h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I bought way too many tomatoes last week, and then I bought more over the weekend. I now have a vegetable bin in the fridge that is completely full of tomatoes.

I guess we'll be having lots of pasta and chili this week.

So, if any of you have ever gone "overboard" and bought too much of something because it looked *so* good, what was it, and what did you do with it?

we often have "too many tomatoes"
we make sauce out of them and freeze it

Whatever we have too much of - we tend to make sauce and freeze it. Except when it's avocados, then #1 Gruesome makes guacamole and eats all of it before any of us have noticed!

I have to buy tomatoes pre-sauced or dried, I'm allergic to fresh, raw ones!

The fact that I carry everything home on foot usually keeps me from buying too much.

But the greengrocer recently sold me seven pounds of strawberries for 2.50€, they were turned into jam

I worked out I've spent over £50 this month on cheese alone. Stilton and brie and cheese with chilli peppers in it and cheddar and parmazzan and feta and applewood smoked cheese and halumi and masacre a pony.

I wish I still had my big old chest freezer, because I'm known to freeze certain things. I make my own vegetable stock from all of my parings/cuttings. And I like to freeze extra sauces and stuff. I also found a place that sells lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves (for Thai recipes) in bulk so I like to freeze those.

We made black bean soup and tomato salsa for tonight's dinner.

K would buy all that cheese if he could. I don't eat it any more. And I only use the vegan cheeses in recipes, like pizza or macaroni and cheese. I won't just eat it plain.

I did buy myself some celery hearts. Got them home, cut them up, and found that they were about 1/3 brown and had a huge caterpillar inside.

Hi PC,

Have you ever dried tomatoes? It can be done if the weather is not humid. YOu can freeze them or store them in olive oil, with o without herbs. A real treat. Very easy to do. I'll tell you in case the wheather allows you to.

* cut the in two halves, remove the water and the seeds ( use a small spoon). Salt them.
* put them on a tray. YOu can use also a grille ( something with bars, plastic or metal, sorry don´t know the precise word)
* leave them for 4 or 6 days, it depends on the intensity of the Sun.
* You can cover them with a kind of anti-mosquitoes thin cloth.
* keep them covered at evening to prevent the dew hydrate them again.

They can be used for ANYTHING, those in oil... on a slice of bread with oregano. Very, very tasty.
YOu don´t need to frozen all of them. They can be also stored in jars of glass.

I bought far too much asparagus last week. Was a web-order-delivery job and I completely misjudged what 500g of asparagus would look like. I also failed to notice the but-one-get-one-free offer. Worst of all, it turned out to be air-freighted from Peru I'm now determined to finish it, though the smell in the bathroom is becoming intolerable...

Thanks for the tip, Mar! It's really humid here but it's good to know how to dry tomatoes because sometimes I need more than a jar of store-bought ones contains.

You know, sometimes I just stick whole tomatoes into the freezer, if I'm just going to use them for chili or soup or something.

Oh, I just love asparagus. I'd have no idea how much 500g of it would really be, either, though. Do you have a bathtub full of it?

You won't be wanting asparagus for a while once you've finished it, eh?

My problem with the tomatoes is I bought into the media hype surrounding the alleged recall of all tomatoes. Turns out that only certain regions were affected, so our Whole Foods is just buying from growers in unaffected regions. Trader Joe's pulled all of the regular tomatoes, but the hothouse grown tomatoes and cherry/grape tomatoes are all fine. So I didn't need to panic and buy so many... when will I learn to check the FDA website rather than listening to the news?

500g of asparagus is, umm, a bunch the size of a large fat beer can. Except bigger. Unfortunately for me I'm blessed with the gene that means my wee smell overpoweringly of something like burning rubber after eating asparagus. OK in small doses, but a whole kilogram is likely to destroy my sense of smell.

I never understood the tomato scare - why can't you just wash 'em?

I thought that part of the concern was that if the salmonella was carried in by groundwater, it could be absorbed into the fruit via the plants' roots. But I could be wrong.

Gotcha about the asparagus and the bathroom smell. I thankfully don't have that problem- apsapraus wee basically smells asparagus-y.

I couldn't eat that much asparagus on my own all at once. Normally we'll have three stalks apiece and that's plenty. Sounds like you've got your hands full there.

Tomato recall. Another lame superpower.

Yes!

You're too good at coming up with these, Mala.

that's my superpower

Tomato crisis solved: pasta with marinara sauce. Fresh tomato, garlic, onion, thyme.

My next mission: use my crimini mushrooms and a bunch of red kale. Not necessarily at the same time.

Also, aside from miso soup, I'd be interested in hearing suggestions as to how else to use my daikon. I have a few recipes, but would like to "mix it up", so to speak.

I don't really like Daikon myself and we don't use it in our house but it is usually pickled/preserved here using Rice hull and salt

Pickled? Yum!

Under it's name of 'Mooli', daikon makes a great, simple curry.


Some mustard or sunflower oil in a pan. Heat.
Some salt. Some asafoetida.
Some mustard seeeds. (Optional) some curry leaves and a few kalonji (nigella; black onion) seeds. Heat until the mustard pops.
A thinly sliced chilli or two.
Throw in a couple of cupfuls of grated mooli. Cook.


Spot the minimalist Gordon ing Ramasay-style instructions.

Mmmm!

Oil- I don't have sunflower but I've got canola and avocado. Check. Ish.

Salt- check. Asafoetida- check. Mustard seeds- check. Don't have any nigella or black onion. Possible substitute(s)?

Chilis- check. Red or green, do you think? How about one of each?

Sounds tasty. Might make this for dinner tonight or tomorrow. Thanks!

nigella optional...but worth having in to make naan. Or Greek bread (with aniseed)

Any oil's fine. I guess.

Chillis...I seem to think red...but green would do. Think South Indian.

The only esentials here are tghe oil, mustard, mooli and chilli. All the others are 'optional but optimal'.

Sheesh...since when did recipes have to be followed to the letter? Or given to the letter, come to that?

I don't usually make naan- the Asian grocery stocks it in spades.

I don't normally follow recipes to the letter- lots of times I tweak the spices to my preferences (I'm not a huge fan of cinnamon or nutmeg so I frequently use less of those and add a bit of mace or cardamom). But when someone suggests preparing something and mentions a specific ingredient, I'll usually ask if they think there's a reasonable substitute.

Except for meat and dairy; I've got those pretty well down. Ground flaxseeds makes one hell of a good egg substitute.