Roasted Tomato Soup

On Friday I made my very first homemade tomato soup.  There was a recipe I have been sitting on for quite a while, and since I only had to work half a day, I decided to make it.  On Thursday at the local farmer’s market I had bought a couple pounds of tomatoes that were perfect for making this soup.

Here’s what you need:

2 lbs of tomatoes (give or take)

1 small onion
1 carrot
Several stalks of celery
1 quart vegetable stock
Butter
Olive Oil
 

First you need to roast the tomatoes.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  I had 2 lbs of organic tomatoes that were on the smallish side (similar in size to Roma tomatoes), very ripe, and also a bag of grape tomatoes to add some extra flavor.  Cut the tomatoes in half (no the grape – they’re too tiny), then toss in olive oil to coat.  I tossed in some balsamic vinegar too for a little extra flavor, but plan to try it without next time.

Lay the tomatoes on a baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment paper for easier clean-up and so the tomatoes slide off when done.  Make sure the tomatoes are evenly distributed and in one layer.  Put in the oven and roast for 30-40 minutes.  They should be tender when they come out.

While the tomatoes roast up, finely chop the celery, onion and carrot.  In a large pot, toss in a couple tablespoons of butter and drizzle a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the pot and dump in the chopped veggies in the pot.  On medium-low heat, sauté the veggies for about 15 minutes.  Add a little oil or butter if you feel it’s drying out.

When the tomatoes come out of the oven, dump them into the pot with the sautéed veggies.  Pour in the vegetable stock and add a couple of cups of water (more if you want to thin it out a little more).  Bring the mixture to a slow boil and reduce the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes.  Add about 1 or 2 teaspoons of salt, and as much black pepper to your taste, and mix in.  Remove from the heat. 

Using an immersion blender (you can use a food processor or regular blender if you don’t have one) and start pureeing the tomatoes and veggies.  Pull the blender out periodically to remove the build-up of the skins, etc. (Believe me, this is easier than trying to peel the tomatoes before roasting). 

Once you’ve got it well pureed, you can start straining the soup through a metal kitchen strainer to get any extra solids out so you have a smooth, creamy soup.  If you prefer it a little chunky, you can leave it as is, but I don’t recommend it. 

Put the strained soup back into your big pot and turn the heat back up to medium.  You can add a little more salt and pepper to taste at this point.  In about 5 minutes, the soup is hot again and ready to plate up and serve.

For my first attempt, I found the soup amazing.  It was better than what I’ve had at many restaurants.  You can garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, a dollop of sour cream, or whatever you fancy.  You can also make this soup completely vegan by omitting the butter and using more oil.

Bon Appetit!

San Buenaventura (that would be just Ventura)

I was thinking about taking a day trip yesterday, but got lazy, so decided to get out of the house today.  The weather looked promising, so I thought I trip up the coast would be nice and decided to drive up to Ventura like I had for my birthday.  But I wanted to take the back roads in through Fillmore and Santa Paula.  I drove out the 118 to Moorpark and caught the 23 (basically a rural road) through the citrus groves. 

As you drive down the mountain into the valley where Fillmore is, along the roadside carved into the mountains is what I call modern petroglyphs.  People have carved their names, symbols, some art, etc.  I stopped to photograph some of it to share. 

I had stopped in Fillmore before, so didn’t stop there and caught the 126 and drove on to Santa Paula and thought maybe I might have lunch there.  I stopped on the main drag in town and walked around for a while to check out the shops and restaurants.  Apparently they roll up the streets on Sundays since half of the places were closed, and nothing looked interesting for lunch.  But it was nice to get out and check out the downtown area.  Also, all around town they have murals on the sides of buildings to celebrate the history and heritage of the town and area.  Apparently at the turn of the century (20^th that is), they were the largest citrus producer in the U.S.  I didn’t take pictures of the any of them this trip, but I did take one of the oldest church in town, and the first Unitarian Universalist Church on the west coast, erected in 1891.

I drove on to Ventura and took the scenic route through town until I found Main Street and the historic district.  Sundays apparently aren’t as busy a day as Saturdays are there as I found plenty of free parking behind the buildings (and this was just around noon!).  I parked it and got out and walked around.  I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted for lunch, so checked out all the restaurants.  They have an abundance of Indian and Thai food, in just a four block area.  Also some brew pubs and cafes.  I walked down California St. and found an Italian restaurant that piqued my interest:  Café Fiore (www.fiorerestaurant.net).

When you walk in, it is rather dark, with a huge bar in the middle and the main dining area behind, but it was well done and felt kind of like a brasserie.  They sat me at a bar that overlooks the kitchen so you can watch them while they are cooking.  It was actually kind of cool.  While I initially thought the service may be lacking as it took someone a while to take my drink order, but my server made up for it through the rest of my meal with plenty friendly of attention.

A server dropped off some bread with a dipping sauce.  This dipping sauce was amazing.  It was almost a bruschetta sauce, but was so much more.  I’m going to try and copy it myself.  Here’s what I think was in it:  tomatoes, kalamata olives, garlic, fresh basil, salt/pepper, and olive oil.  I’ll let you know if I have success duplicating it.

For my first course, I wanted to have the Prosciutto Melone E Mozzarella – but my server told me that unfortunately they didn’t have the melon today, but did have a wine poached pear to replace it.  I’m all about trying something different, so I told him to bring it on.  When it arrived, it was plated beautifully with the prosciutto lining the plate, with mozzarella with a dab of pesto placed around the plate, the pear, and arugula mounded in the middle.  It was a very interesting melding of flavors that worked very well.

For my main course, I opted for a pizza and had the Parma:  a thin crust pizza with mozzarella and fontina cheese, prosciutto and baby arugula.  I know what you’re thinking:  more prosciutto?  I love it and I don’t get to have it very often – and I’m quite sure my lunch was my entire daily allowance of sodium.  But it was worth it.  The pizza’s crust was crispy, the cheeses creamy, and the salty prosciutto and peppery arugula all worked so well as a dish.  I could only eat half of it, but enjoyed every bite.

My entire meal, with an Arnold Palmer to drink, cost me $25 plus tip – not a bad deal.  It would have been perfect to share with someone and been more than enough food, so would be excellent for a date….now if I could just find one.  I can offer a solid recommendation for Café Fiore if you find yourself in Ventura.  They also have a location in Woodland Hills I found out.

After lunch I walked down to the beach to enjoy the weather and the view.  I walked out onto the pier, where you can get excellent views of the town and the coast – and it was a clear enough day that you could at least see the outlines of the Channel Islands. 

It was getting to be later afternoon, so I walked back in to town and did a little shopping.  I picked up some olive oil and balsamic vinegar at We Olive (www.weolive.com) to add to my kitchen.  On my way back to my car I did some window shopping.  Ventura really is a pretty little town.  It’s made me think I should drive up there a little more often to hang out.

I retraced my route back home as there are some fruit stands along the 126 between Santa Paula and Fillmore.  I stopped at one to pick up some cherries and cantaloupe.  They had Rainer cherries!  It was very exciting for me as they are generally hard to find until about June, and very expensive, but they are my favorite cherry.

The rest of the drive was beautiful, though uneventful.  It was a great day and left me feeling very content.

Ye Olde King's Head

I’ve been absent from blogging since returning from Tahoe since I haven’t had much to blog about, plus dealing with some health issues that are finally getting resolved.  But I did finally make it out to a new place last night for a unique dining experience.  My friend Madeleine and I were going down to Santa Monica Pier to a fundraiser for the Rock School Scholarship Fund (it’s a great organization – www.rockschoolfund.org) and decided to have dinner down by the pier.  Madeleine had recommended this pub a block up from the beach – Ye Olde King’s Head Pub (http://www.yeoldekingshead.com/).

I was game to try something new, so Pubbing we went.  It really is traditional, as many of the people working there are ex-pat Brits, and the menu is purely British pub food.  They also serve up Ales and Lagers from the U.K. 

They claim their fish and chips are internationally renowned, and it was probably the lightest entrée on the menu (other than a chicken curry dish), and I do like a good fish and chips.  I ordered the small portion, which was one HUGE battered filet on a bed of chips.  It was definitely enough for a good meal.  The fish was cod, well battered and fried, and not overly greasy.  I prefer malt vinegar on my fish, so I pretty much doused it with some (I like that tang it gives).  I actually did enjoy it and didn’t feel like I had eaten anything too heavy.  The chips were mostly crisp and complimented the fish well.

Madeleine had the Bangers and Mash (sausages with mashed potatoes).  She gave me half of one (their portions are very generous) and I I found the sausage very flavorful and tender.  They literally would fall apart on the fork after you cut off a portion.  They had been browned up well too.  I’d try a full order myself sometime.

Overall, we had a good experience and will consider it for a re-visit sometime.  I’d like to try the curry, as our server said it was also a very good dish to try.

Highway 395 Road Trip Day 5

Today was uneventful in the morning and early afternoon as I wasn’t feeling my best.  We did have breakfast at Harrah’s, which was okay.  We did a little shopping too, but eventually went back to the hotel so I could nap and rest.  I eventually felt better around 2:00pm and we took a drive down to the North Shore.

I took Fuzzy to see Squaw Valley, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.  Most of the original buildings are gone, but a few are still there.  I also was hoping that maybe we’d get to dine at the Plumpjack Café (http://www.plumpjackcafe.com) – I had wanted to the last time I was there in October, but it didn’t work out then.  We got the Squaw around 4:00pm, and it was starting to rain (and it was freezing cold too!). 

We headed into the Bar at the Plumpjack for a drink and maybe see when the café was serving.  Turns out the Bar also serves near the same menu, so we decided to try an appetizer and see if we wanted to dine there.   Our bartender (and server), Jack, answered our questions and offered some suggestions.

We ordered the Warm Marinated Olives and the Selection of Artisan Cheeses.  The olives were absolutely amazing – just the right temp and well flavored.  And the cheeses were perfect.  There were three of them, all California cheeses, two cow’s milk and one goat’s milk.  One of the cow’s milk cheeses was very creamy and reminded me more of goat’s milk.  The other two were harder cheeses.  The cheeses and olives were the perfect appetizers.

Since we were impressed with the appetizer round, we opted to stay for a full meal.  I ordered the Market Salad for my first course, which had mixed greens, radishes, English cucumbers, asparagus and shaved cheese, with a tangy vinaigrette.  It was very crisp and refreshing (and helped fill my need for some greens).

For my main course, I had the Angus Ranch Steak, which came with potatoes mixes with Pt. Reyes Blue Cheese, English Pea tendrils and crispy onions.  The steak came sliced and was cooked and seasoned perfectly.  I didn’t try to pea tendrils (they reminded me too much of broccoli), but the potatoes were incredibly – but sadly they were more a shmear and I would have enjoyed a larger portion.

We shared a dessert of their “Strawberries and Champagne”, which was sort of a bombe of strawberry frozen yogurt surrounding some Champagne sorbet on a cake, with a drizzle of a tarragon sauce.   It was very unique!  The tarragon added a slight herby-ness to the dessert and the frozen yogurt and sorbet complimented each other very well.

Overall, we had a great meal.  We got to meet the chef too, Wyatt, and talk about the food and his experience.  The Plumpjack has a real find in him and I hope they keep him for a long while.  I hope to get to dine there again someday!  If you’re ever in Tahoe, I highly recommend it.

It’s our last night in Lake Tahoe and back on the road tomorrow heading home.

Highway 395 Road Trip Day 4

It was another nice day in Tahoe, but we did lounge around again this morning – after all, this is vacation.  We finally around 10:00am got it together and got out of the hotel.  We headed down Highway 50 down in Carson.  While I had done the Capitol last time, Fuzzy hadn’t seen it and it is a nice place.  Carson has all the government buildings gathered together in a several block area, with the Capitol itself and the Legislature on the same block, separated by a lovely park.

We walked around the Capitol building and checked out the museum on the second floor.  We also walked into the original Supreme Court chambers and looked around (the Court has its own building now).  In the museum, they have some of the original furniture from original legislatures when they were housed in the Capitol building.  I laid across one of the Assembly desks and had Fuzzy snap a photo (shhhhhhh!). 

We walked through the park between the Capitol and Legislature, where there were some peace officers gathering, I’m guessing for a memorial that day.  There’s a memorial in the park for fallen officers of the state.

In the Legislature building, we checked out the Assembly and Senate chambers.  Nice digs!  We asked the guard when they meet next, and he told us that they only meet in February every other year on the odd years – so they aren’t due to meet again until next year!  So the building is quite most of the time.

After milling about the Capitol, we walked around old town Carson to check out the architecture and businesses.  They have maintained much of the original feel and most of the old buildings.  It reminds me much of the area around Sacramento and some of the style of San Francisco – they all were built around the same eras after all.

We spent about an hour checking out the downtown area, but it was getting to be lunch time so we made our way further north to Reno.  I wasn’t keen on going there as I didn’t like it the last time, but Fuzzy wanted to see it and she had been recommended a restaurant near downtown, so I bit the bullet.  We drove pretty much through the entire town to get to downtown (we thought the restaurant was there and I misread my map on the phone), so she got to see all the less than desirable places in the heart of downtown.

I finally figured out that we missed the restaurant by about 2 miles, so we headed back south and eventually found it.

A co-worker of Fuzzy had recommended it because her family are friends with the family of the owner.  The restaurant is Silver Peak Restaurant and Brewery (www.silverpeakbrewery.com) and it’s a fully operational micro-brewery and restaurant.  The menu had looked interesting online, and it proved to be so in person. 

We ordered the Rosemary Flatbread to start, which was a multigrain flatbread with rosemary, a sliver of brie on top and a roasted head of garlic to spread on it.  It was amazing!  I definitely would like to copy this.  You could even make a meal out of it.  The roasted garlic just added to it, and the brie was so tangy and creamy. 

For my main course, I had a Thai Beef Salad, which had grilled steak sliced thin and laid over a bed of romaine, tomatoes, cilantro and onions, with a soy lime dressing.  It was filling, but didn’t leave me feeling heavy.  The beef was lightly spiced and grilled perfectly, with a little pink in the middle.  The dressing was light and refreshing.  I thought it was a great salad to have for lunch after the heavier meals from yesterday.

We headed down to the Peppermill after lunch for a little gambling.  It’s south of downtown and is more modern and well maintained.  Fuzzy really liked it, and I could go back again if I were near Reno.  We spent about an hour there before heading back to Tahoe.

I took Interstate 80 to go to the North Shore.  It was still a little too early for dinner, so we went down towards the shoreline at Incline Village because I wanted to check out the Hyatt resort there for future reference.  We walked around the hotel to check it out, then headed across the street towards the beach where they have a nice restaurant and bar overlooking the water.  It was happy hour, so we were able to get a glass of wine for half off – and decided to also order a little appetizer since we saw one that piqued our interest:  House Made Elk Pate.  They brought us this rustic pate that you couldn’t really spread on the bread slices, but it was more than enough to sate our appetite.  I really don’t know how to describe it other than it definitely had a pate flavor but was a little stronger in flavor. 

Once we finished that, it was getting to be time to go to dinner, and I had wanted to take Fuzzy to the same place my friend Phil and I had fallen in love with back in October:  the tapas place Bite.  We pulled into the parking lot, and I was getting the feeling something wasn’t right.  Sure enough, I walked up to the door and discovered a notice on the door they were “closed for maintenance” until Friday.  Bummer!  It was a HUGE disappointment. 

There was another restaurant a couple doors town and the menu looked interesting – it had duck on the menu.  We were seated and the server came back to ask us our drink order, etc., and when we mentioned we were interested in the duck, so told us that they had just sold the last dish of it.  What?!  It was barely past 6:00pm, and they were out of duck?  We left as I really wanted that and nothing else appealed to me.

We had to drive back down to South Lake Tahoe and wound up eating at The Brewery (http://www.brewerylaketahoe.com/).  For an appetizer, we ordered the Pizza Chips with pesto and garlic, which turned out to be a flatbread pizza with pesto and garlic sauce.  And it was actually delicious, but way too much for an appetizer for two people.

For myself, I ordered the Cheesesteak Sandwich.  While it was tasty, it was a little disappointing as the menu described it has thin cut beef, but it was more chunks.  And I wasn’t a fan of the pepper jack cheese.  But the beer batter dipped French fries were amazing!

Tomorrow is a question mark as it’s our last day and we aren’t sure what exactly we will do – but whatever it is, I am sure we will have a nice day.

Highway 395 Road Trip Day 3

Today started out well.  The weather was beautiful, the temperature was warm and clear skies.  We had breakfast at the hotel again.  We got packed up and finally got out of the hotel around 10:00am.  The drive up the 395 was fairly uneventful.  There really isn’t much between Bishop and Tahoe (well, maybe Mammoth, but we did that yesterday).  There are a bunch of small towns, but this is high desert once you get past Mammoth.  The first interesting site really is Mono Lake at Lee Vining.  You pass a bunch of small “towns”. 

We did stop in Bridgeport, which is down the mountain from Mono Lake.  Basically we stopped for a bathroom break and to buy some lotto tickets.  Fuzzy told me that Bridgeport is known for its 4^th of July fireworks spectacular.  Apparently people drive from miles around to go to this event.  Who know?  (Well, Fuzzy did.) 

We drove for a while past Bridgeport, and finally came to the turn off for Highway 89 which takes you in the back way to Tahoe.  It’s a very windy road, and where back in October I ran into that herd of sheep coming down the mountain.  You have to be careful on the 89 as you come to a few T-stops that you have to make the right turn to stay on 89 – and of course, I missed one and turned the wrong way – but figured it out quickly and got back on track.

Eventually we came to the town of Markleeville, a tiny little strip in the heart of Alpine county.  We stopped there for lunch at the Wolf Creek Restaurant and Bar, right on Hwy 89.  I ordered the Club Sandwich, which came with crinkled fries.  The sandwich was on a whole grain bread that really made it remarkable.  It had a honey wheat taste (the bread) and it paired up well with the ham, turkey, bacon and cheddar.  I wolfed the whole thing down.  And the fries were extra crispy, which I like.  For a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, it’s a great place to stop off.  After eating, we walked around the town for about 10 minutes (that’s really all it takes).  It’s a very pretty little town.

We headed on out to Tahoe finally and finally arrived at the south end of the lake around 3:00pm.  We couldn’t check in until 4:00, so I did a loop all the way around the lake so Fuzzy could get the full treatment.  We drove up the California side and made a stop to get a view of Emerald Bay, and continued on through the towns around the lake until we finally stopped at the Cal-Neva Resort right on the north dividing line of California and Nevada.  The casino was a ghost town – we were literally the only patrons.  I had stopped as I wanted to check when they have the tunnel tours (they have these ‘secret” tunnels under the hotel from bootlegging and gangster times).  I didn’t get to do the tour back in October.

We continued on going south on the Nevada side until we finally reached our hotel.  I had a Groupon for Harvey’s (it’s a Harrah’s hotel).  We are in the new tower in one of the upgraded rooms.  It’s actually very comfortable and nice.  The bathroom is huge, and the casino has some decent games.  So far I am still breaking even.

For dinner we walked across the street to California to check out what restaurants were at the local resorts, but nothing interested was jumping out at us, so we went back to the hotels and decided on the buffet at Harrah’s (it’s right across the street from Harvey’s  and connected by a tunnel).  It’s on the top floor with views of the mountains and late – very pretty.  I won’t go into details since it’s a standard casino buffet, but the food was pretty good, and it was $20 a head.  No bad.

We’re still debating what to do tomorrow.