Pasta on the Grill

One of our "go to" summer dinners has become what we call "pasta on the grill". It's basically a roasted tomato sauce, which we started making when we started growing tomatos. Its a fast and easy way to use some of them, and we freeze several jars of it every year to use over the winter. It's simple and delicious and easily varied. I'll give the basic idea here and mention some variations.

Ingredients

• 2-3 pounds of tomatos, whatever kind you have available
• Half a large Vidalia onion, or a single large yellow onion
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• A small eggplant (we usually use Asian styles)
• A red or yellow pepper
• 1/2 a jalepeño or other hot pepper (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, whatever)
• Olive oil
• One can tomato paste (optional)

Varying the types of tomatos and onions and herbs will affect the flavor a lot, as will omitting the garlic, which I do from time to time. You can also use zucchini or summer squash in addition to or in place of the eggplant. The jalepeño adds a nice bit of heat, if you like that, or you can use Thai basil or spicy oregano. And so forth.

Directions

Prepare your grill. We have a gas one, so that is easy. I tend to cook this over pretty high heat, but you'll want to experiment with that. (You can also do this in the oven, if you wish. Preheat it to 450F.)

Chop and otherwise prepare the veggies and herbs, and put them in a big bowl. Add the olive oil and stir. You want just enough to coat the veggies. Line a 13x9 disposable aluminum baking pan with foil (for ease of cleanup and re-usability of the pan) and pour the veggies into it. Cover the top with more foil, and put the whole thing onto the grill. Cook until the veggies are tender, roughly 30-45 minutes.

I often find that the sauce is a bit watery at this point. If so, then I pour it into an appropriately sized pot and add some tomato paste---half a can usually suffices, but sometimes I need a full can---and simmer for about 10 minutes, just to cook the paste.

Serve over your favorite pasta.

Shortcakes

We had some friends over the other night, and I made shortcakes, which we had with berries and ice cream and whip cream. Yum! I've made quite a few shortcake recipes over the years, and these were the best I've had. Very sweet and flaky. The recipe I used was one from Epicurious, which can be found here. I'll reproduce it for ease of use.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 large egg

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400F. Line a big baking sheet with parchment paper (which keeps the bottoms from getting too crunchy).

Combine the dry ingredients in a big bowl and stir to blend. Cut the butter into 1/2 inch pieces and sprinkle it into the flour, then mix it a bit so the butter gets coated. Now, work the butter into the flour with your fingers. You basically want to pick up the butter pieces and mash them up. (There are other ways to cut butter into flour, too, but that one seems to work best for this recipe.) Keep doing this until the flour looks like a coarse meal. 

Whisk the egg into the milk, and pour that into the flour mixture. Stir until a dough forms, then turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead it just a bit (maybe 6-8 turns) until its smooth. 

Finally, make eight shortcakes, however you like. You can flatten the dough and cut circles with a glass, or cut triangles with a knife, or divide the dough into eight pieces and shape the shortcakes that way.

Put the shortcakes on the baking sheet. Leave a bit of room between them, as they will rise a bit. Bake them for about 12 minutes, until a tester comes out dry.