Fried Tomatoes

While cooking sausage for the kids this morning, I got inspired. You see, sometimes I put ketchup on my sausage. I looked over on the table and saw the bounty of tomatoes from the garden, and thought this could be something. Ketchup, after all, is just tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices. 

So, I sliced up some Roma tomatoes. In a small bowl, I put some brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, basil, thyme, oregano, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, pepper and salt.

After cooking the sausages, I put the tomatoes in the same pan, utilizing the sausage drippings. I drizzled the mixture over the tomatoes and cooked over low heat until the tomatoes were warm. Not even a minute. 

Not bad, and maybe a good addition whenever you eat sausages. 

Watermelon Lemonade Slushies

One thing I love about summer is the availability of fresh fruit. Plus, having grown up in Philly, I grew up on summer water ice. Combine the two and you get fresh fruit slushies. 

I've tried a lot of different combinations in the past two years. What I've found is that you need some splash of citrus to make a good slushie. 

My son requested watermelon lemonade. The ingredients are easy:  watermelon, freshly squeezed lemon juice, sugar, ice. Put in a blender. Blend until all the ice is smooth. Mmmm. Refreshing. 

Sticky Rice and Sausage

My kids' mom is Laotian. One of the things she introduced me to is sticky rice. It's not the rice we Americans are used to. It's meant to stick together. 

Even within Asian cultures, stick rice is used differently. The Laotians and Vietnamese use it as part of the meal. If you eat pho, for example, you can ball up sticky rice and dip it in the broth. You can dip balls of sticky rice in soy sauce. You can use it to wrap around meat and veggies. 

The Chinese and Japanese tend to use sticky rice for desserts. 

Stick rice goes by a few different names: glutinous rice and sweet rice. Here's one example:

My kids love to wrap sticky rice around sausages. So, here's how to make it. 

The rice needs to be washed first. Run water through it until the water is clear. Then you need to soak the rice in water.  Best to soak it several hours. But I've been able to cook it right after an hour of soaking. 

Now, my kids' mom uses this contraption to cook the rice:

It consists of a pot of water and a bamboo basket. The idea is to boil water and let the rice soak up the steam. It's not like white rice where you put the rice in the boiling water. For sticky rice you want the rice above the boiling water.  She taught me to cap the bamboo basket with a plate to keep the steam in. You can get a contraption like this, as well as the sticky rice itself, at an Asian supermarket. 

The rice should cook for at least half an hour. Sometimes it takes longer. After half an hour, you monitor the rice until you see that it sticks together. 

Now, the easy part is the sasauge. Our favorites are the Johnsonville breakfast sausages. We usually get either the maple syrup or brown sugar sausage. Brown the sausage. 

We have bamboo containers to put the rice in. You can get them also at an Asian supermarket. 

Serve the rice and sausage together. Wrap the sausage in the rice. If you like, dip in soy sauce. Then enjoy. 

Deep Fried Oreos

Personally, I would have never thought of this. We brought the deep fryer with us to my aunt's house specifically to fry chicken. But my niece asked if we could use it to fry Oreos. Well, not being one to turn down a chance to experiment, I said sure. 

First, you need to hear the oil to 375 degrees. Then, time for the batter. 

The website we used said to use:

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup pancake batter

Whisk the milk, oil and egg together. Mix in the pancake batter. Mix until there are no lumps. 

Dip the Oreos in the batter. Put in the fryer. Fry for 2 minutes. 

I think the batter was a little thin. Is want to adjust the amount of liquid in it next time. But I was surprised at the result. I hear carnivals then sprinkle with confectioner sugar. 

Pulled Pork for Dinner

Staying with my aunt this week, and I warned her I was taking over the kitchen. Tonight, we had pulled pork, sticky rice, corn and a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette. 

I make pulled pork in a crockpot. I bought a pork shoulder and rubbed a mixture of sea salt, pepper, cumin, oregano and thyme. 

I put the pork in the crockpot along with diced tomatoes, half an onion, a sliced green pepper and pieces of two cloves of garlic. 

I mixed brown sugar and apple cider vinegar in a separate bowl, and poured it over the pork. 

I put the crockpot on medium and let it sit. Of course, you need to be careful when you use a crockpot you're not used to. My crockpot at home, medium would have been enough. But my aunt's crockpot had to be on high. Fortunately, my aunt caught that, and turned it to high for enough time to cook thoroughly. It cooked for eight hours total, three hours on high.