tomatoes Archives -

July 10, 2017

Cabbage Salsa

September 20, 2016

Caponata with Grilled Rosemary Chicken

Our last of summer CSA shares have been brimming with tomatoes, eggplants, and onions, and I thought a sicilian caponata would be perfect for this time of year when such produce is still in abundance. Today I’m over at Bethany Douglass’ Cloistered Away sharing the recipe for this flavorful caponata to go along with a simple grilled rosemary chicken. Bethany’s inspiring blog focuses on simple, purposeful living, and she has a gift of being able to capture beauty in the everyday. She has just started a new series “In the Kitchen” to introduce a variety of perspectives on how families connect around food and life in the kitchen. For those of you wondering about some of the behind the scenes of the recipes you find here, I offer a glimpse into our kitchen and how I approach working with my children to prepare meals as part of her new series. I hope you will join me there.

April 28, 2016

Swiss Chard, Fennel, and Sausage Pasta

Pasta makes an appearance at our dinner table usually about once a week, mostly because it’s simple and also because my kids make me feel like a hero whenever I announce pasta for dinner. I still remember the time when I served pasta tossed with a plain old jar of store-bought marinara sauce and my son declared it “my best meal EVER”. (Oh why do I even bother sometimes?!)

This pasta, while not quite as easy as opening a jar, has minimal preparation and comes together quickly on busy weeknights . I used some homemade tomato sauce that I still had frozen from last summer’s tomatoes, but you could easily substitute any purchased canned or jarred tomato sauce. Ricotta and parmesan mellow out the acidity of the tomatoes and the seasonings from the chicken sausage help to further flavor the sauce. I like my pasta heavy with vegetables so there are two whole bunches of swiss chard along with a large fennel bulb, although in the end I probably could have used even more after the vegetables cooked down. It’s a simple dinner, I know, but delicious just the same and it’s these one-pot meals that get me through the week.