Pasta with Yellow Pear Tomatoes

Pasta with Yellow Pear Tomatoes

When we purchased 4 cherry tomato plants last May, we never expected to pick these little yellow pear shaped tomatoes from those plants.  To our surprise, these tomatoes are so juicy and full of flavour.  Their branches are full of fruit and just when we think we've picked all the ripened tomatoes, we wake up to an even bigger batch the next morning.  

While these tomatoes are so tasty on their own or in a salad, we're having a lot of fun discovering different ways of cooking with them and enjoying the rich flavour these tomatoes are adding to each dish.  

Tomato Sauce

Tomato Sauce

Every year we make our annual batch of tomato sauce.  

A traditional recipe with a modernized technique that we've simplified with the use of our electronic tomato press and a mini chopper for the garlic and onions.

We pressed a total of 6 bushels of Roma Tomatoes and broke down the recipe for each pot of sauce we boiled as follows:

Guest Post at Mess Makes Food

Tomato & Rice Soup

This past Wednesday, I shared my Tomato Soup Recipe over at Mess Makes Food and just noticed that my post here at Ellenbcookery got lost in cyber world.  It never got published and is no longer in my drafts. I wonder if I pressed the delete button rather than publish?  For recipe details on this soup, please visit  Mess' blog.

I was so thrilled to be able to share one of my family recipes with her friends and now I'm so sad that my post didn't go through on this blog.  

Miss Messy is on holidays in Vietnam and it is my absolute pleasure to be able to guest blog for her. I  am a big fan of Mess' blog and really enjoy her baking skills most of all.  She's quite comical and for those who aren't familiar with her site, I would  like to take this opportunity to introduce her to you and strongly recommend you pay her a visit at http://messmakesfood.blogspot.com.  You can connect with her via Google Friends Connect, Facebook,  and Twitter.   

Salmon and Avocado Wrap

Salmon and Avocado Wrap

Are you ever looking for a quick and easy appetizer to serve while enjoying a fine glass of wine on your patio?  Well, this is as quick to make as it is to open a bottle of wine and serve. 

The glory of these little appetizers is that you can make them a couple of hours in advance, store in a sealed container and pull out of your refrigerator when ready to serve at your next cocktail party.

Ratatouille (Olivier)

Ratatouille (Olivier)

While our friend Olivier was visiting from Poitiers, France, he made us his family's 7 Hour Slow Roasted Lamb and his family's famous Ratatouille.

Olivier claims it's very important to add the ingredients in the same order he did in order to get all the flavours into this ratatouille.  Boy oh boy, he wasn't kidding!

This has got to be the BEST ratatouille I've ever had.  The adding of the ham is his own twist on his momma's recipe and after trying this dish, I must say the added flavour is definitely there for a good reason.

7 Hour Slow Roasted Lamb

7 Hour Slow Roasted Lamb

Last week, we had a houseguest.  Our friend Olivier came to visit from Poitiers, France.  

Upon his arrival, I made a Marinated Lamb Roast for dinner and while enjoying our meal, Olivier spoke of his family's lamb roast recipe.  

Imagine, a family recipe from France!  Can this get any better?  It was such a neat idea that I asked Olivier if he would make this for us prior to his return home so I could share his recipe on my blog.  He agreed and also shared his family's ratatouille recipe which I'll also be sharing on my blog ;) 

This recipe took 7 hours to roast the lamb at a very low temperature, however, the end result was ever so worth the time and because of the low temperature, the house never got extremely hot.  The meat was so tender, full of flavour and delicious.  Preparation was very quick and all he had to do is turn the lamb upon each hour and slowly raise the heat.  

Marinated Lamb Roast

Marinated Lamb Roast

The other day, I was at Costco and they were putting out these roasts of lamb.  They looked so good that I bought two.  I decided that no matter what the weather was like outdoors, I was turning on my oven and cooking a roast over the weekend. (Fortunately, the weather had cooled off that day).

In this particular recipe, I put the roast into a large ziploc bag and poured a marinade into the bag so that it covered the roast.  I let it sit for 2 hours and turned the bag over after 1 hour so that the juices could penetrate from both sides of the roast.

The meat was so juicy, tender and full of flavour and it tasted even better the next day.