Dr. Miggy's Healthy Blog for Busy Folks on Tight Budgets » meatless

Make This Now: Smoky and Sweet Tomato Salad

drmiggy — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:00:17 +0000

I have an addiction, one that can only be indulged for a few weeks every year. Heirloom tomatoes rule my kitchen late in the summertime. I hardly go a day without chopping them up into a dish, slicing them onto a sandwich, or just sprinkling them with a little salt and eating them whole. At the farmer’s market we’ve been lucky to get many different kinds of heirloom cherry tomato, and I greedily scoop up a pint of each, weighing myself down with several pounds at a time. I can’t help myself. I love these little beauties, how some are sweet, some smoky, some tangy. So simple, so elegant. Each one is like a little work of art, no?

It belongs in a frame on a museum wall, don't you think?

I could wax poetic all day about the heirloom tomato, but instead I will give you a “hardly recipe” for a salad I made up the other night. It began as an inspiration from the sweet and mild sungold variety. I wanted to set off the sweetness with something smoky, and luck would have it that I purchased some smoked mozzarella string cheese from a local cheesemaker. I sliced up the cheese into coins and tossed them into a bowl full of halved sungolds. The smokiness I craved was still not intense enough, so I sprinkled on some hickory salt from The Spice House. When I took a bite my tastebuds hummed with pleasure, and the whole thing took me about 10 minutes to throw together.

The next time I made the salad, I used four kinds of heirloom cherry tomato instead of just sungolds. The results were equally pleasing to the palate, but even more so to the eye. It’s so darn pretty I hardly want to eat it…okay, not really, but it is a colorful dish. If you can’t find smoked mozzarella or hickory salt just use plain. It’s worth the effort to seek out a smoked cheese at least. You don’t need to get string cheese either. Shaved slices of mozzarella would work as well. I just like how the coin slices look in the final dish. In a few weeks time I will find myself staring longingly at these photos, you can count on that.

Smoky and Sweet Tomato Salad

Serves 6
Prep time: 10 minutes

2 lbs heirloom cherry tomatoes
4-5 ounces smoked mozzarella string cheese, or block cheese
1/2 teaspoon hickory salt or other smoked salt
6 cups of any kind of lettuce

Rinse the tomatoes and remove any stems. Cut each one in half and place in a large bowl.
Slice the string cheese into thin coins. If you are not using string cheese, slice the block cheese into thin slivers. Add to the tomatoes.
Sprinkle the tomato mixture with hickory salt and toss to combine.
Place a cup of lettuce on a plate and top with the tomato salad. Serve at room temperature for the best flavor.

The Anatomy of a Half-Assed Healthy Meal

drmiggy — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:58:24 +0000

As you can probably see by the frequency of my posts, I’ve been quite busy the past two weeks. In between all of the extra hours at work and travel I have had little time to grocery shop, nevermind cooking. I give you exhibit A:

Surprise! I cook in a closet with a dorm 'fridge.

That is a SAD picture. Just look at my empty little ‘fridge! There’s no way I could create a meal with those offerings, right? Not really. When I find the ‘fridge empty I can always head to the cupboard, which I know will be stocked. That’s the key to cooking on the fly: a well stocked pantry. I won’t claim that what emerges from the pot is the most gourmet of meals, but sometimes I just need a quick healthy meal that doesn’t require a trip to the store.

Here’s how it usually plays out:

The Base: A pasta or grain of some sort. Pastas, rices, and grains can keep for several months in a cool dry place. I always have several options on hand. Tonight, I’m going for the whole wheat rotini pasta. Once it was cooked and drained I added…

The Veg: Here’s where canned soups and veggies are a busy gal’s best friend. Stick to low sodium soups and you can get quite a bit of nutrition for very little work. My other staple is a couple kinds of frozen veggies. I usually have spinach, broccoli and peas in the freezer at all times. I can grab a cup or so and add to a one-pot meal for a quick vitamin dose. For this concoction I reached for the spinach and some canned tomato soup.

Half-assed meal, half-assed photography

The Protein: No meat here, just dried or canned beans or lentils. When I’m traveling a lot I don’t keep meat around, so for these quickie meals I turn to legumes for the protein. Lentils go well with the flavors I picked out, so I cooked up a half cup and added them to the cooked pasta and veggies.

Tha Flavah: Cured olives, parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, pressed garlic, canned broths and spices can liven up what appears to be a rather dull meal. I had some parmesan in the back of the fridge, so I topped the pasta with a little and sprinkled on some Italian seasoning.

Those olive chips are TAY-STEE

Et Voila! Dinner from nothing. I say from nothing, but actually it takes a little planning in advance for these situations. I keep an eye on my stocks of the staples I mentioned above, and when they get low I pick them up from the store during my usual grocery run.

These half-assed meals are typically one-pot, which makes preparing and cleaning up much easier. This particular meal took me about 25 minutes to prepare. Much of the time was hands off, giving me a chance to do other chores like laundry. Multitasking FTW!