Brunch Tomatoes

So happy to be able to share this post! It's been pending as a draft since last summer and I was finally able to share.

This recipe is super fantastic! Easy, filling, yummy and you can do a lot of it ahead of time and cook all at once, it serves a bunch of people too and looks beautiful on your brunch table.  The best part is that it's kind of a little meal and you can eat it all up, you got the egg, bread and tomato, flavour bomb!

Brunch Tomatoes

- Large firm vine ripened or hot house tomatoes, hollow out and set in your baking dish

- Bread croutons, it's easy to make from scratch. You need about half a slice for one tomato so it's pretty simple, slice in squares and toss with a bit of olive oil and salt + pepper. Bake on 350 until lightly golden and crisped. 

- Fave herb, I like using chives, or you can use parsley

-Olive oil

-Salt & Pepper

-Garlic, optional, try brushing the croutons with some fresh garlic or garlic butter.
-Grated cheese, optional, Parmesan Reggiano or Peccorino Romano work nicely 

-Fresh Eggs, one per each tomato

After hollowing out the tomatoes, place the insides in a sieve and squeeze the flesh to allow the juice to come out. You want a couple of tbsp of the juice to moisten the crisped bread croutons. 

Mix the herb and cheese with the bread and fill the tomatoes. Drizzle a little extra EVOO

Bake in a glass dish on 450 for 15-20 minutes. Now remove out of your oven and break an egg in each one, if you need to remove some bread or create a little nest feel free to do so.

Bake until egg is to your likeness.  Garnish with more fresh herb. 

Serve and enjoy! 

Roasted Garlic Scape & Tomato Pasta

Spent a fabulous morning at the local farmer's market and picked up a selection of goodies, among them garlic scapes! This is the second year that I discovered these and immediately knew that I wanted to whip these up in a pasta dish. Luckily I already composed a dish in my mind within seconds and upon the recommendation of a nice Italian lady that started chatting me up at the market.

Originally I was intending to sautee the scapes and tomatoes but by the end of the evening, and honestly we were just so full of finishing up all the sweet peas that I threw the previously washed and prepped scapes into a roasting dish and into a preheated 400 degree oven to roast away. Of course I tossed the garlic scapes with the typical roasting seasonings, salt, pepper..olive oil and threw in a handful of halved grape tomatoes and a big clove of garlic which was smashed and roughly minced.

Immediately the pot of water went on the heat to boil and in 30 minutes I had dinner on the table.
I just love days like these!


Easy Roasted Garlic Scapes and Tomato Summer Pasta

1 handful garlic scapes, you can find them at your local farmer's market

1 handful grape or cherry tomatoes, or any roughly chopped fresh summer tomatoes

1 medium clove garlic, smashed and roughly chopped

A big glug of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the good stuff, like from Olive That!) 

Salt & Pepper

Pasta of choice, I used spaghetti

1 small bunch of green beans (optional) 

Parmigiano Reggiano, shaved 

(use a cheese tool or vegetable peeler to shave off nice big pieces) 

Instructions: 

1 - Prep the veggies by washing and then chopping the garlic scapes in 1 inch length pieces. 

Slice cherry/grape tomatoes in halves

2 - Preheat oven to 400 F. In a roasting dish or glass baking pan toss your garlic scapes and halved cherry or grape tomatoes, garlic clove with the Olive oil. Season with Salt and black Pepper. Roast in pan until it looks like the photo below. 

3 - Bring pasta water to a boil, season with salt and add pasta and green beans. Boil according to package. 

Meanwhile your roasted veggies should be done and out of the oven, add a ladel full of pasta stock, that's the pasta water and stir the vegetables lightly, it should deglaze the casserole and remove all the yummy bits off the edges.

4 - When the pasta and beans are ready, drain (I leave a little bit of pasta stock/water in the bottom, just a couple of tbsps) and add them back to the pot. Add the roasted vegetables making sure to include every last drop of yummy goodness from the pan drippings.  Normally at this point I toss and close the lid on the pot and just turn the heat to the burner off. The pasta absorbs the last bit of juices and kind of "Becomes one" with the sauce.

Plate and top with shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese! Now dig in.... Pasta waits for no one!
Enjoy!

MMMMmmmm... I really really love pasta, and simple recipes like this just make me so happy :) 

Autumn 2011

Changing leaves, pumpkins, starbucks, apple brie turnovers, farmer's markets, rainbows, apple pie tea and more...

A gorgeous season.