Thursday, August 5, 2010

Cookbooking: Quick-Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce with Spaghetti

Tonight's dinner is from Cooking Light, my favorite magazine/website. I found this magazine when I had finished the JC and I was looking for ideas of how to cook meals for myself that were going to not send me back to the JC. The website has a complete listing of all their recipes and I go to it everyday at about 3:30 to decide what I want for dinner.

Today's weather is hot, muggy and smokey. So I thought, pasta! I don't know why I crave pasta and soup on hot days. I have made this Quick-Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce with Spaghetti recipe once before. I found it a fun, light and easy to make. I stuck to the original recipe the first time but tonight I stopped at the Smoked Meat Hut and bought some pork chops so I made it a porky pasta dinner tonight.

pork pasta

I had some olives and mushrooms in the fridge so I added those to the tomatoes and roasted them together. I used a cooking spray to coat them instead of olive oil. The pasta is a rice pasta as I am cutting down on the wheat. The gooey whiteness of the water when it cooks is a bit disturbing and it has to cook longer than regular pasta. After a few attempts, I finally worked out the proper cooking time for al dente. I cooked the pork in my cast iron skillet for 3 minutes a side. The basil is fresh from the window box on my deck. I used shakey cheese instead of the goat cheese- only because I don't have goat cheese in the fridge. I used the goat cheese the first time I made it and the combination of tomatoes and goat cheese was awesome.

I love the new skillet. I am sure that it is not the best quality as I did buy it at Walmart, but I am really enjoying it. Look at the sear on the pork:
pork

It was cooked perfectly. I am trying to get better at determining the doneness of meat by how it feels when you touch it. I guess this is what Chefs do.

For dessert I had some blueberries with light whipped cream. I think I may have eaten over 10lbs of blueberries in the last month. And I ordered 10lbs from Big M's co worker's friend's farm. I see pie in the future.

dessert

1 comment:

  1. Bosa Foods - get their Bruschetta in a jar(Italissimo brand). It's awesome in everything and you stir a spoon into tomato soup for the best grilled cheese companion!

    Meat - I use this method -http://www.meninaprons.net/2006/01/learning_doneness_the_hand_tes.html
    Works pretty well, but I have fleshier hands than you do.

    Smoked Meat Hut - why have I never heard of this place? Man, I need to get out of Vancouver more often!

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