Another week of a not-so-challenging CSA Challenge. I LOVE all of this stuff! Corn, zucchini, fingerling potatoes, celery, peppers, lemon cucumbers, kale, basil… and a LOT of tomatoes that I somehow forgot to get into the photo!

Thanks Ollin Farms!

I love making peanut sauce, and I especially like to make it in the summer when locally grown fresh veggies are available. Here’s one example of a peanut noodle dish.

I had some shiitake and oyster mushrooms from Hazel Dell.

I sliced them and sauteed them in a little butter and peanut oil with 1/2 of a yellow onion and some scallions.

While the mushrooms cook, boil some water for your noodles. I used a package of udon noodles and prepared them according to the instructions on the package. Pay attention to the instructions because over or under-cooked noodles do not make a great dish.

When the noodles are done, rinse them in cold water and drain well. Then transfer them to a large bowl and add the mushrooms as well as some other veggies. I added sliced carrots and blanched broccoli florets.

Pour on as much peanut sauce as you like and mix well.

Get creative with some seasonal veggies and enjoy.

I love peanuts. Peanut butter. Peanut butter cookies. Roasted peanuts. Spicy peanuts. There is something about the flavor of peanuts that is very appealing to me and I am so very grateful I do not suffer from peanut allergies.

That said, I don’t eat many peanuts anymore because I mostly eat almonds. Almond butter, roasted almonds, etc. So, it is always a special treat when I decide to make peanut sauce for something like peanut noodles or Gado Gado, a traditional Indonesian vegetable salad covered in peanut sauce. Yum. That always brings me back to one of my favorite places on earth: Indonesia- the inspiration for this sauce.

So, here’s your warning: This isn’t really a quick sauce to prepare. You need to follow through with a few steps, but it is well worth the time and effort, I promise.

Step 1: Thinly slice 4 cloves of garlic and fry them with 3-5 dried Thai chilies (I always go with 5) in a couple tablespoons of peanut oil until the garlic is golden and toasted and the chilies are a little puffed.

Step 2: Remove these from the heat and oil to stop them from cooking. Let them cool on some paper towels while prepping the rest of the sauce.

In my kitchen, I have a step 3: Make peanut butter. I put 2 cups of peanuts in the Vita-Mix and make fresh peanut butter in about one minute’s time. If you don’t own a Vita-Mix yet, make sure you are using real peanut butter. Basically, that means please, please, please only use peanut butter if the the ingredients read: Peanuts. Or, Peanuts and Salt.

Step 4: In a bowl or large Pyrex measuring cup, add approximately 1 cup of peanut butter. Everything in this recipe is approximate, so you can play with the flavors and add more of something or less according to your tastes.

Next, add:

• 5 TB soy sauce
• 1/2 cup honey
• juice from 2 lemons
• juice from 1/2 lime
• 1/4 cup warm water (it is easier to mix with warm water rather than cold)

I have a special attachment to my mortar and pestle because I bought it in Indonesia.

Add the garlic and chilies to your sauce and mix well.

I made a big bowl of peanut noodles with this sauce. Too bad I didn’t double the recipe and store some in the fridge for a week or so. Next time.

I am a HUGE fan of Alton Brown and often stay up late watching his shows. I caught one on making tomato sauce and think (without being overly dramatic) it changed my life.

I bought 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes from the Boulder Farmers Market and got ready to make some sauce. 20 pounds of tomatoes turns out to be a lot of tomatoes. Alton Brown’s recipe calls for 20 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded. I used more like 60 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded, and ran out of Pyrex baking dishes for roasting.

Just as a side note… I did not even come close to using all 20 pounds of tomatoes in this batch of sauce. The rest were used in a Grilled Roma Tomato Sauce, which turned out really good, so I repeated that recipe (basically tripled it) and made 4 jars to freeze for future use.

But, back to my Alton Brown-inspired sauce. I washed, cut in half, and seeded as many tomatoes as would fit in 6 Pyrex baking dishes. Then I coarsely chopped an entire bulb of locally grown garlic and a large yellow onion and tried to evenly distribute the garlic and onion throughout my 6 dishes. I drizzled olive oil over all of the tomatoes and sprinkled them with sea salt. It’s really quite simple.

Then, into the oven! 2 hours at 325 is a long time, so don’t plan to make this sauce if you need to leave the house.

I shuffled the baking dishes every 45 minutes or so to be sure they were evenly heated. After 2 hours, Brown suggests cranking the heat to 400 so the tomatoes caramelize for 30 minutes.

They come out of the oven looking beautiful and delicious. I let them cool and then scooped them in manageable batches into the Vita-Mix to blend them into a smooth sauce. This sauce, I must say, is FANTASTIC! Absolutely worth the time and effort, I promise.

In the end, I wound up with these 4 jars, which I froze for future use. I will let you know how I use them.

Happy cooking!