Tomato-Basil Salsa & Fresh Berry Daiquiris

I wish I could tell you that these super summery treats were meant to be posted in chilly October. That it was my purposeful plan to exclusively accommodate the parched Floridians and West Coasters, or those lucky enough to be enjoying the warm breezes of an Indian summer.

But no. I’m simply a slacker. A procrastinator. An overworked advertising writer who finds her weekends filled with the same things that fill her weekdays. Work. Not to mention the apple orchards and the out of town guests and the trips around the country that far beat the eye twitch inducing staring competition with a blank Word doc.

But amidst the pumpkins and the parties, I have good news... I finished my cooking project! I successfully cooked through a year of Cooking light recipes. But like most good news, mine is inevitably followed by bad news: I won’t allow myself to celebrate until I’ve posted all of my hard work on this here blog, because somewhere along the way, documenting the project became just as important as the actual project itself. 

So while my crammed calendar has been robbing me of the time my perfectionist nature needs to meticulously pick photos and write entries, fear not! I’ll soon be caught up and the champagne will surely flow.

In the meantime, clap silently for my secret victory and take a break from your pumpkin-spice confections to enjoy a fresh, fruity drink and a summer salsa I made back in….err…July.

This salsa recipe creates a super easy, six-ingredient, 11-measly-calorie dip that’s far…FAR… better than the bottled stuff. It was my first attempt at peeling a tomato (you can peel tomatoes!) and let me tell you – a vegetable peeler is not the way to go, my friends. Instead, this method is great for sanity-saving peeling and this trick gets every last seed out in seconds.

Once you’ve made it past that step, a few chops, a splash of red wine vinegar and a dash of S&P are all you need to put garden-fresh salsa on your table.  And if you're going to eat salsa in October, you might as well have a frosty cocktail to wash it down, right?

These daiquiris take a little more patience than the salsa, but I promise they’re worth it. If you’ve ever found yourself craving the icy, fruity sweetness of a seaside cabana daiquiri in the comfort of your own home, but hate the corn syrup-filled and artificially flavored crap that lines the grocery store shelves, you’ll love these fresh treats.

First, make simple syrup (boiled and cooled sugar water). Then, puree your berries of choice (raspberries, blueberries or strawberries), sieve them to remove skins and seeds and blend them with ice, lime juice and rum.

Then drag your lawn chair out of storage, pretend this frigid fall weather is really a summer heat wave and enjoy your fresh salsa and chilled tropical drink. Mind over matter, right? Think warm…feel warm. And then say a prayer that I can post a few dozen more recipes before the snow falls so you’re not enjoying frozen treats in the presence of icicles.

Tomato-Basil Salsa

Yield: 2 cups (serving size: 1/4 cup)

Cooking Light, JULY 1998

Note: Aside from tortilla chips, this salsa is also great served with grilled vegetables, beef, or poultry. Or try it as a condiment on a grilled-chicken sandwich or toasted bagel with cheese.

Ingredients:

2  cups  chopped seeded peeled tomato

1/4  cup  chopped fresh basil

2  tablespoons  chopped red onion

2  tablespoons  red wine vinegar

1/4  teaspoon  salt

1/8  teaspoon  black pepper

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

Nutritional Information: Calories: 11 (16% from fat), Fat:0.2g (sat 0.0g,mono 0.0g,poly 0.1g), Protein: 0.5g, Carbohydrate: 2.5g, Fiber: 0.6g, Cholesterol: 0.0mg, Iron: 0.2mg, Sodium: 77mg, Calcium: 5mg.

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Fresh Strawberry Daiquiris 

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup)

David Bonom, Cooking Light, JUNE 2008

Ingredients:

1  cup  halved strawberries

1/2  cup Simple Syrup (recipe to follow)

1  tablespoon  fresh lemon juice

3  cups  crushed ice

1/2  cup  rum (Captain Morgan spiced rum is perfect.)

3  tablespoons  fresh lime juice

Preparation:

Combine first 3 ingredients in a blender, and process until smooth.

Strain mixture through a sieve into a bowl, and discard solids.

Combine strawberry mixture, 3 cups crushed ice, rum, and lime juice in blender, and process until smooth.

Nutritional Information: Calories: 107 (1% from fat), Fat: 0.1g (sat 0.0g,mono 0.0g,poly 0.0g), Protein: 0.2g, Carbohydrate: 16.7g, Fiber: 0.6g, Cholesterol: 0.0mg, Iron: 0.1mg, Sodium: 1mg, Calcium: 6mg.

Blueberry Daiquiri Variation

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup).

Substitute 1 cup blueberries and increase simple syrup to 3/4 cup.

Nutritional Info: Calories: 140 (1% From Fat), Fat: 0.1g (Sat 0g, Mono 0g, Poly 0g), Protein: 0.2g, Carbs: 25.3g, Fiber: 0.6g, Cholesterol: 0mg, Iron: 0.1mg, Sodium: 1mg, Calcium: 4mg.

Raspberry Daiquiri Variation

Yield: 6 Servings (Serving Size: 2/3 Cup).

Substitute 1 (6-Ounce) box raspberries and increase simple syrup To 3/4 Cup.

Nutritional Into: Calories: 141 (1% From Fat), Fat: 0.2g (Sat 0g, Mono 0g, Poly 0.1g); Protein: 0.4g, Carbs: 25.1g, Fiber: 0.6g, Cholesterol: 0mg, Iron: 0.2mg, Sodium: 1mg, Calcium: 9mg.

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Simple Syrup

Yield: 1 1/2 cups (serving size: 3 tablespoons)

David Bonom, Cooking Light, JUNE 2008

Note: This Simple Syrup recipe makes enough for three batches of strawberry daiquiris or two batches of the blueberry or raspberry variation. The syrup is also handy for sweetening iced tea.

Ingredients:

1 1/4  cups  sugar

1  cup  water

Preparation:

Combine sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook 1 1/2 minutes or until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate until chilled.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 121 (0.0% from fat), Fat: 0.0g (sat 0.0g,mono 0.0g,poly 0.0g), Protein: 0.0g, Carbohydrate: 31.3g, Fiber: 0.0g, Cholesterol: 0.0mg, Iron: 0.0mg, Sodium: 1mg, Calcium: 1mg.

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Jamaican Jerk Beef Kebabs

I'll never forget the first time I tried Jamaican food. I was on a date. A very awkward first date.

It remember that Tuesday afternoon like it was yesterday. My date and I were making nervous small talk as we drove through town, both staring straight ahead, only glancing at each other for brief moments at a time. Still, I noticed his over-gelled spiky hair and I'm sure he noticed my overly done up face.

We arrived at Coconut Grove, a brand new Jamaican restaurant that stood out like a soar thumb amidst the frat boy bars and grease traps that lined the vicinity of our college campus. Maybe that's why we were the only customers in the place. Or maybe I was just too nervous to notice anyone else.

We sat down in a tiny two-seater booth and began the unconscious game of avoiding direct eye contact while fiddling with straw wrappers. Thankfully, being the only customers meant our chipper waiter checked on us often and was soon rattling off daily specials. I scanned the menu, full of weird fruit chutneys and foreign pork dishes until I found something that my uncultured taste buds could hopefully choke down, a jerk chicken sandwich.

While we waited for our food, the date went something like this: He’d tell a joke. I’d laugh. Then we’d both take sips of our sodas and pretend to read the table toppers to avoid an inevitable awkward silence. Silence wasn't something we wanted. Silence meant we might have to acknowledge the one thing we’d been avoiding since he picked me up that afternoon. The subject of the night before.

Less than 24 hours earlier, we’d put on a fundraiser for our school's ad club. Did I mention that we were classmates? Buddies? We were, in fact, two people who normally would've joked the night away in a circle of friends, complete with arm jabbing and teasing. 

But this fundraiser had free beer. And for those of you who don’t know, free beer has been known to come along with an overdose of confidence. And that’s why I kissed him.

Alas, after several beers and a few fruity blue-colored shots, two good friends had their first kiss, surrounded by all their confused classmates. From there, the night was a whirlwind of confessions. “I’ve liked you for so long." "Me, too." And we both assured each other this was the beginning of something perfect. And that the best relationships start out as friendships. And that things wouldn't, just couldn't, be weird the next day. No, we would surely dodge the curse of most friends-turned-something-more. So we planned a lunch date to prove it to ourselves.

So there we were. On our lunch date. It felt surreal that the same man who used to make me laugh was now was making me nervous, and I knew things would forever be different. We’d kissed, and there was no changing that. I'd just have to try and get over the weirdness of it all.

The arrival of our food, usually a comfort on awkward dates, added only more weirdness. The spicy sweet jerk flavor was all too new to my taste buds, which at that point in my life were loyal only to chicken fingers and the occasional quesadilla, 86 the onions. Yes, at a time in my life I didn’t like onions, which I now eat straight out of the pan when I’m carmelizing them. So you can’t blame me for not jumping for joy over the exotic sandwich staring back at me. But in all honestly, I couldn’t taste much anyway because my brain was too focused on the man across the table to allow my gustatory system full function.

Needless to say, I accidentally left my leftovers on the table when we left.

After lunch, we decided to skip class and watch Fight Club back at my apartment, which really meant we sat there over thinking what to do and how to sit, wondering if we looked ok and had anything in our teeth, all the while making sure we still reacted to the important parts of the movie to maintain our cover that we were actually watching it.

Then, finally, in another act of boldness, we kissed again. Sober. And we knew it was real. All our nerves were put at ease and the world made perfect sense. I could date my friend. I really could. 

In fact, in just a few days, we’ll be celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary. 

So now that I'm married to the jerk-loving man, I thought I'd give Jamaican flavors a second chance. Thankfully, my tongue has come along way since my college years, because these fragrant kabobs are to die for. Just blend up the quick sauce and throw them on the grill or cook them under the broiler.
 

The sauce, a sweet-spicy mix of Christmas and the Caribbean, pairs perfectly with the juicy beef, red pepper and plantains, which get nice and crunchy on the grill. We ate our meal with toasted pita, black beans and rice and a few slices of grilled pineapple, which I totally recommend. It's absolutely delicious. And this time, there were no leftovers to leave behind.

Jamaican Jerk Beef Kebabs

Cooking Light, August 2001

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1 kebab)

Note: Jerk is a Jamaican seasoning blend used on beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and fish. Traditionally, jerk is a dry rub, but you can mix it with liquid to form a paste or marinade. Choose yellow plantains with black spots to ensure that they're ripe.

Ingredients:

1/2  cup  chopped green onions

1  tablespoon  ground allspice

2  tablespoons  red wine vinegar

1  teaspoon  salt

1  teaspoon  chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

2  teaspoons  low-sodium soy sauce

1/2  teaspoon  ground cinnamon

1/8  teaspoon  ground nutmeg

2  habanero or serrano peppers, seeded

1 1/2  pounds  boneless sirloin, trimmed and cut into 30 cubes

1  red bell pepper, cut into 18 pieces

2  black-ripe plantains, peeled, and each cut into 9 pieces

Cooking spray

Diagonally cut green onions (optional)

Lime wedges (optional)

Preparation:

Prepare grill.

Combine first 9 ingredients in a food processor or blender; process until smooth. Place onion mixture, beef, and bell pepper pieces in a large zip-top plastic bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator 20 minutes.

Remove beef and bell pepper pieces from bag; discard marinade. Place beef, bell pepper pieces, and plantain pieces in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Thread 5 beef cubes, 3 red pepper pieces, and 3 plantain pieces alternately onto each of 6 (12-inch) skewers. Lightly coat kebabs with cooking spray. Place kebabs on grill rack coated with cooking spray. Cook 4 minutes on each side for medium-rare or until desired degree of doneness. Garnish with green onion pieces and serve with lime wedges, if desired.

Nutritional Information: Calories: 260 (25% from fat), Fat: 7.1g (sat 2.7g,mono 2.9g,poly 0.3g), Protein: 26.9g Carbohydrate: 21.3g, Fiber: 2.4g, Cholesterol: 76mg, Iron: 3.4mg, Sodium: 358mg, Calcium: 20mg. 
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