Pasta, Pesto, Tomatoes, Caramelization!

A mishmash of things from the fridge and the garden turned out to be a really wonderful dinner.

1-2oz. pancetta, diced small (optional if you're vegetarian, required if you're not!!)
1 leek, white and pale green parts only, chopped

Sautée these in a pan with olive oil until they are caramelized.

(Make the pesto while you're waiting, recipe below. And put on a pot of water for the pasta!)

Add about 1/4 cup sweet vermouth to deglaze, and let this reduced down until syrupy.

Add:
1 cup diced summer squash (I used round zucchini)
2 minced garlic cloves

When squash is softened, add:
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

Immediately turn off heat!

This gives the sweet, richness of the caramelization but the freshness of summer tomatoes. If you turn off the heat it doesn't break down the tomatoes but there's enough heat left to warm them up with the dish.


Parsley-pecan pesto:

1 bunch parsley, stems removed
3/4 cup pecans
1/4 c lemon juice (I like lemony pesto!)
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper

Run all this in the food processor and add olive oil (while the food processors still running) until it's the texture of pesto! I probably use just shy of 1/4 cup of oil.

Toss the pesto into your cooked pasta (I used linguine) and top with spoonfuls of the tomato leek mixture.

This turned out even better than I expected it to. I served it with a Ridge Wines 2005 Syrah/Grenache and it went beautifully.

Gazpacho Shooters

I am picking a basket of cherry tomatoes every other day from one plant. I eat as many as I can but needed another form of consumption. This recipe could easily be for just a bowl of gazpacho but since I had 8 people to divide this between, it became an amuse bouche.

It yielded just shy of 2 cups:

2 baskets cherry tomatoes

Puree in food processor then strain through a chinois.

Rinse food processor and puree:
1 handful of parsley
1 garlic clove
1 shallot
juice of 1 lemon
pinch or 2 of sea salt
2 T olive oil

Add strained tomatoes back in (discard skins and seeds), zing in processor.

Chill.


Slice a jalepeno and let it steep in some olive oil for as long as you've got (I let mine sit about 3 hours, room temp). Strain into squeeze bottle.

Peel and slice cucumber into sticks. Mince some basil.

For presentation:
Put a cucumber slice into a champagne flute.
Pour in gazpacho mixture.
Drizzle a little jalapeno oil on top.
Drop a little minced basil on top.

Drink, enjoy, and wish you had more!!

Quinoa Cakes - YUM!

Updated Aug 3, 2009
Cook 1/2 cup of quinoa in stock (I use chicken stock) according to package instructions.

While that's cooking, mix vinaigrette together:
3T White wine vinegar
2 minced shallots
2 minced green onions
a handful of chopped parsley
salt and pepper

NEW ingredients!:
Sauté 1 small chopped leek and 1 small chopped fennel bulb, add 2T white wine when soft and cook off. Add to vinaigrette mixture.


Once the quinoa is tender, mix it into the vinaigrette mixture.

Refrigerate until cool.

Mix in one egg as a binder and refrigerate again for at least 20 min. or so.

Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a pan until quite hot.

Form quinoa mixture into patties (as thin as you can make them without them falling apart). Carefully place into hot oil and let fry until bottom is crispy and brown. Don't try to turn them over too soon or they'll fall apart, they need to crisp up to hold together!

Turn and do the same to the other side.

Remove from oil and place on paper towels.

Serve topped with something yummy. I topped them with an heirloom tomato and basil salad.

Enjoy!

I'm going to miss summer

I usually don't make it to the store on Tuesday. Wednesday is Farmer's market day so I try to just hold off and eat what we've got. Last night the fridge was pretty empty. But from the garden I picked this lovely plate of Brandywine tomatoes. I grow Winter garden, so I can pick things to cook when it's cold out too, but nothing is like good summer tomatoes! I'll be so sad when the season is over.