Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Garden Eating

The garden is producing abundant quantities which is giving me lot's of opportunities to cook with what we have. Today a lot of tomatoes were ripe along with some leaks, basil, blackberries and raspberries. So the menu was pasta with fresh tomato sauce and fruit salad.

Tomatoes, Leeks and Basil

Tomatoes Processed and Leeks Cleaned
The trick with the tomatoes is to cut them in half, take out the seeds, then crate the flesh out with a box grater. All you will have left are the thin skins. Much, much easier than the parboil, skin, seed method.

Leeks Sauteing in Olive Oil with some Black Olive Paste
I later deglazed with a little white wine

Tomato Puree added with Basil, Salt and Pepper

The Finished Dish
I actually made the sauce in the same pot as the one I cooked the pasta in. I put in the cooked pasta and let it cook with the sauce for a couple of minutes and added a little fresh grated Parmigiano Regiano

Wife meanwhile added the berries to some cantaloupe, grapes and cherries

The whole process took us 45 minutes.

Bon Apetit

9 comments:

stef said...

yum~! i will definitely be tryingyour tomato processing method. as soon as my dang tomatoes ripen..;)

alexis said...

bon appetite!

Anonymous said...

Looks terrific! I love this part of the summer, because the produce doesn't need anything from me. If I'm too tired to do anything interesting, I just boil up a big pot of corn and eat it plain, or eat tomatoes with olive oil and salt. Because it's all so naturally perfect right now.

Lakeview Coffee Joe said...

Look at that fruit bowl!! Awesome.

David Conroy said...

Michael... just thought I'd drop you a note.

I'm helping a guy through the donor process. He's coming to me for advice, questions, etc.

Very special man. He's doing this anonymously. He was expecting to be donating to a relative. The relative stayed healthy and is not in need so Chris is going ahead with it anyway so the hospital is searching for a valid recipient.

I told him he's pretty amazing.

David

WeaselMomma said...

That looks really good.

terri said...

That looks delicious! And I think I could actually do something like that with the veggies from our own garden. Might give that a try tonight.

Mike said...

Wow... that looks so good. We don't have a vegetable garden, though. :(

Anonymous said...

We don't have a garden...but we were talking about how we would like to have one when we get a house someday.

I wasn't really aware of the tomato process. I've made my own sauce a few times for pasta, but it's been the kind where I buy the canned paste, etc and mix it instead of just buying Ragu. Someday I'll try it with FRESH tomatoes.