YUCK!

Note to self: writing recipes is HARD. Of course this happens more often than not when we decide to throw the entire left-over contents of our refrigerator into the mix… Not only will we never learn, but we may never attempt greatness with the almighty FILO again. FAIL — but fun, nonetheless.

It’s still summer! Which means that we have a plethora of tomatoes! Either from our own garden or from our neighbors, we have more arriving everyday — And, since it’s still a little too hot to bake anything, we’ve been busy crushing…

This recipe makes approximately 2 Cups of Tomato Broth

Cherry Tomatoes  – approximately 2 pints (do not use green tomatoes)
Basil – 1 Tablespoon Chopped
Garlic  Cloves – 3 Crushed
Dried Oregano – 2 Tablespoons
Extra Virgin Olive Oil – 1/4 Cup
Salt to taste

You will need – Measuring tools; Tomato Crusher; Skillet; Spoon; Pot (for cooking pasta); Strainer

This recipe is really so simple…
1. Crush the tomatoes – discard the skins and reserve the liquid
2. Crush the garlic and chop the basil — cook over low heat in the skillet until it starts to crisp up… add the other ingredients along with the tomato broth, and simmer.
3. Cook your pasta — for this we choose Dischi, which kinda has the shape of an elephant ear… Not that anyone would want to eat an elephant ear — but Will thought the idea was hilarious.

Serve the broth over the pasta and season to taste. The broth is light and sinks into the pasta quickly which also makes for a very nice dish as a leftover…

And the NOSH – Did Will eat it? This is where the leftover tip comes in handy… Will didn’t want to eat it the first night — he said “No, I’m not gonna like it..” but I suspect he was just too tired from all the tomato crushing… The next night, however, with the broth all soaked up into the pasta, he ate it and actually said, “I love this pasta.” which was nice until he also said that he loved the fork… We are working on our definitions.

Many of our attempts fail, unfortunately. But sometimes we come across a recipe that turns into something completely different, which is OKAY because it then becomes something else… Something new… Something we were not expecting, but enjoyed nonetheless.

We started off to make quesadillas using a recipe for Tortillas from the May 2010 Food Network Magazine. And to say we started off — we did everything that the recipe called for… We even tried to flatten our tortillas with a coffee can , which they recommended should you not have a tortilla press… we ended up finally using one of Will’s plastic plates instead… Note to self – get a tortilla press.

But that wasn’t the only hitch. When we started cooking, the tortillas became stiff – like little pie crusts — not soft at all. We were, however, half way through combining the filling for the quesadillas from a leftover Chicken Fajitas, so we continued on to make these fun little chicken sandwiches…

Here is the link for the Tortillas — please note, again, that ours turned out like crusts.

And the NOSH – Did Will eat it? He actually really liked the mini corn pie crusts and he liked the vegan cheese, but once everything was all put together he lost interest and cared more about cleaning up and riding his bike. Maybe it was the time it took to make the tortillas? Regardless, the rest of us ate them and agreed that we had created something yummy!

After we made our Turkey Meatballs a few days ago, we took a turkey break and waited until the day after next to cook up a nice homemade red sauce to serve over fresh pasta. The red sauce soaked into the meatballs, and when we still had a few leftover, we saved them one more night to make these yummy little sliders. Served with fries, this is a great way to wrap up the day.

One note: Make sure to read the bread ingredients for the slider rolls as most in the typical bread aisle will contain milk or eggs. Try the freshly baked section.

And the NOSH – Did Will eat it? He ate the fries, which we can’t take credit for… as for the meatballs, sadly, no. But we know he will someday… we just know it!

We just added a little Plum Vinegar for some sweet & sour, Cole Slaw mixture of cabbage and carrots as well as a few Parsnip shavings..

And the NOSH – Did Will eat it? Well – we caught him testing out the texture of the rice paper — which is a HUGE step in the war against strange and unusual textures… We feel confident to say that we are on the road to taking a bite… Any day now!

Yum.