This unassuming little dish holds a tiny cloud of heaven: basil cashew cream sauce.
There is something incredibly comforting about a warm bowl of food. Since it seems we are living in season 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, we need comfort and care now more than ever. Enter basil cashew cream sauce.
This sauce takes advantage of the late summer flush of basil on my back porch; it’s also vegan and packed with protein (hello, cashews!). If you don’t have basil, you can skip it or try some parsley or other mixed herbs.
Feed yourself (and your people) with love. And for fuck’s sake, VOTE.
Riced Cauliflower With Basil Cashew Cream Sauce And Pretty Much Anything Else You Want
You can make every component of this meal on a Sunday and have dinner on the table in 15 minutes any night of the week.
Ingredients
1 cup cashews
Boiling water
7 tablespoons water (ish. Maybe more, maybe less)
3 tablespoons lemon juice (ish. Also, see Recipe Notes)
Fresh basil leaves (a nice bunch – maybe an ounce or so)
1 head of cauliflower
2 tablespoons olive oil or ghee
Other stuff (see Recipe Notes)
Method
Place cashews in a jar with a lid and cover with boiling water. Let stand for at least 30 minutes (an hour or more is ok), then drain and rinse and put in a food processor.
Add water, lemon juice, and basil and process until everything is light and creamy and pourable. You may use more or less water and lemon juice to get the consistency you want.
The amount of basil you add depends on your taste and what you have. I like a bright, fresh, herbaceous sauce, so I added lots more than most people, but this isn’t pesto. You want to allow the subtle cashew flavor to come through, too. So add and taste and be judicious.
Also add salt and pepper to taste, then blend once more before putting in the ‘fridge. This sauce will last a couple of days chilled, more if you don’t add basil and just process with water and lemon. If you are using the sauce right away, no need to refrigerate.
Rice your entire head of cauliflower. This is most easily done in a food processor with a shredding disk, but you can also grate on a box grater or chop the shit out of it until the cauliflower is approximately the size of – wait for it – rice. You can also buy pre-riced cauliflower.
You’ll need two heaping cups for this recipe (one per person, with some leftovers). Pack the rest into two-cup servings in Ziploc bags and toss in the freezer for easy meals later.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, then add the cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper. You may need to add a little bit of water if the cauliflower absorbs the oil, but that’s ok. Cook the cauliflower on medium heat for about five minutes.
And here is where things get interesting. You can roast veggies separately and then add to the cauliflower and top with sauce. You can steam kale or other fall bitter greens in the pan with the cauliflower, then add cashew sauce and mix together (not pretty but YUM). You can use anything that you love in a bowl of food and bring it all together with the basil cashew cream sauce.
So. Freaking. Delicious.
Recipe Notes
This might seem a little thing, but when I first used this, I tossed a section of preserved lemon in the processor instead of lemon juice, and I also used stock instead of water. I had both of these things lying around. If you do, too, I encourage you to use those substitutions for a richer, more complex experience.
When it comes to “other stuff,” the sky is the limit. This is great with leftover (or freshly roasted) veg, grilled meat, or all on its own. You can really add what you like or what’s left in your ‘fridge (hopefully they are the same thing).
Fried green tomato arepa with pimento cheese. #FreshParsleyOptional
The Child and I visited my grandmother last week, the one who steals fruit from her assisted living facility. Busy summers and basic malaise have kept us away since the second week in June, but putting off a visit to a 98-year-old person is no good idea. Plus, The Child and I need to feel like we are on the road from time to time; our best conversations happen while the tires eat the miles, even if it’s just a short two-hour jaunt to rural Pennsylvania.
When we pulled up, she was sitting in the sun outside the entrance to the main building. Three young men were spreading mulch in the flower beds, and the day was that kind of almost-fall day where the sky is such a crystalline shade of blue that the trees are outlined in black.
She didn’t recognize my (new to me) car when we pulled in, so when Sicily and I walked up to her and said hello, she looked up with a blank face before she recognized who we were and a look of what can only be described as sheer delight spread across her features. She said, “I was waiting for someone, and here you are!”
We should all be greeted with such an unabashed and open display of pleasure.
I have an unexpectedly close relationship with my grandmother, as does The Child. Through letters I have learned what her life has been, and in person I get to know this person in whom I see so much of myself. She takes joy in seeing her great-grandchildren and has vowed to live until they are all safely ensconced in college; because of this, we do not share The Child’s plans for a gap year, and we are selective about the information we share in general. She likes to know we are happy and recovered from “Dane’s incident,” “that unfortunate time” when he died in a car accident. We talk about the weather, and food, and she worries about the stock market.
Our visit was short, as it usually is. My grandmother is spry and quick still, but tired in the way that people approaching 100 can be, I suppose, after a long walk outside and a rest in the sun. On the way back to her room, we stopped in the residents’ garden plot to look at the produce, and I ended up with a bellyful of sun-sweet cherry tomatoes and a bag full of green tomatoes for later.
I haven’t had fried green tomatoes in a dog’s age. The last time was in a diner in the south, someplace below the fall line in southern Georgia. I have few fond memories of our 13 years living in that place, but southern food is one of them. It’s a foodway that uses scraps and makes do, and it seems to mesh perfectly with my grandmother’s Depression era philosophy:
Make do;
Do without;
Use it up;
Wear it out.
These recipes are a mash of that sensibility plus new-to-me flavors and foods. I have been mildly obsessed with arepas since White Envelope came to town, and enjoying smoky foods is also new to me. I advise adding any or all of these condiments and toppings liberally to each arepa. You can certainly mix and match. The recipe for Mushroom Bacon is not my own, so I am linking it here.
Fried green tomato arepa with mushroom bacon and chipotle mayonnaise.
For the record, I don’t believe in calling non-meat things a meat name, but this is how the original person wrote the recipe, so I am going with that. It is delicious but does not in any way resemble bacon. I chopped it up after it was all done, and that was the easiest way to eat it.
There is also the basic recipe for arepas themselves, plus Chipotle Mayonnaise and Fried Green Tomatoes.
I have gone back and forth as to whether or not to include my Pimento Cheese recipe and have decided, at the very last minute, to hold that back. You can use a store-bought variety, or use your own recipe. That shizz deserves its own post, and it’s worth the wait. #Trust
Bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato arepa with chipotle mayonnaise.
I am pretty sure that when you present your people with any of these combinations they will gaze up at you with sheer delight as well.
Arepas With Assorted Delicious FIllings, Not The Least Of Which Is Fried Green Tomatoes and Chipotle Mayo with Bacon
If you want to try all of these recipes, make them in the following order: Chipotle Mayonnaise (the night before, even), Pimento Cheese (if making your own), Mushroom Bacon, Arepas, and Fried Green Tomatoes.
Chipotle Mayonnaise
As with everything, adjust amounts to taste, but here’s the basic formula. Make this the night before.
Ingredients
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup whole milk yogurt (or sour cream – whatever is in the ‘fridge)
3 teaspoons lime juice
3/4 teaspoon chipotle chile
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon stone ground prepared mustard
Method
Mix all ingredients together (I use a Mason jar – no clean up). Store in ‘fridge and use on damn near everything.
Arepas (makes 8 arepas)
Ingredients
2 cups masarepa (see Recipe Notes)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup warm water
Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet and set aside.
Mix masarepa, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add warm water and mix until smooth. Use 1/3 cup measure to divide dough into eight balls and shape into disks that are 1/2″ thick and about 3″ wide.
Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick or cast iron skillet over medium heat. Working four at a time, fry the arepas on each side until golden brown, about four minutes each side. Transfer to cooling rack and fry the other four arepas.
Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes or until arepas sound hollow. Turn off the oven and leave arepas to cool and crisp.
Recipe Notes
You cannot use regular masa for this recipe, and the addition of baking powder makes it not quite traditional. But of the eleventy million times it seems like I have made these, this formula produced a creamy interior with a crispy shell. So there it is. You can find masarepa in most Latino grocery stores, occasional in a mainstream grocery store, and always online.
Fried Green Tomatoes
There really is no better way to use up those stubborn, lingering tomatoes clinging to the vine than Fried Green Tomatoes. If you aren’t a fan, take your green tomatoes, stick them in a cardboard box, and set them someplace cool. Check on them every now and then; they will gradually ripen and be just as sweet and delicious as the ones from the vine. Remove mushy ones fast; they really will spoil the whole bunch.
Ingredients
Green tomatoes (for eight sandwiches, I used four medium ones), sliced into 1/4″ rounds
1 cup soured milk (see Recipe Notes)
1 cup flour (I use gluten-free all-purpose flour)
1 cup cornmeal
Salt and pepper
Method
Slice tomatoes and place on paper towels. Some people salt them at this point to draw out the moisture, but not me. I let them sit on the towels and blot them dry.
Place a cooling rack on a paper-towel-lined baking sheet and set aside.
In a cast iron skillet, heat about 1/2″ of oil over medium heat.
Set up your breading station, left to right (or right to left if you are left handed): one dish of flour, one dish of milk, one dish of cornmeal.
Controversial direction #1: I do not season my flour. I season the tomatoes directly. Many will take issue with this. I don’t care. Do it however you choose.
When your oil is hot, salt and pepper your tomatoes. Dip into flour, shaking off the excess, then soured milk, and finally cornmeal. Fry until golden brown on both sides (approximately four minutes total, but the temperature of your oil will dictate this a bit).
Controversial direction #2: Do not drain your fried tomatoes on paper towels. This will make them soggy. Remove them from the oil to your cooling rack over a paper-towel-lined baking sheet. If your oil was the correct temperature, the breading will not absorb too much, and this keeps them crispy. My grandmother drains hers on paper towels, but as Oprah says: When you know better, you do better.
Recipe Notes
Many recipes call for buttermilk, but if you don’t regularly drink it, you will end up with extra that just sits in the ‘fridge. To make your own, add one tablespoon of white vinegar to each cup of milk, stir, and let sit for ten minutes. Voila.
Assembly
Slice arepas down as you would a pita pocket; it’s up to you if you slice all the way through or treat them like a pocket.
Slip in a fried green tomato or two and then go from there. Favorite combos pictured above are: Bacon, Lettuce, and Fried Green Tomatoes with Chipotle Mayo; Fried Green Tomatoes With Pimento Cheese; Fried Green Tomato With Mushroom Bits, Pimento Cheese, Lettuce, and Chipotle. Any or all of these are delicious. Fresh herbs like maybe a little parsley or cilantro are also delicious.
If you want something simple and don’t have time for any fuss, just use pimento cheese and let it get all melty. So. Freaking. Delicious.
