July 20 – July 26, 2024

Saturday:                Ham and Pineapple Pizza

Sunday:                   Dinner for Rick’s Birthday at Mary Anne and Hoddy’s

Monday:                  Smoky Confit and Lemon Pasta

Tuesday:                  Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Corn and Salad

Wednesday:          Brats with Grilled Vegetables and Beans

Note:  The comment section for this blog is near the bottom after a long list of formers posts.  I’ll be moving it closer to the text of the current post as soon as Andrew has to time to help me.  In the mean time, you just need to hear the “pg dn” button a bunch of times and you’ll be there.  I’m looking for comments as proof of life at this point.

PASTABILILTIES AND TOMATOES

It is impossible to exaggerate how much certain phrases and verbal tics put me off my feed.  The phrases usually emerge from popular culture and politics – ‘inflection point,’ ‘soccer mom,’ and the verbal tics from advertising, often in the form of portmanteau words . . . ‘pastabilities’ has probably been used by some food company or other.  So why am I using it today?  Well, after the age of 75 a certain anomie sets in.  Some days it’s just too hard to make the bed and some days it’s just too easy to use verbal tics.  And sometimes, these annoying phrases and tics are just, well, correct. 

There have been inflection points in history – the Iron Age, ask the Pharaohs / the stirruped saddle – ask the people conquered by the Mongols.  On the other hand, inflection points don’t synchronize with the four-year presidential election cycles of the U.S.  As for pastabilities . . . there are more ways to prepare, sauce and cook pasta than there are stars in the universe.  And there are a lot of stars in the universe – the current estimate is 200 billion trillion which is more than enough dollars to retire on.  It’s also enough people to repopulate China more than 3 trillion times, provided the one-child policy remains rescinded.  Ignore those last two sentences.

So possible pastas became, without any conscious effort on my part, ‘pastabilities,’ and I’m sticking with it in spite of the grief that I know Billy will be giving me.  And the reason this whole confused and fractured thought process began was that this week I cooked a pasta very different from any I had cooked before and Billy and Beez loved it and, more to the point, I loved it.  And you may have noticed that when I find a dish I like, I want to share it with you.  This desire to share lies somewhere at the junction of sociability, benevolence and egomania.  But, heck, we are all complicated people.

The reason we cooked this dish is that we have found a good source of tasty, ripe tomatoes.  And that’s the other focus of this post.  For several years I gave up eating anything other than cherry tomatoes, except at the Old Collier Club in Naples, Florida where the tomatoes were and are fantastic.  But America’s farmers – more likely the small farmers – have been resurrecting heirloom species and you can find them pretty much anywhere.  I predict the return of the tomato sandwich – a special love of my father’s – a big slice of tomato, a little salt, mayonnaise spread on the inside of two pieces of white bread.  A piece of lettuce.  Heaven!

When I first read the recipe below (from the NYT Sunday Magazine), I worried that the lemon zest  would make the tomatoes too bright and acidic for a satisfying pasta – but I needed to cook the tomatoes on the window sill which were quite ripe and I needed to get some food on the table, so I went ahead.  As it turned out, the addition of a few other ingredients and olive oil made this pasta one of the most savory we’ve had this year.  Trust the recipe, slice and salt some good tomatoes, get the water boiling and call the family for dinner.

Smoky Confit Tomato and Lemon Pasta (adapted from NYT Magazine, 7/21/24)

Confit:  noun  1.  Meat cooked and preserved in its own fat.  2.  Garnish of fruits or vegetables cooked in seasoned liquid.

Timing:                                                                        About one hour

Ingredient:                                                                  Serves 4 or 5

2 ½ – 3 ½ lbs. heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1 1/2 -inch pieces or left whole if bite-sized

1 lb. rigatoni or similar-shaped pasta

2 lemons, zest peeled into strips, avoid the white pith

1 ¼ cups olive oil

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 cinnamon sticks

1 large or 2 small dried ancho chiles

1 head garlic, top 1/2 -inch of the bulbs removed

10 fresh oregano sprigs, plus extra to serve (we used maybe 1 ½ tablespoons of dried oregano)

Salt and Pepper

Prep:

Heat the oven to 425 F.

Prep the tomatoes, peel the lemons – long strips and be careful to get the skin but not the pith.  Halve any long strips.  Cut the garlic.

Put all of the ingredients above, with 1 ¼ cups of olive oil, the tomato paste, the cinnamon sticks and the oregano sprigs, and fair amount of salt and pepper in a roasting pan and mix.  Put garlic head in, cut side down.  Then tuck the ancho chiles under the tomatoes (you may have to chop them into two pieces).

Cook and Serve:

Roast the tomato mixture for 35 minutes – until the tomatoes are tender and lightly charred.  At this point we removed the garlic completely – the NYT suggests you use tongs to squeeze the cooked cloves into the confit and then discard the papery skins.

As the confit is finishing, get a large pot of highly salted water on the boil and cook the rigatoni per the package instructions.  As the pasta is finishing, put several ladles full of the pasta water into a bowl.  Drain the pasta.

At this point I used a wooden spoon to break up any large pieces of tomato. 

Transfer the drained pasta to the roasting pan, along with ½ cup of the pasta water and stir to combine, until the pasta absorbs any cooking liquid from the pan.  Add a bit more pasta water and toss until the sauce clings to the pasta.

Discard the cinnamon sticks and serve directly from the roasting pan.  You can add grated cheese and basil leaves, if you wish.