fftf: hot tip friday #15 🍅🥑🍝🍓
super quick salsa/guac in Cuisinart, easy (bean!) pasta, new favorite jam
Hello and happy Friday!
I have a few new subscribers (hi! welcome! thanks for joining!) so if this is your first time (or as a refresher) - today’s newsletter is a “Hot Tip Friday,” which includes 3 food “tips” about things I’ve made or eaten recently. They might include new ingredients or products I’ve discovered, a new way to use an ingredient or tool that I hadn’t known before, and often (like today) they might include a simple recipe with rather vague ingredients/quantities that I hope you can use as inspiration/a guide to make “intuitively” on your own if you feel so inspired!
#1: VERY QUICK salsa/guac in the food processor
Back in the days of my tiny San Francisco kitchen (tour here if you want to reminisce!), I was proud that I managed without the big kitchen appliances like a food processor or stand mixer. Funny how times change :). I now rejoice every time I remember I can use my food processor instead of chopping things! That said… I still hesitate to haul it out for a single task. If I get out my Cuisinart, I like to use it to make several things at once, usually sauces with similar flavor profiles. In these cases, I’ll use it 2-3 times right in a row, without washing it. Someday I’ll write a more in-depth post about this, but for today, let me tell you about the VERY quick & tasty homemade salsa and guac I made this past weekend that I swear took me less than 20 mins total.
I love to make guac, and I basically only make this one recipe, my favorite because it is so simple. It’s just a white/yellow onion, jalapeño and cilantro chopped very finely into a “slurry,” and then mixed with chunky-ish avocado, lime juice and salt to taste. Until last weekend, I’ve never made it with the food processor, but this worked SO well, I’ll probably do it this way only from now on!
Here’s what I did to make both guac and salsa with minimal steps:
Into the food processor goes:
2 small (or 1 large) white or yellow onions, peeled, trimmed, and chopped roughly into large chunks
about 1/2 a bunch of fresh cilantro (including stems), chopped roughly into 1-1.5 inch sections
optional: if you like it spicy, 1 jalapeño - seeds removed or not, depending on your spice preferences (I didn’t have one and my salsa and guac still turned out delish!)
juice of 1 lime
Pulse this in the food processor until chopped finely.
For the guac:
Remove half the onion/cilantro mixture into the bowl you’ll use to serve guacamole.
Now halve 3-5 avocados, and scoop into the bowl in rough chunks.
Mix/mash as you like with the onion/cilantro mix. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt to start, and more lime juice, about half a lime at a time. Taste and adjust salt and lime as needed until it tastes really good. You can also add some red pepper flakes for a little heat if you didn’t have the jalapeño. I recommend taste-testing with a chip. (Just in case the chips are extra salty, in which case you may want the guac a little less salty.)
For the salsa:
Remove the rest of the onion/cilantro mixture into the bowl you’ll serve salsa in.
Now rinse about 1 pint-container of cherry tomatoes, or the equivalent of whatever other kind of tomatoes you’re using. Put food processor bowl and blade back in place (no need to wash it), add the cherry tomatoes, and pulse until well-blended but still with some chunks, or to your liking.
Add blended tomatoes to the salsa bowl. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt to start, and more lime juice, about half a lime at a time. Taste and adjust salt and lime as needed until it tastes really good.
For a bit more flavor, add a few dashes of black pepper, ground chipotle, ground cumin, and/or some red pepper flakes for a little heat if you didn’t have the jalapeño. I added all of these to my salsa on Saturday, and it turned out really delicious!
I served this salsa/guac and chips as an appetizer when some friends came over Saturday night, then made breakfast tacos with them as toppings the next morning. Yum! The only downside is I did not take a picture :( but they looked good, I promise!
#2: Easy (bean!) pasta with lemon and yogurt
I made a random quick pasta dish last week that turned out really delicious, AND I used a new type of pasta for it that I’m happy to report I really liked! The new pasta noodles were from this bean company Brami. They’re made from mostly semolina durum wheat (like standard pasta) but have some lupini beans added for extra protein and fiber. I like the comparison on the back of the package:
I thought it tasted pretty similar to regular pasta! Texture-wise, it seemed to fall apart a bit more than standard, but not too much. I immediately bought two more packages this week - I’m excited to try the penne and fusilli, thinking they might fall apart less.
Ok, on to the pasta dish that turned out so well! I had cooked the pasta noodles the day before, so this was a day or two later when I needed to use them up. I quickly chopped a few cloves of garlic and threw them in a shallow pan with a good amount of olive oil. I let that sizzle and become fragrant for a few minutes, then I added the cooked pasta and some greens, turned the heat down to medium-low and put a lid on top. I let that cook for maybe 3-5 minutes until the greens were just wilted and it was very hot. Then I put it into my bowl, added a few dollops of plain yogurt, a generous squeeze of lemon juice, some salt and pepper, and mixed it all together. The yogurt cooled it down to perfect eating temperature, and I proceeded to scarf it down immediately.
Can’t wait to make this again soon… maybe with some peas/asparagus, pine nuts, and some fresh dill on top to make it extra springy!
#3: New favorite jam
I’m not super into jelly or jam… I wasn’t much of a peanut butter & jelly kid, and the kind from the grocery store usually weirds me out with those gelatinous textures. I want small batch, homemade jams only please, but I also find jams in general are way too sweet. However… a good jam on toast with butter is a nice treat that I was craving recently, so decided to take a closer look in the jam aisle, and found a new hit!
I guess it’s called “Chia Smash.” Anyways, it’s made with just dates, no sugar, plus fruit and chia seeds! It has a really nice texture (not gelatinous but still thick), and is not at all too sweet, it’s just perfect. Jazzy is OBSESSED with it, so much that I have to hide it in the back of the fridge where she can’t see it. It’s been a great help lately in getting her to eat more almond butter or yogurt, my two alternate protein sources for her when she has rejected another one of my dinners 😭.
Again, I tend to have a weird thing about jam flavors, so we have only tried the raspberry so far, but I did just buy the blueberry to check it out… will report back.
Sorry to say that it seems kind of expensive for that small jar! (This is also from Whole Foods.) Someday maybe I’ll make my own, but these days are not that day.
That’s all for now. Happy April!
Love,
Jess