Tomato Flans from Tomato Coulis--a Summer Delight

Undeniably, more than anything else, this is a tomato season, and not only in Poland where for an equivalent of one dollar you can get two pounds of ripe tomatoes, but all over Europe, from Russia to Portugal. Also in DC, at farmers markets, or along the cross-country rounds on the way to the beach you can get now the locally grown tomatoes that are much tastier than the imported ones, which will be available in the supermarkets all year round.

If you buy such tasty tomatoes and have some leftovers after enjoying them with mozzarella or in any other tomato salad, I encourage you to make your own coulis, using this recipe. But if you did not find ones that taste like true summer tomatoes, just get a can of the fire-roasted tomatoes and the result will be acceptably good most of the time.

It is a rather light dish, as it is mainly made of tomatoes. It can be served for lunch or for dinner. It must be baked in water, or as the French say "au bain marie", but please don't be scared to try this because there is nothing simpler than that. And once you overcome the fear of baking in water, you will be ready to try all kind of delicious dishes requiring this technique, including crème brulée, everyone's favorite French dessert.

I am sure that, if you are a vegetable and light cuisine lover, you would appreciate this dish. I bake it usually in small ramekins, but it can also be made in a bigger, 10-inch oven-proof pie dish and cut into triangles. It will still taste and look great.

Tomato Flans

Ingredients:
3 eggs,
1 pound of tomatoes or one medium-sized can of fire-roasted tomatoes,
1 cup table cream,
1/2 medium sweet onion,
2 cloves of garlic,
1 brunch of celery sticks,
1/4 cup chopped chives,
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley,
2 brunches of fresh thyme,
1 tbsp of butter,
1 tbsp olive oil,
salt, pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. For the coulis:
If you use fresh tomatoes, put tomatoes in a boiling water for about 2 minutes, then move them to the cold water in order to remove the peel, cut the peeled tomatoes into pieces.
If you use canned fire-roasted tomatoes, just open the can and cut the tomatoes.
2. Cut the celery, onion and garlic in small pieces and fry on the butter and oil mixture in a pot, until transparent.
3. Add to the pot tomatoes and simmer them for about 15-25 minutes--it will take a little bit longer if you use fresh tomatoes.
4. Cool the sauce a little bit and blend it into a smooth purée.
5. In a separate bowl, whip together whole eggs and cream until well blended.
6. Add to the egg mixture chopped chives, parsley and thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper.
7. Combine tomato coulis and egg sauce.
8 Heat the oven to 375 F.
9. Butter 6-8 small ramekins or one oven-proof dish.
10. Divide the mixture over the ramekins to about 2/3 of the height,as the flan will rise slightly.
11. Place ramekins on a baking tin and pour around hot water up to half of their height.
12. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Serve warm, or at room temperature with French or Italian white bread and accompanied with a glass of red wine that always tastes good with tomato dishes.

Blue Cheese and Pear Snacks for Wine Lovers

A friend has been asking me for a long time to share this recipe but, to be honest, I have been very reluctant to do that. It is one of the dishes from my "all-time favorite" list and one that I often serve to my guests. Most of the people who try this snack love it and ask for the recipe, but sharing it with them makes it impossible to serve it next time I have them over, since they learn how to do that and often use that recipe themselves.

My close and a very candid friend, who took home and reproduced some of my culinary secrets asked once: "Please do not make that dish for us anymore. I have been cooking it so often that we are tired of it." That is the only downside of having a culinary blog and sharing it with people we know. But, the big upside of it has been that it makes me feel great to be able to influence other people's culinary habits.

So I quietly hope I can interest with this recipe my anonymous readers in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Indonesia, and Russia but not so much in Washington DC. Let's hope they are all on vacation.

This simple snack is excellent served before dinner, or just as a party snack in itself when we meet people for drinks and finger food. Since summer creates many opportunities for meeting friends and family in a very informal atmosphere, it is a perfect time to let others enjoy this dish, its taste and simplicity.

When you look at it, it seems that you can recognize all the ingredients, but in fact there is a hidden one, which people cannot distinguish and which makes these petite sandwiches taste mysterious. You should guess.

Blue Cheese and Pear Baguette Sandwiches

Ingredients:
1/2 baguette, a day-old baguette works the best,
1 soft pear,
1/2 pound of any hard blue cheese--it can be Bleu d'Auvergne or Stilton,
1/2 stick of butter,
1/2 cup of walnuts.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Cut the entire baguette in 1/4 inch thick slices and spread butter on them.
3. Peel off the pear, remove seeds and cut in quarters, then slice them across diagonally into thin slices.
4. Arrange the baguette on the baking tin buttered side up, and put a slice of pear on each piece.
5. Cover pear slices with slices of blue cheese and top with halves of walnuts.
6. Bake for that between 20-30 minutes, until cheese melts slightly, walnuts get roasted and the baguette turns gold.
7. Serve warm with wine.

This snack tastes wonderfully with red wine, but on a hot sunny evening it is goes particularly well with a glass of cold Vouvray or Sancerre.

Cauliflower from my Hometown

Whenever I visit the farmers market in my hometown, I am overwhelmed by the great number of stands selling fruits and vegetables. I have to admit that I have never seen anything as impressive in the US and only the open-air market hosted by Geneva's Plaine de Plainpalais was comparable to this one, which is located in a relatively small provincial city in Poland.

All the products sold are very fresh and most of them, including eggs, are genuinely organic. Although you can find there only about four kinds of lettuce, I am sure that there are not many places in the world, maybe with the exception of Italy or Spain, where you can find so many--probably around twenty--different kinds of tomatoes. And they all are wonderfully ripe and tasty. There is also an enormous variety of potatoes, and many different types of cucumbers and peppers. Green beans are green only in their name as they come in various colors, from purple to white, and in many shapes and sizes.

Behind each stand there are mountains of cabbage and of course cauliflowers--large snow white curds, which are very fresh and aromatic in an earthy sort of way. Without any hesitation I have chosen the biggest cauliflower curd (in Poland we always say "cauliflower head" though) I could find for today's dinner and I will prepare it in a traditional Polish way with buttery, crispy bread crumbs, and I will serve it accompanied by a tomato salad. But can anyone else anywhere in the world get excited like me about a cauliflower cooked in such a simple way? True, a simple cauliflower tastes really great only when it had been grown locally in a good soil, with the right amount of water and sun, and was harvested in the morning of the very same day it was sold at the market.

Probably this is the reason why I do not cook it as often anymore in my American home, and if I do, I typically serve it in béchamel sauce or baked with garlic, since both methods can make even a supermarket cauliflower taste rich and interesting.

Cauliflower Pie

Ingredients:
1 cauliflower,
1 egg,
3 cloves of garlic,
1 tbsp of sour cream,
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese,
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg,
1 tbsp chopped parsley,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Divide cauliflower into smaller pieces and cook in salted water until almost soft.
3. Mix the whole egg, cream, and Parmesan cheese together.
4. Cool slightly the pieces of cooked cauliflower and, using food processor, break them into smaller rice-like pieces.
5. Add to the cauliflower the egg mixture, add chopped parsley and crushed garlic, and mix well.
6. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
7. Put cauliflower in a buttered oven-proof dish and bake for 35–45 minutes, or until the it turns slightly gold at the top.

Cauliflower prepared this way can be served as a self-standing, vegetarian dish and will taste even better with a tomato salad. It can also accompany any meat or fish. If enriched by adding chopped, smoked ham, it turns into a very rich meal in itself. It is not very photogenic but it tastes better than it looks!