A Jersey Girl in Portland

Welcome to my Blog

Hello! Jersey Girl in Portland is me, Nancy Schaadt. Born in New Jersey, lived all over, found my heart’s home in Portland Oregon in 2008.

I’m an chef, freelance writer, and cannabis culture fan.  Currently budtending (like a bartender but for weed) and trying to decide my next career move.

I’ve pinned this to the top of my blog because I need to warn anyone who wants to read my advertisement free scribbles, or search for any of the hundreds of bonafide recipes on this blog, that the Typepad search function is total crap.

Please use the search engine the nice people at Google have created.  Enter “Jersey Girl in Portland” and whatever recipe or article you desire like tomato jam or dope soap or pie or beans or sourdough or hashtag-whatever. The results are accurate and much better than the Typepad search function.

Thanks!

What to do with all those love apples? Conserva & more

I think tomatoes are one of my top five favorite foods. Take a firm, red tomato.  Cut a fat slab from the center. Sprinkle a pinch of Maldon* and take a bite.  The flavor almost explodes in the mouth. It’s tangy and a little sweet, with a savory-ness to balance. And the crunchy salt that spreads from the roof of your mouth down to the teeth, is just salty icing on a tomato cake.

I love ‘em all.** Heirloom tomatoes, in all their beautiful, colorful glory; meaty San Marzano tomatoes for perfect sauce; tiny, sweet pear tomatoes, just made for snacking, still warm from the sun.

But my favorite is Cosmonaut, a variety that reminds me of the New Jersey tomatoes of my youth.  They were so acidic and sweet that I’d get mouth ulcers from them, like I’d eaten half a bag of Sour Patch Kids.  I’d slather mayo and butter on a toasted hamburger roll or English muffin and eat the perfect summer sandwich. 

Usually I go tomato crazy but this year I only bought 30 pounds of Roma tomatoes from Deep Roots Farm so I spent just a day canning tomatoes this summer. 

I made Tomato Conserva which is like a rich tomato paste.  To make it, quarter 10 # tomatoes, put them in a large pot and add 1/2 cup OO and 1 T kosher salt. Cook them on top of the stove until the skins fall off. Put them through a food mill and return them to the pot. Reduce by 1/3.  

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 

Pour the crushed and reduced tomatoes onto two sheet trays and bake for two hours.

Make sure the tomatoes aren’t getting too dark around the edges by stirring them from time to time.  After two hours, combine the paste onto one tray (wash the pan if you, like me, only have two sheet trays) Bake for another hour. Continue to stir and condense on to a clean sheet tray for 30 more minutes. The conserva should be a dark brick color.  Spoon into three sterile one-cup jars, top with olive oil and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yes, 10 pounds of tomatoes yields three cups of conserva.

My next favorite thing to do with tomatoes is simply canning them ‘whole’. Start with cutting an X in the bottom of each tomato.  In batches, blanch them in boiling water for a few seconds. Shock them in cold (ice) water, core them and jam the flesh into sterile quart jars. Add a fat pinch of salt and a tablespoon of lemon juice (juice from concentrate like ReaLemon is fine) to each jar. Top with boiling water OR cook and strain the pulp and seeds you removed from the tomatoes and use it to bring up the water level of the jars. Process for 20-30 minutes.

I also made a fun Confit Tomato the other day.  Take four good-sized heirloom or other round tomato variety. Cut an X in the bottom. Blanch for 30 seconds, shock in cold water and peel.  Then very gently, remove the core.  It’s not easy as the tomatoes are slippery.

Take 2 Tbsps of sugar, mix it with the finely chopped zest of two lemons. Put the tomatoes in a baking dish, divide the sugar and lemon mix evenly between the four tomatoes. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of the fruitiest olive oil you have. Bake @ 200 degrees for three hours.  Baste at least thrice per hour to keep the tomatoes moist. When a thin knife blade meets little resistance, the tomatoes are done. Serve warm or at room temp. Serve one per person in a small bowl, drizzle with pan juice. WOW they are delicious! It makes a great appetizer or side dish.

Celebrate Love &

Love Apples.

xoxo

Nancy

 

*(coarse sea salt from the town of Maldon, in Essex on the Blackwater estuary, on the eastern side of the UK.

**Please allow me to nerd out on the pinnacle of the nightshade family, the love apple, the tomato.  According to Brittanica, the species originated in the Andes mountains, Peru and Ecuador. Domesticated in pre-Columbia’s Mexico the name comes from the Aztec word tomatl. As members of the deadly nightshade family, their edible nature was almost unexplored as it was domesticated as an ornamental plant in Northern Europe.  And thought to be quite deadly. But what I didn’t know is that the roots and leaves are poisonous and contain the neurotoxin solanine.  

Three hour Menudo

^{I’ve been having fun with offal, namely tripe.  It’s inexpensive (less than $4.50/pound), and delicious. I’ve made Roman tripe, but I wanted to make menudo, the famous Mexican soup usually reserved for family gatherings (but also known as hangover cure).}

^{It’s a great soup for a hot day and yesterday was hot hot hot.}   

^{Most recipes I researched for this post called for 8 hours of cooking. Even jobless I don’t have that much time. My friend DeAnna’s mom used to use a pressure cooker to make it.  Smart lady. Make those kitchen tools for you, I say.}

^{So it’s good that I took an accidental short cut.  I got book tripe from the Asian market, instead of honeycomb tripe.  It looked just like photographs of honeycomb tripe on the interwebs so I treated it like honeycomb tripe. But it cooks for much less time.}

^{So, I bring you Three Hour Menudo}

^{2 pounds book tripe}

^{1.5 large onions, medium dice, divided use}

^{10 cloves garlic, divided use}

^{6 New Mexico chili pods (stems removed & indifferently de-seeded)}

^{3 Japones chili pods (same as above)}

^{2 tsp cumin, divided use}

^{2 Tbsp oregano, divided use}

^{2 Tbsp olive oil}

^{2 to 5 cups chicken stock (whatever amount you have on hand is fine)}

^{1 can hominy (white or yellow, it doesn’t matter)}

^{2 Tbsp butter (optional)}

^Garnish:

^{1 cup chopped cilantro}

^{1 finely diced red onion}

^{Put the tripe, 1/3 of the chopped onion & 5 cloves garlic in one gallon of cool water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 1.5 hours. When finished cooking, remove and rinse in cold water. Discard the tripe boiling liquid. Set the tripe aside} 

^{While the tripe cooks, cover the chilies with 3-4 cups cool water.  The chilies should be fully submersed with an inch of water to spare.  Boil for 10 minutes. Cover & remove from heat to steep for one hour.}  

^{Do not throw out the chili water! Put the cool, drained chilies in a blender with one cup of the chili water along with 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp cumin & 1 Tbsp dried oregano (if using fresh, double the amount of oregano). Purée until smooth and not gritty.  This is the base of your soup.}

^{Chop the remaining two cloves of garlic. Heat a stock pot,  add OO and sauté the remaining onion and garlic.  Add 6 cups of liquid to the pot- a mix of chicken stock and water with a minimum of 2 cups stock is ideal.  Add the puréed chilies, 1 tsp cumin and 1 Tbsp oregano. Bring to a boil and quickly reduce to a low simmer.}

^{Now cut the tripe into uniform strips that will fit on a spoon. I say uniform pieces because this recipe has just a few ingredients so each item should shine.  Uniformly. Add the tripe and hominy and reduce to low, partially covered, for one hour, stirring occasionally.}

^{When the soup has reduced, taste it to check seasoning and salt as needed.  If it lacks body, add 2 Tbsp butter.}

^{Serve with garnishes.}

^{Although I lived in Dallas Texas for 15 years I never made menudo.  Why would I, there was amazing menudo all around my neighborhood in Oak Cliff (south Dallas).  Fun fact, Wiki tells me it’s also called mole de panza, (stomach soup) or pancita (little gut). Call it what you will, it’s really delicious.} 

^{Next on my Tripe dance card is Philadelphia Pepper Pot. A beef and beef tripe soup.  But I want to wait for a rainy day to make it.}

^{Stay safe}

^{Love big &}

^{Be well}

^{xoxo Nancy}