Stuffed Shells

Stuffed jumbo pasta shells with roasted cherry tomatoes and an Italian sausage link. So freakin' good! Take a look. Nothing else needs to be said.

Oven roast the cherry tomatoes in a parchment paper lined cast iron skillet with olive oil, garlic and herbes de provence at 475 for 20 minutes.

The filling for the shells is ricotta cheese, sauteed garlic, parsley, lemon zest and red pepper flakes.

Boil the shells until they are just pliable enough to work with about 4 - 5 minutes.  Drain in a colander.

Make a simple tomato sauce with chopped tomatoes and onion. We used a combination of red and yellow tomatoes. Put half the sauce in a casserole dish.                          

Stuff the shells with the ricotta mixture and place on top of the tomato sauce.

Top the shells with the rest of the tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fresh oregano - not dried. Drizzle with olive oil.

Bake covered at 375 for 20 minutes, then take the foil off and bake for 10 more minutes or until the cheese looks nice and golden.

Serve with the roasted cherry tomatoes and a side of grilled Italian sausage. 

Roasted Tomato Sauce

This is a simple, easy and very tasty sauce. Tomatoes develop a wonderful rich flavor when they are roasted to the point of blistering or even get a little char on them. Serve this thick chunky sauce simply as it is over pasta or add a side of meatballs, pancetta or sausage. We like just the roasted tomatoes over pasta with nothing more than a nice hit of a good high grade olive oil and a sprinkle of pecorino cheese. 

This also makes a great bruschetta topping on grilled country bread.

Ingredients - 

2 lbs of ripe homegrown or multi colored cherry, grape or heirloom tomatoes

5-7 cloves of garlic – chopped

Rosemary – 2 sprigs, leaves pulled off and roughly chopped

Zest from one lemon

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/3 cup+ Extra virgin olive oil 

Freshly Grated Pecorino Cheese

Pasta of your choice. We like this with long fusilli

If you are using good ripe homegrown tomatoes, cut them into 1½ inch chunks. If using Roma tomatoes, cut them into quarters lengthwise.If using grape of cherry tomatoes, leave them whole

Put them in a rectangular casserole dish with the garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and salt and pepper.

Pour about 1/3 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil over the tomato mixture and stir together.

Bake at 410 degrees for 45 minutes uncovered.

Every 10 minutes, take the sauce out of the oven and stir the tomatoes.

You want the tomatoes to get blistered and collapse but not dried out, so keep an eye on them. Add  a little water and olive oil if needed.

When done, stir it again and serve over pasta with the grated cheese. You can also dump the roasted tomatoes into a bowl and use an immersion blender to adjust how chunky you want your sauce to be. 

You can also play with the ingredients and use oregano instead of rosemary, use more or less garlic, or fresh basil. If you use fresh basil, don’t add it until the sauce is out of the oven. 

Did a complete scarpetta!  Look it up :)

Herbed Cherry Tomatoes Roasted in a Cast Iron Skillet

How can you not want to make these roasted cherry tomatoes after seeing how cool they look, how easy they are to make, how versatile they are and especially how delicious they are. Roasting these tomatoes low and slow concentrates their flavor and marries the herb seasonings to them. Plus you will fill your house with a wonderful aroma.

You can play around with the herbs substituting rosemary or thyme for the herbs de Provence, adding some lemon zest or some basil when the tomatoes are done baking.

Ingredients:

2 pints cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp. herbs de Provence 

1/2 tsp. ground (or 1 tsp whole) fennel seeds 

1 tsp. minced garlic

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions:

Line a large cast-iron skillet with parchment paper

Add cherry tomatoes and drizzle with olive oil; sprinkle with herbs de Provence, garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes

Bake at 275 for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally

What can you do with them - 

One way, we sliced some leftover strip steak, put them over arugula, squeezed a little lemon juice, added these wonderful olive oily herby tomatoes, some blue cheese crumbles and toasted bread crumbs. YES!!!!  This was so good!

Or......

Use them in a pasta sauce or as a pasta sauce

Use on pizza t

Use on grilled bread as a bruschetta topping

Spoon over grilled fish or chicken or a steak

Put in a sandwich

As a side to scrambled eggs

As part of an antipasto plate

Eat out of hand

How to Correctly Plant and Grow Tomatoes

Cherokee Purple tomatoes from our garden last year - 2014

These are very interesting articles!  After digesting the information, I decided to try at least some of these recommendations this this spring. If you are open to new ideas, don't mind a little extra planting work and love tomatoes why not?

Here are links - 

Grow better tomatoes!

Rodale's Organic Life Guide to Planting Tomatoes

Caponata

Caponata is a traditional southern Italian eggplant dish that typically includes eggplant, sweet pepper, onion, celery, olives, tomatoes, capers, pine nuts, raisins, red wine vinegar and fresh basil. It has a sweet & sour (agrodolce) flavor profile. Can be used as a side dish for fish or chicken or part of an antipasti platter or on bruschetta. Best served at room temp. A lot of different flavors and textures going on. Great summer treat.

Caponata might not be very photogenic, but in person, it's beautiful in both taste and looks. For the recipe -

2 medium sized eggplants  

1/2 cup of olive oil
2  cups of celery, sliced thin on a bias
3/4  cup of onions, chopped
1  Yellow (or red) bell pepper chopped
1/3  cup of red wine vinegar, mixed with a handful of golden raisins
2  cups of drained canned Italian plum or whole fresh ripe tomatoes - chopped
2  tablespoons of tomato paste
9  Green olives, pitted and cut in large pieces - use good ones like Castelvetrano from an Italian market, not those grocery store green olives with pimentos in brine - they have the wrong taste.
2 tablespoons of capers - rinsed
2 tablespoons of pine nuts - toasted
Handful of fresh basil - torn by hand
salt and ground pepper to taste

Cut eggplant into 1 inch cubes.  Sprinkle cubes of eggplant with salt and set them in a colander in the sink to drain. After 30 minutes, rinse them and pat dry with paper towels and set them aside.  

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large heavy frying pan, add celery, onion and pepper. Cook over moderate heat, stirring frequently for 10 minutes until celery, onion and pepper are soft and lightly colored but not mushy. With slotted spoon transfer to bowl.  

Pour remaining 1/4 cup oil in skillet and over high heat saute the eggplant in it, stirring and turning about 8-10 minutes until they are lightly browned.

Return celery, onion and peppers to the pan, stir in the vinegar and raisins, the tomatoes, tomato paste, green olives and capers and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, stirring for 10-15 minutes. Take off heat and let cool. Stir in pine nuts and the basil.

Serve at room temperature. 

I think you will like this but you need to make it a few times to get the amount of ingredients and the timing right to suite your taste. Like a lot of Italian food, this is better the next few days, so you can make it ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator.  Don’t re-heat it though just let it come to room temp by itself.