Tomatoes in Coconut Cream - Weekend Herb Blogging

This week’s Weekend Herb Blogging event is being host by Katie from the exciting blog Thyme for Cooking. Kalyn from Kalyn’s kitchen is the creator of this lovely event that has been taking place every week for the last two years. Every week it is hosted by a different blog host.
I am rushing to post this recipe. It has been a very busy week as I hold a blog in Portuguese which is only about events and this week I had loads to do on it.This beautiful recipe was one I prepared for WHB as it just seemed perfect. It is a gorgeous tomato dish with beautiful spices and coconut cream. I could not stop eating it. Honestly. I baked some ciabatta bread and just over ate. I know, not a nice thing to admit to.
Tomatoes are just so wonderful and full of goodness. Tomato is a good blood purifier, it is a natural antiseptic therefore it can help protect against infection, they can be helpful to reduce blood cholesterol, thus helps prevent heart diseases, they contain lycopene (the red pigment in tomato), this pigment is a powerful antioxidant that can also fight cancer cells.
In the summer they are plentiful and I am always looking for different ways of preparing it. This time Nigel Slater inspired me with this beautiful dish which was in the Sunday issue of the Observer Magazine.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive or groundnut oil
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 hot, green chillie chopped with seed and all – ok. If you don’t like heat, leave the seeds out of it
A thumb-sized piece of ginger, chopped really finely
½ tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp cumin seeds
6 green cardamom seeds, slightly crushed
12 moderately large tomatoes, cut into slices
50g creamed coconut
Handful of coriander leaves

Preparation: Heat the oil on a high-sided frying pan and then add the garlic, ginger and chilli. Let it all soften over a moderate heat without colouring it. Add the chilli flakes, coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds and cardamom and stir them in. Once they have warmed through throw in 4 of the chopped tomatoes and stir in 100ml water. Mix it all and bring it to the boil. Add the remaining tomatoes, add the coconut cream, mix it all, let the coconut cream dissolve and warm through. From now on the sauce should not boil, just keep the heat. Once the tomatoes are tender, sprinkle the coriander leaves and serve with slices of toasted lovely bread.

Tomato, Quinoa, Chillie, Lime and Avocado

When I first saw this salad in my Observer Food Monthly magazine I said to myself straight away: got to make it. I just so happen to be madly in love with quinoa. Not only does it looks gorgeous, little golden balls, that brighten up any salad, but they are also so good for you that one would be a fool not to have them every so often. Did you know that they are claimed to be the one of the most complete foods there are? The first time I had them was in this one delicious salad where they were coupled up with corn kernels. I only posted it in my Portuguese language blog. I will post it here as well since it will certainly be done over the summer at my house. Going back to the salad, in addition to the lovely quinoa, it also has beautifully red and ripe tomatoes, sexy wedges of avocado, and parsley plus coriander (cilantro to many of you). Visually, it won my heart. In a rational-brainy way, it won my mind and heart again. Well, stomach had to be pampered as well. So on Monday I was already preparing it as soon as got home from work. And Tuesday we had a repeat.

The picture does not make it justice. A picture taken at night is never the same. A spring/summer salad certainly deserves to be shone upon by sunlight. However, as we say back home ‘If your hunting dog is not available, take your cat hunting with you’ (make do with what you have). I took the picture with artificial light.

I have been getting avocadoes delivered with my organic box for the last three weeks now. And it is all in the name of lovely salads and spring/summer meals. I was brought up in a culture which treats avocado as a fruit which is used in sweet dishes, smoothies.. So avocado in salads and other savoury concoctions is an eating habit I developed quite recently. I remember my school days and the countless number of avocado shakes/smoothies mum used to feed us with at breakfast, before going to school. It used to be pretty filling. Deliciously creamy. The native avocado variety in Brasil (excuse the ‘s’and not the ‘z’ – I’m going native here) is different from the one I purchase in Europe. Our variety is bigger, and the flavour is not as concentrated as the one we find in the neck of the woods where I live. I also remember a very delicious and terribly simple dessert made out of avocado, condensed milk and a little bit of milk. You would pour the three ingredients in the blender and give it a whiz until you had a good creamy end result. It was a delicious creamy dish that would be kept in the top section of the fridge in order to firm up and also to get really, really cold, and work as a ‘God’s send’ in the very hot Brasilian summer days.

This salad seemed to me as the perfect late evening meal and my special post for the WHB which this week is being looked after by the lovely Kalyn. It is pretty simple to make – check it out:

100g of quinoa – ¾ cup

1 good handful of parsley

2 good handfuls of coriander (cilantro)

Cherry tomatoes – loads ( this time I used vine tomatoes chopped in four as I have quite a lot of them hanging around)

2 small ripe avocadoes, sliced in wedges

One red chilli, deseeded and cut into little, thin strips

For the beautiful dressing which I unfairly forgot to talk about above – it is the soul of the salad in my opinion:

a lime

a small clove of garlic

extra virgin olive oil – be generous without being unhealthy on the amount used

Cook the quinoa first by boiling plenty of water and adding salt to it, as soon as it reaches boiling point. Add the quinoa grains to it, reduce the heat and let it cook for around 15 minutes. Whilst the quinoa is busy getting ready, get a salad bowl (or whatever you find appropriate for your salad) and place the herbs on it, then the tomatoes and the avocado wedges. If you are using chilli as well, scatter them over the salad at this stage. Once the quinoa is ready drain it and quickly run it under a tap of cold water. Then throw it over the salad.

To prepare the dressing just put your clove of garlic (no skin please!!) in a mortar and crush it. Then add the salt and black pepper crush it a bit more. Add the lime juice and olive oil. God, it is good.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad, get some charming salad ‘mixers’(often in long spoons shape) and toss everything together nicely. Then, what are you waiting for?