Sweet and Savory 2 Recipes

As some of you may know we got an early frost in Taos during the month of September. Which absolutely killed my tomato and pepper plants. I picked the peppers and pickled the hot italian variety, picked a basket of jalapenos and brought those to Jen at Love Apple. The tomatoes though were still very green, and rather then eat Fried Green Tomatoes, I called my Mom. She told me not only to put them on the windowsill to ripen but to put an apple or 2 in with them. Needless to say, Listen to Your Mother! Yes, the tomatoes are ripening since mid September, and yes some just rot away, and the stubborn ones of the bunch just won't ripen at all, change is difficult even for tomatoes. The results with the ripe ones have been a treat because here it comes, the recipe: Tomato Confit

Slice 1/4 red onion thinly, and chop one clove of garlic, (a clove not the entire head), add olive oil to a saucepan or small cast iron skillet, (this has to go in the oven so not something with a meltable handle) put all of these into the pan and sautee on high while you chop up approximately 3 ripe Roma style Tomatoes, add this to the pan and continue to sautee a bit now ad one and 1/2 Tsp Balsamic vinegar, some salt, pepper and a pinch of Rosemary, add about 2 Tblspn of Olive Oil. Put this into the oven which has been heating up to 400/450 for 15 minutes. YUM

Spread on fresh Bread or onto Pasta, or on Pizza, (but still use a tomato sauce and cheese on the pizza), or use it as a side dish for meat. YUM

On the weekends we have desert, because when we have desert all week long we tend to put on a lot of weight. Thus being desert is only Sat/Sun or Fri/Sat at our house. Baking especially sweets requires paying strict attention to the recipe, as most people can tell you, I am not a one to play by the rules. When you make Chocolate Chip Cookies according to Nestle (the inventor of the fine treat) they tend to come out a bit slumped shall we say, spreading their way across the cookie sheet and not really all that wonderful. I split the batch into 2 parts half for one night ad half for the other. Get ready for wonderful, and in this case Butter everyones friend is the culprit.

Here's the recipe: "The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER"

1 stick of butter BUT hold back 1 TSP of the culprit, feed it to the cat or dog if you must

1/3 cup Dark Brown Sugar add 1 TSP Molasses,

(that's right just do it, why pay for that fancy expensive Drkst Brwn Sgr when you can do this)

1/3 cup White Sugar

1 cap full Vanilla Extract

(and yes you can make it yourself if you can find Vanilla Beans a t a reasonable price)

1/2 TSP Baking Powder

1/2 TSP Baking Soda

Beat this stirring vigorously, put your arm muscles into it, after all this is the only exercise I get

1 Egg Beat and stir some more

1 1/4 cups Flour mix this in until it's dough if it's too sticky you may add a bit more flour

but don't go overboard or your cookies will be stones

1/2 cup Chocolate Chips

1/3 cup Nuts Walnuts or Pecans (absolutely no Peanuts I am allergic to them)

Mix some more and spread this onto a sheet of tin foil, divide in half, no you may not make the whole batch in one night, the next night you will have the treat of Hot Fresh Cookies.

Oven is on 325 the rack is at the top depending on your oven heating

Divide half the dough into 6-8 cookies, a true cookie treat awaits in 8-11 minutes

do not burn them or overcook, as soon as you see golden edges they are done, YUM