This post will be short and sweet and dedicated to SIMPLE foods, that are delicious and as close to their original state as I could get them. As you may already know I am a purist and I don't always like turning a food into something its not. These snacks are a major part of our new diet and get eaten nearly every day...
Avocado, cherry tomato and heart of palm salad. Equal parts of each, chopped, plenty of salt and pepper and a splash of good vinegar (anything but white or apple cider vinegar). Stir and enjoy.
Fruit salad - sliced strawberries, a peeled and section clementine and a sliced kiwi, drizzle with a very small amount of agave nectar. Stir and enjoy.
Thai cucumbers Carly Style - In a bowl put roughly 1/4 cup vinegar (white or red wine vinegar work well), a tablespoon of agave nectar, a big pinch of salt and a dash of soy sauce. Heat this in a pan or microwave it for 10 seconds. Stir until everything is dissolved and combined. Put aside and let cool. Slice 1 cucumber, I think english cucumbers are the best for this because they are sweeter. Dump the sliced cucumber into a zip-lock bag along with the vinegar mixture. Put this in your fridge anywhere from a few minutes up to a few days. Just eat 'em straight. I use them as a side dish with dinner, as a snack in the middle of the day or I eat them straight out of the fridge late night style.
Steamed broccoli - but Carly, you say, that is not a recipe, that is just steamed broccoli. Well if it's so damned simple that you don't need a recipe then why don't you make it more often?? If you want it to taste amazing without covering it with butter, try tossing it in a tiny bit of soy sauce and toasted sesame seeds if you have them.
Steamed asparagus, chopped and chilled, tossed with diced hearts of palm and some salt & pepper. Squeeze of lemon, if you wanna live on the edge. Pinch of dill, if you have totally lost your mind. :)
And now time for the bonus round! DING DING DING!
REAL Homemade Red Sauce - This, above all else, is the most valuable recipe to ever exist in the history of this blog. Here is the ingredient list...
6 large tomatoes
2 heads of garlic
1 onion (anything but red)
salt & pepper - freshly cracked is the best
Cooking oil - I recommend coconut oil, but you use what ever you got.
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Cut your tomatoes in half and place them flat side down on a baking sheet (one WITH sides please). Cut off the ends of your onion, peel and cut in half. Place them flat side down, nestled among your tomatoes. Plop your two garlic heads down into the mix, do not peel or cut your garlic in any way. Brush everything on your baking sheet with oil (or spray it with coconut oil if you live at my house). If you don't have a brush get a paper towel, drench it in oil and use it like a brush. Please do not pour or "drizzle" the oil on. You will use way too much. That being said, if you live in Italy and have Fantastic olive oil, drizzle away. Otherwise, it's not worth the calories. Salt and pepper these bad boys.
Toss your baking sheet into the oven and find something to do for 45 minutes to an hour. If you don't think you can find anything to do during this time try fixing the rest of your dinner, cleaning up your kitchen, doing laundry, drinking wine, drawing with crayons or reading a book. If none of those sound good you can always get your lazy butt over here and clean MY house.
Pull your well roasted veggies out of the oven and use a spatula to transfer the tomatoes to a bowl (if you don't have an immersion blender you would be transferring them to a regular blender or food processor). Please be careful, these tomatoes are insanely mushy and insanely hot. If I see even one of you discard the skin of the tomato at this point I will come to your house and smite you! Add the onion and blend away. Let the garlic cool for a moment because you have to handle them and you don't want burnt fingers. After a few minutes you should be able to pick them up. Flip them upside down and squeeze the top (which is now actually the bottom). The cloves should kind of pop out of the base fairly easily. Get 'em out however you need to. Toss the roasted, smushy garlic in and blend again. Add a healthy dose of salt and pepper and blend again (healthy AKA lots). Taste it, season again, taste it again, season it again. If you can't actually TASTE the salt and pepper you have not put enough in. Once your mixture is all seasoned and blended pour it into a pan on the stove on medium heat and cook for about 15 minutes, while stirring occasionally. You can cook it for longer if you like, it is a taste preference at this point. This stove top moment is where you can add different things depending on your mood. Herbs, a splash of balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, fresh fennel (the green part, this is one of my favorites), fresh sage, crushed/chopped good olives, a splash of wine, a splash of whiskey, a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of curry powder if you are daring. Or you can just leave it plain and simple, which is how I roll 99% of the time. Turn off the heat and let this cool. Pour it into a mason jar or some old tupperware and VOILA! delicious red sauce. This will NOT keep forever in your fridge like that jar of pasta sauce that you bought at the store, but you made it to use it so eat it and always remember... we are supposed to embalm people with synthetic preservatives, not eat them for dinner. On a serious note, this sauce will probably last a week or two in your fridge.
If you own a spiralizer, you should spiralize a bunch of zucchini, salt and pepper it and then toss it into the pan that you heated your sauce in. Top it off with some warm sauce and heat for just a couple minutes until everything is warm. Go past a couple minutes and you have mush, so be careful. Welcome to pasta land without the pasta. Add ground turkey to the sauce and you could convert even the most hardcore BigMac addict into a lover of real food.
If you wanna know what a spiralizer is let me know. If you want to know what food is, stop eating things that do not grow.
