Carrot sofrito tacos

Here you see tacos filled with carrot sofrito and cashew goat cheese with cilantro and red onion, which we ate with a tomato/tomatillo/chipotle salsa. (I used this recipe for enchiladas with a carrot sofrito.)

The leftover sofrito made for some excellent tomato soup the next day -- quickly brown chopped fennel, and then some tomato paste, then add a tin of chopped tomato, water and the sofrito. Pressure cook for 5 minutes. Puree. Salt, pepper, done.

Smoking

I got a stovetop smoker for my birthday. Since then we've been eating lots of smoked things. Probably my favourite things so far have been smoked tofu and tempeh. Here's the smoker packed full of veggie protein (marinated pressed tofu, tempeh, and two homemade seitan sausages).

For the tofu, I press it overnight and then marinate it for a day in soy sauce with a bit of maple syrup and sesame oil. Once it has been smoked for 30 minutes, it's ready to be sliced thinly for sandwiches. The tempeh just goes in plain -- once smoked, it's ready to be cooked however you like. I like to slice it thinly and pan fry, adding flavourings (soy sauce plus whatever other things) at the end for a glaze.

Other things I've smoked so far: cherry tomatoes (10 minutes), garlic, potatoes (45 minutes from raw to cooked -- too long; better to parcook them before smoking), young coconut, coconut flakes (20 minutes), lemon. The young coconut was a bit odd -- I ended up pureeing it and making a smoky ice cream which was pretty good. The coconut flakes were great as a bacon-y element in a salad. The smoked lemon I didn't know quite what to do with, so it is sitting in the freezer waiting for inspiration to strike.

Green tomatoes

One of my tomato plants died. It was the biggest one, with green tomatoes all over that I'd been eyeing for weeks, and then it was suddenly struck down with a disease (fusarium wilt, I believe).

I harvested all the green tomatoes. I'd never tried them before, but green tomatoes are tasty! We had fried green tomatoes, and on Friday (which reached 38 or 39 degrees C -- that's 100 F) we had gazpacho with red and green tomatoes. But maybe the best meal was this one: roasted green tomatoes with tempeh, based on this recipe for chicken.

Looking at the recipe now, I see that I forgot the basil. But it was delicious anyway, and I really loved the combination of the tomatoes with ginger. The tempeh worked out pretty well. I had marinated it in a sort of all purpose marinade (soy sauce/oil/lemon juice, I think). I had to add some of the marinade part way through cooking because it was starting to dry out.