Heavy days, heavy rain.
On top of all that's been happening lately, I came home from work yesterday to find the afternoon thunderstorm had decimated my baby arugula in the garden.
The day before, the half ripe first strawberry I had been looking forward to snapping a picture of (and procrastinating bringing inside to protect!) had been snatched early by a crow. My first strawberry. Ever. Gone!
I half-heartedly took some photos of the damage yesterday but my heart just wasn't in it. How can you take a good picture when you're sad? So instead I'm going to show you how I cheered myself up today: With a Cheer Up Thunderstorm Pasta.
Years ago, my stepmother imparted to me the perfect summer pasta, which involves little more than fresh summer tomatoes and fresh basil tossed around a pan for a minute or two.
My tomato plants are still just flowering and my basil plants are the tiniest sprouts in the garden (we grew them from seed this year), but I did have a pile of overripe organic tomatoes I left too many days on the shelf, and several pots of other herbs we bought as plants from the garden centre a few weeks ago. Plus, my garden chives from B's mom were out of control and desperately needed a haircut.
Chives are such a great summer herb because they replace themselves to full height a day or two after cutting - they grow like grass - and because snipping a bunch of chives into a dish takes a fraction of the time it takes to dice garlic and gives the same flavour. Summer cooking is all about fresh food and optimum laziness for me, so chives are a great garden chum to have around.
Here's what I did:
1. Put my pasta water on to boil.
2. Went outside with a pair of kitchen scissors, grabbed the whole bunch of chives by the hair and snipped them to an inch above the soil. Then I carefully picked a mixed handful of leaves from my oregano, rosemary and cilantro pot (any mix of Italian herbs would be great). I threw them all on my chopping board and went at them with my mezzaluna (that half moon blade Nigella uses to chop herbs).
3. Diced my tomatoes with a sharp serated knife.
4. Heated the pan to med-high, threw in the tomatoes, a pinch of salt and a glug of olive oil. Threw on the herbs and tossed for about a couple minutes to allow the tomatoes to sweat a portion of their juices and simmer lightly with the herbs and seasonings.
5. Turned off the heat and tossed it a few more times till the flavour was even (You can give a toss here or there inbetween draining and plating the pasta).
6. Threw the sauce on the pasta and tossed with a little olive oil, some sea salt, fresh ground pepper and fresh parmesan.
A bit of sunshine on a rainy day. :)
<3 pamplemousse
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