Squashtastic and Jalapenorific: A Bounty of Summer Squash and Jalapenos
For those of you who don’t know what to do with your abundance of summer squash, Elise at Simply Recipes has a fully loaded post of ideas. These are great ways to use up all your squash yourself so you don’t have to gift it to your neighbors who have too many already and are contemplating their own ways of foisting them off. Ah, zucchini… summer’s version of fruitcake.
And speaking of bounties, does anyone know what do with a bunch of jalapenos? For some wonderful reason, my neglected Brooklyn fire escape garden is abounding with jalapenos! Taking inspiration from Christiane’s terrific-looking hot sauce at 28 Cooks, anyone have any spicy ideas? Like Christiane, I’m a fiend for spicy foods (must be a vegetarian thing… hot is all we got!)
I’m thinking maybe jalapeno poppers, but how about main dish vegan recipe that uses 5 - 12 green jalapenos? Help - jalapeno handiness needed!
September 2nd, 2006 08:16
I like to stuff them… with a tiny bit of tofu/cashew cream cheez, garlic, tomato and cilantro mixture, then bake them. Of course, that’s not a main dish. but it’s good.
You can freeze salsa.
I would roast them, chop them up and freeze them for the winter.
Make chili, taco filling, black bean soup..
Here’s my salsa recipe.. this makes around 1 gallon and you can freeze the leftovers.
Oil or cooking spray to cover the bottom of the pan
2 onions
12 jalapenos
20 cloves garlic
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
large pinch sea salt
-put all of these in a heavy bottomed large pan.. (you want the veggies to be in pretty much one layer).. oil is pretty important, so it will caramelize without burning, but you don’t have to use a huge amount.. over med-lo heat slowly caramelize the mixture. This will take a good hour. This is necessary for the really good flavor. I ususally cover my mixture and stir it every 10 minutes or so to make sure it doesn’t burn.
When the mixture is nice and brown, add around 6lbs of canned tomaotes (or fresh is you have them) and bring to a simmer. Simmer for around 20 minutes, take off heat and stir in 1 bunch of chopped cilantro, 1/2 cup of lime juice and season for salt/pepper. I puree the salsa at this point and put it in jars. It will keep in the fridge for several weeks. It may separate and that’s OK.. just shake it up before serving.