Grilled Tomatoes

There are going to be some changes around here.  For the past 2 weeks, I've been detoxing, and now I'm starting the very low calorie phase of the hCG diet.  It's a change that I'm feeling really good about, and as far as food goes, I'm sticking to the diet and being very strict with myself.  I packed up all my olive oils and balsamic vinegars and put them in a box in the basement, cleaned out the fridge, and stashed away anything not on the diet that I might use inadvertently.

So what does this mean for the blog?  Well, I'm not turning this into a diet blog, and I really don't intend to write about the diet very often.  The agenda is still the same: to share food and recipes.  It'll just have a different focus for awhile.

And here I am on day 2 of the low calorie diet, and I find myself thinking more about seasoning (not that I didn't before), and texture (again, I've always been big on texture), and I'm thinking more creatively about vegetables.  So tonight I decided to have a tomato as my dinner vegetable and I was just going to slice it up and sprinkle it with salt, but then I remembered the grilled tomatoes that are usually part of an Irish breakfast and decided to try something like that.

Recipe:

1 fresh Tomato
Sea Salt
Fresh Basil, chopped
Pepper

Heat a frying pan over high heat.
Slice tomato in half.  Rub sliced side with sea salt and chopped basil.  When the pan is very hot, place both halves, sliced side down, in the frying pan.  Reduce heat to medium.  Cook for 5-8 minutes.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

These were so good!  The acidity of the tomatoes paired very well with the fish, which is halibut pan seared with Tuscan Sunset seasoning.  They're still quite firm, but they're warm all the way through and have a nice herb-y/saltiness and the fresh pepper at the end adds a little kick.

Carrot Ginger Soup

So finally, it's starting to feel like fall!  Fall is my favorite season - I love the cooler weather, the changing colors, the smells...and of course the food.  So here's one of my favorite cold weather soups to kick off the season!

Recipe:
1 large Onion, chopped
6-8 large Carrots, cut into large slices
Garlic, to taste
2 handfuls Cashews
1-2 inch piece of fresh Ginger, chopped
Sea Salt
Butter
Water

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large pan.  Add chopped onions and cook until transparent.  Add carrots, garlic, and ginger, cover with water and cook until the carrots are tender.

In a small fry pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add cashews.  Cook, stirring frequently until lightly toasted.  Add to carrot mixture.

Puree soup, adding water as needed, until smooth.  Return it to the pot and add salt to taste.

Serve with sour cream or plain yogurt (I prefer Greek yogurt).

Here I sprinkled some chopped fresh cilantro into it and that was pretty good.  This is a nice spicy soup, it's not an immediate hot-and-spicy, but the ginger packs some heat that kind of builds up slowly.  The spicy ginger and the sweet carrots are great together and the cashews add a nice earthiness.

This soup also gets surprisingly creamy, even if you don't add sour cream or yogurt to it.

Like I said, this is a great cool weather soup - it's warming, easy to make, and look at how cheerful that color is!