I can’t stop eating tomatoes.

Really. I can’t. Maybe you’ve figured that out since they’ve been featured in my last three posts. But this time of year, tomatoes taste like tomatoes. A tangy punch, a juicy crunch, and an aroma that is just as sweet as a peach.

So now I’m having tomatoes for breakfast, and I’m topping them with farm eggs and sweet habaneros. Yes, they are habaneros. And yes, they are sweet. Seriously! They smell spicy, but you can bite into one like an apple. If you live in the Bay Area, get them at the farmers’ market from Quetzal Farms. Last year I chopped them up and set them in the sun with some course salt for an incredible spice that adds intensity to any dish. I also picked up some fresh sourdough from Phoenix Pastifico and toasted it under the tomatoes, so it would soak up all of the delicious juice. Such an easy breakfast for a lazy Saturday.

Though my routine is now slightly changing. I’ve become accustomed to waking up early on Saturday, going to spin class, and arriving at the market right when they open. But now I have to subtract spin class, because I quit the gym. It was time. Pretty soon (hopefully) the restaurant will open and I won’t have time anyway. But for now, there are many other ways I should be spending the money I pay in monthly dues. Oh well. Maybe I’ll train for something, like a half marathon or triathlon or something equally as scary. Anything to keep me motivated and active.

But anyway, on to the restaurant, because I have some exciting updates. We made a kickstarter video! Kickstarter is this great site that helps people raise funds for creative projects. We have already raised 24% of our funding goal. Check out our video, but don’t laugh too hard. We obviously have no idea how to take good video:

And, we’ll be cooking mac and cheese at the Eat Real Festival in Jack London Square on August 28-29. This just may be the biggest Bay Area food event of the year. They’re expecting over 100,000 people! And we’re expecting to serve 1800 portions of mac and cheese, which means about 180 pounds of cheese and 160 pounds of mac. Not to mention roux, hot dogs and potato chips for our trailer mac, and pounds of marash pepper for our spicy mac. Craziness.

Anyway, try out tomatoes for breakfast while they’re still in season, but not on the morning of Eat Real. You’ll need a completely empty stomach to try a taste from each of the 60 local food vendors.

Tomatoes, Eggs and Sweet Habaneros

4 organic eggs
2 fresh tomatoes, thickly sliced
2 slices of bacon, chopped
1/3 cup of sharp cheddar, grated
2 sweet habanero peppers
A few thick slices of sourdough
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Lightly toast sourdough slices under the broiler, and remove from the oven. Top bread with grated cheese, sliced tomatoes and chopped bacon, and place under the broiler again (toward the middle of your oven). Cook until bacon gets crispy, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, grate the habaneros using a microplane.

When bacon is cooked, remove from the oven. Heat up a drizzle of olive oil in a cast iron skillet. When hot, crack eggs into the pan and top with salt and pepper. Cook for about 2 minutes, or until whites have set. Slide eggs on top of tomatoes, and broil again for about 30 seconds. Top with grated peppers and serve.

Where I Shopped:

Organic Eggs: Temescal Farmers’ Market, Oakland
Tomatoes, sweet habanero peppers, sourdough: Berkeley Farmers’ Market
House-made bacon, Flagship cheddar: Star Meats, Berkeley

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**homeroom update: We’ll be cooking mac and cheese at the Underground Farmers’ Market in Oakland this Saturday from 5pm-11pm. Live music, beer, and 40 food vendors! Details at homeroom510.com.**

An interesting thing happened the other day. I was cooking, as usual, when I realized how long it was since Alejandro and I went out to dinner, or even ordered in.

It wasn’t that long ago. But for us, it was unusual. I guess with all the commotion and stress over homeroom lately, we just haven’t had time, energy or the money to go out much (gosh, and we’re not even open yet!) Anyway. It was two weeks.

Are you laughing at me? Do you think I’m ridiculous for saying two weeks is a long time?

I put the question out there on twitter: How often do you eat a meal out that costs more than $20 per person?

I was surprised by the response. I would say we spend more than $20 per person once every two weeks, with cheap bites out in between. But my twitter friends, they don’t eat out much. At all. Many people said only a couple of times a year. A couple of times a year? I’m guessing that means birthdays, anniversaries, and a few special occasions. Maybe because I live, and lived, in urban areas, I’m accustomed to eating out a lot. I knew people in New York who ate home a couple times a year!

But really, I love eating home. I love preparing dinner while catching up on the day with Alejandro, and sipping a glass of red wine. I love knowing where the ingredients come from, and exactly what’s in the food we’re about to eat. And most of all, I love spending a fraction of the cost on a meal that’s most likely better than what we’d eat out.

Take this soup for example. It’s bold, spicy, vibrant, made with all local ingredients, and it cost me a few dollars to make.

It’s like a gazpacho, but you eat it hot. There’s a bit of prep work to this soup, but dang, is it worth it. Don’t be tempted to plug in your food processor – this soup is all about the mortar and pestle, and the individual greatness of each and every ingredient.

So tell me, how often do you spend more than $20 at dinner? Once a week? A month? A year? Leave a comment, and let me know where you live too. I’m so curious!

Bright and Spicy Summer Soup
Makes 3 big bowls

3 ears of corn, kernels cut from the cob
2 pounds of tomatoes (I used a mix of early girls and heirloom)
2 1/2 tablespoons roasted garlic (recipe below)
1 red torpedo onion, peeled and chopped
2 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
Handful of chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons of butter
Sea salt
1 sliced avocado
1 cup water

Roast the poblano and jalapeno peppers under the broiler until the skins are blackened and blistered. Let cool. Remove the skins, seeds and white veins, and roughly chop. Set aside.

Submerge the tomatoes in a pot of boiling water for 15 seconds. Drain and let cool. Using your hands, remove the skins and crush the tomatoes into a bowl.

Melt two tablespoons of butter into a large pot. With the heat on low, add the onions and gently cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and continue cooking on low.

Using a mortar and pestle, mash up the peppers until they break apart (do this in batches if you have a small mortar). Add the peppers to the pot.

Next, crush the corn kernels in the mortar until they too break apart. You should have some super sweet juice at the bottom of your mortar. Add the corn and the juices to the pot.

Increase the heat to medium-low and stir in the roasted garlic and a sprinkle of sea salt. Cook for 10 minutes. Taste again for salt.

Top with cilantro and sliced avocado before serving.

Where I shopped:
Corn, poblano peppers, jalepeno peppers, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro, torpedo onion: Berkeley Farmers’ Market

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Maybe you’ve felt gypped lately. I can’t really blame you. I’ve been a bit stingy with the recipes. I wish I could find a quicker way to get these posts up. Each one just takes so much time–and I love doing it– but I can’t seem to find the time to post as much as I want. So, I’ll try and make it up to you with two recipes in one post.

And not just any recipes. First, my go-to homemade tomato sauce with big, fat, sweet heirloom tomatoes. And second, brick chicken. This is the chicken recipe for people who yawn at chicken recipes. Crispy, salty skin, plump juicy meat, and done in 20 minutes. I’m going to make the bold statement and say it’s my favorite way to cook chicken.

I also wanted to take a second to talk about how I come up with my recipes. Most the recipes on my site are original. By original, I mean I don’t cook while looking down at a cookbook. I improvise. A little of this, a lot of that–I take an idea and add to it. It doesn’t always work out. But if it did, then I’d never learn. You have to trust yourself (didn’t Dr. Seuss say that?).  And don’t freak out or get discouraged when your ad-libbed braised pork emerges from the oven looking like a dried-up piece of tree bark. It happens. Figure out what went wrong, and when you fix it, you’ll have a new technique in your arsenal, ready to apply to all sorts of ingredients.

Planning weekly menus isn’t really my thing either. Nor is bringing lengthy shopping lists to the farmers’ market. Things change. I may want to cook vegetable lasagna on Wednesday night, but if I get home late, grilled cheese may be on the menu instead. When I have a special dinner in mind, I’ll shop for it the day-of so I’m sure I’ll have time to cook it. Otherwise, I wing it.

This isn’t to say I don’t have a system. When I shop, I look for staples first. Garlic, onions, potatoes, olive oil, bread, pasta, cheese. Then, I go for the seasonal stuff or things that look especially tasty that week–peaches, nectarines, avocados, tomatoes, greens, squash, herbs, peppers, green beans. And last, I look for meat and fish. This also changes by what’s available at the market. Some days I fully intend on grabbing a big slab of fresh halibut, but when I can’t seem to pull away from the apple/bacon sausage at the Prather Ranch stand, everything changes.

Being impulsive is in my nature, so I guess that’s why this system works for me. I also like knowing that I always have something in the kitchen to cook up a quick meal. But that’s not quite the point. The point is, I know tomato sauce and brick chicken aren’t original ideas. I know they’ve been done a zillion times over. But I also know that I’m not afraid to make them my own. So the next time you read a great recipe, put the book away, and try making it blinding, trusting your instincts to guide you in the right direction.

Sunday Dinner: Fresh Tomato Sauce and Brick Chicken

Tomato Sauce
(makes just enough for 1lb of pasta)
2 pounds heirloom tomatoes
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few leaves of fresh basil

Set a large pot of water to boil. Gently submerge the tomatoes in the water for about 15 seconds, or until you see the skins start to peel back. Remove tomatoes with the slotted spoon and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, heat a saucepan on medium-low heat and add two swirls of olive oil. Add onions and slowly cook, being careful not to brown them. When soft (about 10 minutes), add the garlic and put heat on low. Stir. If the onions are sticking to the pan, add a tablespoon of water and continue cooking.

Use your fingers to gently pull skins off of tomatoes. Try to only remove the skins and not the sweet flesh. Next, crush tomatoes with your hands into a large bowl. Why use your hands? Well, because it’s fun. And because if you feel any rough or hard parts of the tomato, just take them out. I don’t bother removing the seeds.

Add tomatoes to your sauce pan and simmer on low for 15 minutes. Add a teaspoon of sea salt, give it a minute, and taste. Add more salt as needed. Same with the black pepper. Add the tablespoon of butter, and after it melts into the sauce, throw in torn basil leaves and take off heat. Serve with one pound of your favorite pasta.

Brick Chicken
2 chicken legs with thighs attached
Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
Sea salt
Black pepper
Marash pepper (optional)
(isn’t that a ridiculously short list for the best chicken ever?)

Heat up a cast iron dutch oven on medium-high and coat the bottom with a layer of olive oil. While it’s heating up, generously season your chicken all over with salt and pepper and a light sprinkling of marash pepper – and cover a brick with tin foil.

When oil is super hot (but not smoking), add chicken skin side down. Place the brick on top and cook for 15 minutes. Note: You can do this in a cast-iron skillet, but it’ll splatter and make a mess. It’s much neater in a pot with high sides).

After 15 minutes, remove the brick and carefully flip the chicken with tongs. Lower the heat a tad and add the white wine. Cook for 5 more minutes. Use the tongs to plate the chicken, and top with juices from the pot.

Complete the dinner: Garnish pasta with basil and grated pecorino. Have fresh bread for dipping both in the sauce and in the juices from the chicken.

Where I Shopped:
Heirloom tomatoes, garlic, onions: Temescal Farmers’ Market (Happy Boy)
Marash pepper: The Pasta Shop, Oakland
Organic chicken: Star Meats, Berkeley

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I know, I know – I made you wait sooo long! But here it is. Our new name…

homeroom

Before I tell you the significance of the name, I quickly want to say that on July 24th, from 6pm – midnight, we’ll be cooking up mac and cheese at the SF Underground’s Farmers’ Market at SOMArts in San Francisco. Come down if you can! Live music, drinks, and hundreds of people enjoying really great food. And, you can get a taste of our smoky spicy mac and our creamy goat mac with spring onions.

Back to the name. So why homeroom? Well, remember when you were a kid, and homeroom was this between-class period at the beginning of your school day? It was a time of free reign when you could laugh with friends, pass notes to your cute boyfriend, trade snacks from your lunchbox. Good times, wouldn’t you say?

And, there’s the other homeroom. The actual room in one’s home. A place where you feel most comfortable, relaxed, content. Feels nice, huh?

So that’s why we love homeroom. It conveys an image of childhood, of smiles, of times with friends. Erin and I want homeroom to be a place that not only conjures these great memories, but also where you can make new ones, while enjoying quality food made from local ingredients.

There was one problem with homeroom though – we thought of it ourselves. We received over 800 suggestions, but my god this was a tough decision. Who would have thought that naming a restaurant would be so difficult? More so even than naming a child (don’t hold me to that. I don’t exactly have any kids). We were seriously flabbergasted by the number of names we received from all of you. I still can’t believe it – people from all over the world took time out of their day to help us think of a name for our small Oakland restaurant. Incredible.

Anyway, we did pick our 10 favorites, and those winners will receive a free meal for four when we open. Want to hear the names? I’m gonna make you work a little… Head over to our new site, homeroom510.com, and check them out. While you’re there, join our facebook page, follow us on twitter, or sign up for restaurant updates.

Wow. These have been two of the most stressful weeks we’ve had yet. The thing about opening a restaurant, or any business I would think, is that you start each day with a to-do list, only to have it fly out the window by noon. Things just keep coming up. New things, unanticipated things, things you hadn’t even thought of yet. It’s so tiring. But it’s also kind of great. We’re building this incredible place (hopefully), and it’s all ours. We make all the decisions. So while I never expected this stage of the process to be so overwhelming, I also wasn’t expecting it to be so… rewarding.

So that’s it for now. I will have a recipe soon, I promise. Over the past year, this blog has become such a part of me, that when I can’t post as often as I would like, I feel that something is missing.

I hope you like our new name, and I look forward to eating some mac and cheese with all of you sometime soon!

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