Atomic Tomatoes: They're "the Bomb!"

Atomic Tomatoes. They look innocent.

My husband doesn't venture into the kitchen often, but he's still really handy to have around for some of my cooking projects. Because sometimes when I want to do something I don't have exactly the right tool to do the job.

He's really good at kitchen-hacking tools for me.

In this case it was a turkey injector. You know, those big plastic syringes that are used for injecting (mostly cajun) flavorings into turkeys (and other meat, too, I guess).

A turkey injector has a pointy tip on the metal needle so you can insert the thing through the turkey skin and into the meat. It also has two openings on the sides of the needle where the flavoring squirts out.

It was almost what I wanted, except I wanted a single hole on the end of the thing. And if it could be angled instead of blunt, that was a plus.

The tip has been cut off and angled. Sharp!

According to hubster, it was a simple task to cut through the thin metal with his Dremel, and he had it done in just a few minutes, complete with a nice sharp angle.

My victims were some cherry tomatoes. The plan was to create an injectible sauce that was like salsa, but without the tomatoes, since I would be injecting the stuff into tomatoes. The anticipated result? Spicy little one-bite flavor bombs.

For the sauce, I used Hot Heads Pepperspread, cilantro, and fresh avocado. Then I added a bit of sour cream. I considered adding onion, since that usually goes into my salsa, but decided to skip it for this experiment.

I blended it with my stick blender, but it was still too thick for the injector, so I added a bit of water. Lime juice, tomato juice, beer or wine would have been nice. And then I whizzed it up again and the consistency was better for getting it into the injector.

This time it worked much better, but there were a couple times where the injector kind of got stuck. I suspect there might have been a pepper seed or a larger bit of cilantro that hadn't been pulverized enough. If I ever do this on a larger scale than just appetizers for the two of us, I might strain the mix through a medium sieve to catch any larger bits that could jam up the needle.

I injected the tomatoes through the stem end, and the needle was just about the same diameter as the little scar from the stem. I could feel the tomatoes sort of plumping as I filled them, and then juice would start oozing out. That was as full as they were going to get. Sometimes a bit of the hot sauce would squirt out when I removed the needle, but after a while, I got a better feel for how much I could inject.

I also tried using the injector to remove some of the tomato juice from a few tomatoes to make room for more spice. I'm not sure if that was worth the bother or not.

The tomatoes I had were pretty small, so there wasn't a lot of room for the extra liquid inside. But since Pepperspread is so spicy, it didn't take much to give them a kick. Next time, I might try some smaller tomatoes.

And who knows? Now that I've got a new (modified) kitchen toy, I might find other used for it. It's not like I was using that turkey injector, anyway.

Sausage Buns

I love light and fluffy hot dog and hamburger buns, but sausages seem to warrant a heftier bun. These would also be nice for sub sandwiches. If there are leftovers, they'd be great sliced, toasted, and used for crostini.

This recipe makes just six buns, so it's good for a small family. Or double it, if you want more.

The reason you need to scald the milk is that milk has an enzyme that can affect the protein in the flour and thus affect the rise. It's not always fatal to the bread, and it's much less likely to be needed with modern pasteurized mild - as opposed to the fresh from-the-cow milk that was more common years ago.

But scalding is extra insurance, and it changes the flavor of the milk a little bit. If you scald the milk, takes a little extra time since you then need to cool it, but in this recipe I accelerated the cooling by adding cold water to the warm milk.

Sausage Buns

2/3 cups milk, scalded
1/3 cup cold water
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Put the scalded milk in the bowl of your food processor and add the cold water. It's still probably too warm for the yeast, so let it sit until it has cooled to lukewarm. Add the sugar and yeast and stir to dissolve. Let it sit until it is frothy and bubbly.

Add the flour and knead with the dough hook until it starts becoming elastic.Add the salt and olive oil, and continue kneading until the dough is smooth, elastic, and no longer sticky.

Form the dough into a ball, return it to the bowl, and drizzle with olive oil to coat it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside until the dough has doubled in size, about an hour (or less).

Punch the dough down, form it into a ball again, cover the bowl with plastic wrap again, and set aside until it has doubled again, about 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and sprinkle some cornmeal onto a baking sheet.

Flour your work surface lightly, and knead the dough briefly, then divide it into 6 roughly equal pieces. Personally, I don't mind if there are slightly different sizes, but if you want them more precise, you can weigh and portion them exactly.

Form each piece into a log about 6 inches long, and place them on the pan, leaving room for them to rise. Cover the buns with plastic wrap, and set aside to rise until they are doubled, about 30 minutes.

Slash each bun down the center lengthwise, and bake at 350 degrees until they are nicely golden brown, about 35 minutes.

Move the buns to a rack to cool. If you prefer a soft crust, cover the buns with a clean kitchen towel as they cool.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.

Dinner Tonight: Italian Sausage Sandwiches

Simple dinner on a hot day. Italian sausage sandwiches. No frills.

My garden's not going gangbusters this year, and I missed the farmer's market on Saturday...but I've still got home-canned goods from last fall, so that's what I used for cooking the sausage.

Aren't these Roma tomatoes pretty? I'd like to have enough to make sauce, but so far there are just a few ripe ones here and there.

Here's how I cooked the sausages: Two pint jars of my home-canned tomatoes went into a pan, and I broke them up a bit and got them simmering. Then I added one green bell pepper and one red pepper cut into strips, and about a third of a jar of a chunky non-spicy home-canned tomato salsa (tomatoes, diced onions, peppers...). Simmered that for a while, then added four pieces of Italian sausage that I brought home from Chicago. Simmered that until the meat was done and the peppers were getting softer. The sauce was a bit chunky since it hadn't cooked for terribly long, but it had a lot of flavor.

Often, when I cook Italian sausage for sandwiches, I use tomato sauce rather than whole tomatoes, but I didn't have any on hand, and I did have the whole tomatoes...so...that's what I used. If you have tomato sauce, use that. Or tomato paste thinned with water. Or whatever works for you.

You might note that I didn't add any seasoning to the sauce besides what was in the salsa. I find that if the Italian sausage is good, it adds plenty of flavor to the tomato sauce. And really, the tomato sauce is a condiment for the sausage sandwich, it's not the star of the dish.

If you want more flavor in the sauce, basil, marjoram, oregano and/or fennel would all be nice. Add salt if the sauce needs it, but the sausage might be salty enough to season the sauce, so taste it before you salt it.

I served the sausages on home made buns. They were a little denser than my fluffy hot dog buns, and a little bigger. The denseness was nice for soaking up the sauce, and to fit fat sausages rather than skinny hot dogs.

Oh, you want a recipe for the buns? Be patient, it will be up soon.

On the side, I served some sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Since they were so fresh, there was no need to dress them up at all.

I might break up the left over sausage and serve it with the sauce over pasta for the next meal. We'll see. The leftovers might not make it past lunch.