Baked Green Tomato Herb Salad

On Monday night, I was excited to work on a new cooking project.  Olivia's Organics is sponsoring a Summer Harvest Recipe contest.  To enter, you need to submit a salad recipe that incorporates fresh seasonal ingredients.  The winner gets $500 and the recipe will be featured on their website!  I wanted to enter and I decided to make a Baked Green Tomato Herb Salad.

To start, I washed and sliced two beautiful green tomatoes from Siena Farms, which is where I get a lot of my favorite local ingredients.

I sliced the tomatoes into quarter to half-inch thick slices.

I wanted to make a healthier version of fried green tomatoes by baking them instead of frying them.  I try to make this easy substitution in a lot of my dishes, like my sweet potato chips or beet chips.  So I turned on my oven to 400 degrees.  While the oven was pre-heating, I put a sheet of aluminum foil (for easy clean-up) on a large baking tray and put that in the oven as well.  I remembered Chef Matt Barros telling us this past weekend how it is so important to make sure that your pan is hot to get a nice crispy texture.  I figured it wouldn't hurt with this dish either.

While the oven was pre-heating, I dipped each tomato slice into a 1/3 cup of fat-free milk, which is typically the only milk I will ever have in my kitchen.  To add a little heat, I added a few drops of Tabasco sauce to the milk and gave it a stir.

I then dredged the slice in a dry mixture consisting of 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup of yellow cornmeal, and a few generous pinches of salt, black pepper, and cayenne.  I also added a pinch of sugar since the green tomatoes were tart and I wanted to add just a small touch of sweetness.

When the oven was ready, I took the sheet out, sprayed it with cooking spray, and placed the tomatoes on the tray.  I gave the tops of the tomatoes a quick spritz of the cooking spray as well (to help them brown) and placed the tray in the oven for about fifteen minutes.  After fifteen minutes, I took the tomatoes out, turned them over and gave it another twenty minutes.

While the tomatoes were baking, I prepared the rest of the ingredients for my salad.  I decided to use Olivia's Organic's herb salad because I wanted a nice slightly bitter flavor to contrast against the tart and sweet flavors of the green tomatoes.

I also crumbled up a few slices of this delightful local Capri goat cheese from Westfield Farm that I found at Whole Foods.  It was so creamy and tangy - I definitely took a few nibbles as I sliced it up.

I tossed a handful of the salad with some goat cheese, black pepper and salt.

I also added a nice simple homemade balsamic dressing that consisted of a few tablespoons each of white champagne balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

I also added a few pinches of salt, pepper, oregano, and crushed red pepper flakes and gave the dressing a quick stir.

I gave the salad a quick toss with the dressing and then topped it with my golden-brown crusty baked green tomatoes.  I didn't intend for a vegetarian meal that night but the green tomatoes were so huge that it seemed unnecessary to add meat to this dish.

I loved the flavor combination of the slightly bitter herb salad, tangy goat cheese, and slightly tart and sweet green tomatoes.  I liked the crispy texture of the fried green tomatoes and it went well with the fresh salad and creamy goat cheese. 

I was really happy with the results, especially since most of the ingredients were local!  Nothing screams summer to me like tomatoes and using green tomatoes was a nice twist.  I think this dish really represents some of summer's great seasonal ingredients!


What salad ingredients screams summertime for you?  
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Goat Cheese and Pea Tendril Stuffed Pork Chops

On Sunday night, I was looking forward to once again cooking with the pea tendrils from Silverbrook Farm that I purchased from my farmer's market home delivery service.

I had previously used the pea leaves as greens for a simple salad so I wanted to use them a bit differently this time around.  I decided to sautee them and use it to stuff some pork chops. 

To start, I washed the pea leaves while B chopped up half a white onion.

I sauteed the white onion in olive oil with fresh cracked pepper and salt, along with a few cloves of chopped garlic.

I then added the pea leaves to the pan and lightly sauteed them.  When the pea leaves were wilted, I removed the onion, garlic and pea tendril mixture from the pan and put it in the fridge to cool. 

When the mixture had sufficiently cooled down, I added some gorgeous goat cheese to about three quarters of the green mixture.  This goat cheese was another recently acquired farmer's market delivery purchase.  It comes from Crystal Brook Farm in Sterling, Massachusetts.  This goat cheese was full of herb flavor from the Provencal marinade and a little went a long way with the pea tendril mixture.

B halved the pork chops and stuffed it with the goat cheese, pea tendril, white onion and garlic mixture. 

I placed a toothpick in the pork chop to keep the stuffing inside as much as possible while baking.  I placed the stuffed pork chops on a baking tray and gave the pork a simple seasoning of fresh cracked salt and pepper.  The pork chops were put in the oven at 400 degrees for about twelve minutes and then put on broil for about three minutes.

While the pork chops were in the oven, B cleaned and sliced up some local shiitake mushroom caps.

I sauteed the mushrooms in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, chicken broth and fresh cracked salt and pepper. 

Since I had about a quarter of the sauteed pea tendril mixture left over, I added this to the mushrooms at the last minute so they wouldn't go to waste. 

The end result was a moist pork chop filled with a flavorful goat cheese and pea tendril mixture.  The side of sauteed shiitake mushrooms and pea tendrils added a salty contrast to the pork chops.  This was a healthy and tasty meal that was perfect for a Sunday supper and a great first attempt at making stuffed pork chops.

What's your favorite way to cook pork chops?

Roasted Garlic, Onion & Goat Cheese Flatbread Pizza

During our trip to Portland, B and I had the opportunity to stop by Stonewall Kitchen.  Like I've mentioned before, there are no Stonewall Kitchen stores in Massachusetts so I was thrilled to find one in Portland.  I adore Stonewall Kitchen because it is an utterly charming place with bright white walls filled with tasty jars and bottles of jams, sauces, and marinades.  In the store, Stonewall Kitchen often offers cooking demonstrations and encourages you to try out their products.  They also offer adorable little recipe cards to give you ideas on how to use their various products.

While at Stonewall Kitchen, we stocked up on a few different items including a bottle of pineapple ginger sauce, roasted garlic mustard and a roasted garlic and onion jam.  I was particularly excited about the roasted garlic and onion jam because I had sampled a bit in the store and it had a nice flavor of roasted garlic, sweet onions and a sweet balsamic vinegar taste in a jam.  The blend of the jam's overall sweetness and the roasted garlic taste was a great flavor combination. 

I also picked up a recipe card for the jam to make a pizza using the jam, goat cheese and pre-made pizza crust.  I thought this sounded really good and decided to make it on Wednesday night for a simple and easy dinner. 

Although the recipe called for a pre-made pizza crust (i.e. Boboli), I didn't see any fun in using that.  Instead, I asked B to pick up some pizza dough from Flour Bakery on his way home from work.  The way that our after-work schedules lined up that night, B went home first while I went to the gym.  He left the pizza dough out to breathe at room temperature before he headed to the gym so that it was resting when I came home.

I took the dough out of its packaging and let the dough rest some more while I floured up the cutting board.  The pizza dough was really soft and easy to work with.  I worked the dough with both a rolling pin and my hands to make a rectangle-shaped crust. 

I placed the crust on a baking tray that I had sprayed cooking spray on and lightly sprinkled with cornmeal.  I still haven't invested in a pizza stone and I really need to bite the bullet and just do it.  I then used a spatula to spread a thin layer of the roasted garlic and onion jam.  I added some crumbled pieces of goat cheese on top of the jam.  I had picked up a great package of local goat cheese from Savenors Market on the way home from the gym. 

I added a generous layer of fresh cracked pepper on top of the pizza.  Since I was using pizza dough instead of a ready-made pizza crust, I altered the cooking temperature and time a little bit.  I put the pizza in the oven at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes.

While the pizza was cooking, I decided to work on a side salad.  Again, I wanted to do something simple so I also picked up a package of Olivia's Organics' Herb Salad.  If you haven't tried Olivia's Organics, I highly recommend it.  This is a local company that not only produces great fresh salad products, but also shows a strong commitment to the environment by not only using greens only from organic farming but also packages it in 100% recyclable and already-recycled plastic.

Since the herb salad contained romaine, chard, spinach, radicchio, frisee, beet greens, arugula and parsley, I knew that the greens would already be flavorful and didn't add any other vegetables to it.  Instead, I decided to focus on making a tasty vinagrette.  Again, while in Portland, I had picked up a bottle of 18 year old champagne white balsamic vinegar from LeRoux Kitchen and I was looking for an excuse to crack it open.

I poured about a third cup of the balsamic vinegar and added fresh cracked pepper, salt, fresh crushed red pepper flakes and dried rosemary.  I stirred it all up but waited to add the vinagrette to the salad until we were ready to eat to prevent the greens from getting to soggy.

The meal ended up being simple and perfect.  The flatbread pizza had a crispy thin crust.  The jam was very sweet but had a nice roasted garlic flavor.  The sweetness of the jam contrasted nicely with the tangy goat cheese and the bite from the cracked pepper. 

Since the pizza was on the sweet side, the salad and the sharpness of the dressing added a nice bite to cut the sweetness.  We actually used only half of the vinagrette because a little went a long way. 

The pizza was a bit tricky to bring into work for lunch the next day but it heated up nicely the following night for dinner.  This time we added a bit of salami to the pizza to added a bit more saltiness to the dish.  This was definitely not a complicated dish since it used a lot of pre-made products but all of the ingredients went well together and the end result was an easy weeknight dinner that we both enjoyed.