilled sourdough bread.

Garlic Roasted Shrimp with Red Chile Oil

This is a recipe for true garlic lovers. We bought so much garlic this week it was ridiculous… the woman checking us out at the store thought we were going on a vampire hunt. We didn’t use nearly as much as the recipe called for (silly me… I misread ‘cloves’ as ‘heads’. Whoops).

These are meant to be tapas (yes, we have a tendency to eat appetizers as main courses). We served these with our Strawberry Spinach Salad and leftover Red Wine Sangria. The shrimp were delicious and the oil has a fabulous flavor. We tried some of the giant elephant garlic for the chips. While they looked impressive, they were actually quite bitter. More for decoration than flavor I guess. Next time we might try blanching the garlic before frying it, which might make it less bitter. Get ready to use a ton of olive oil, though it’s well worth it.

Garlic Roasted Shrimp with Red Chile Oil

Recipe from Bobby Flay. Makes 8 appetizer servings.

INGREDIENTS
24 large shrimp, shelled and deveined
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Red Chile Oil:
1 cup olive oil
6 dried chiles de arbol, lightly toasted and crushed
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Pinch salt
3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed

Toasted Garlic Chips:
1 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
Salt

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

To make red chili oil, blend all ingredients including the thyme leaves in a blender until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl.

For garlic chips, heat the oil in a small skillet until it begins to shimmer. Add the garlic and cook until the slices begin to brown and curl. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels and season with salt.

Place the shrimp in a cazuela or an ovenproof casserole and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Drizzle olive oil over shrimp, add crushed garlic, and toss to coat. Roast in the oven until pink and cooked through, about 4 to 5 minutes. Drizzle generously with Red Chile Oil and sprinkle with thyme and Toasted Garlic Chips. Serve with crusty bread.

Homemade Fettuccine with Garlic and Oil

Well, after the ravioli, we had the paster maker dusted off and were ready to use it again. We ditched the idea of more ravioli, as they are not the quickest things in the world, and went with a plain fettuccine. The difference between fresh pasta and dried is huge… once you’ve made some you’ll have a hard time going back. Trust me.

This recipe was very simple, and quite good. Sometimes you don’t need gobs of sauce with tons of spices and flavors, and such is the case with this pasta.

Homemade Fettuccine with Garlic and Oil

Makes 4-6 servings.

INGREDIENTS
For pasta:
4 eggs
3-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

For sauce:
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
4-6 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground pepper
smoked paprika & parmesan for garnish

DIRECTIONS
To make pasta, either build a well out of flour and slowly stir in eggs (more info here) or mix in a food processor or stand mixer. You want the dough to just barely stick together into a smooth ball, but do not add any more liquid than necessary. Split into two, form into balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. Roll out with a pasta roller until thin, then cut into fettuccine (follow manufacturers directions for whatever pasta roller you have.) Add pasta to a pot of salted, boiling water and stir to break up. Cook until al-dente, about 4-5 minutes.

For sauce, heat the oil and garlic over medium heat in a heavy saucepan until the garlic begins to turn pale gold, about 1-2 minutes (Do not burn!). Remove the pan from the heat and add 3/4 of the parsley, salt & pepper to taste.

Drain the pasta and combine with the sauce in a separate bowl and toss until all the pasta is coated.

Serve and sprinkle with the remaining parsley, Parmesan, and smoked paprika. Serve immediately.