It’s Monday, and I’m finding it a little hard to motivate after our weekend of sports telly watching, surfing, and an impromptu visit to Point Reyes Station. Especially as I gaze out my window at the gloomy overcast sky outside. Here in San Francisco, we are still two months away from summer, or as I like to call it, peak tomato season. For me, summer doesn’t really start until the Early Girls and heirlooms hit the farmers market stands.
Late last summer, I made this recipe for fresh homemade tomato juice from Andrea Reusing’s Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes and did one important thing. I froze a batch of the juice in an ice-cube tray, then transferred the cubes into a Ziplock bag. I urge you to do the same: come a gloomy day, when you’re dreaming of an escape to Mexico, you can make yourself one mighty fine michelada.
Tomato Juice
From Cooking in the Moment: A Year of Seasonal Recipes, Andrea Reusing
5 lbs. very ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
1 T kosher salt
2 t black peppercorns
1 celery stalk
1 medium yellow onion, halved
Put the tomatoes and accumulated juices in a nonreactive pan and add the salt, peppercorns, celery, and onions. Bring to a simmer over low heat, and cook for 15 minutes. Let cool.
Discard celery and onion, then drain through fine-mesh sieve, using a rubber spatula to push the juice through. Discard the solids.
Pour into an ice-cube tray and freeze. Transfer frozen cubes to Ziplock bag. Save for a particularly dreary day (maybe a Monday), then make micheladas.
Casa Le Bon Michelada
1 Bottle of Bohemia, or Negro Modelo
2-3 Homemade tomato juice cubes
Lime
Tapatio
Fill tall glass with tomato juice ice cubes. Add several dashes of Tapatio, or Mexican hot sauce of your choice, to your spice level. Squeeze a wedge of lime over the cubes and drop into glass
Pour bottle of Bohemia into glass and give a quick stir with a long spoon. Refill with beer as needed and stir as ice cubes melt. Enjoy!
P.S. Check out Reusing’s awesome house in Chapel Hill, NC, featured in Lucky Magazine (January 2012). (I know, not another cute chef with a seemingly perfectly styled home life?!)
Le Bon Weekend 