July Recipe Roundup

Today, I did something I don't usually do, which is make two different but related meals for lunch and for dinner. It was mostly because I was home with time to cook and because I spent about $30 on vegetables at the farmers' market on Saturday and was determined to use at least some of them before they'd been languishing in the fridge for too long.

I've written about both of these recipes before, but they are both so good and so perfect for the season, that I wanted to put them in the spotlight again.

The first dish--my lunch, as it were--is early summer orzo, a recipe I mostly made up. It's a mix of vegetables diced into tiny pieces, sauteed in olive oil and then combined with a minimal amount of orzo. I usually make it in the sweet spot of early summer, when both peas and corn are available. I combine these with summer squash, onions, garlic, basil and toasted pine nuts. The key is to have everything cut the same size (i.e., the size of a pea or corn kernel or pine nut or piece of orzo) so that each bite has a little bit of everything in it. The other key is to add the orzo to the vegetables rather than the other way around--this way, the orzo is incorporated into the vegetables rather than the vegetables serving as a complement to the pasta. You could make this with many different vegetable combinations, but I'm partial to the early summer one. Then again, I was amazed that shell peas were still available on Saturday, and I can't imagine we'll see too many more of them after this week's mini heat wave, so I can see making this pea-less, out of necessity. Sprinkle some Parmesan if you like, and you're set for lunch, dinner or a snack. It is equally delicious re-heated.

Here's the recipe, from June 2009: Early Summer Orzo

The second recipe comes from a Mark Bittman "Minimalist" column from the summer of 2004, his Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes. I have been making this dish every summer since then, which I think is the definition of a keeper. So, in the early evening, after I'd come inside sweaty and grubby from mowing the lawn and watering the garden, I found myself, once again, chopping onions and garlic, dicing squash and cutting corn off of the cob. And the sauteing starts off the same way. The key difference here is the tomatoes. Tomatoes wouldn't work in the first recipe because they fall apart, and there, you're looking for intact bits. With this recipe, soupy is fine. You add the tomatoes around the time you put the water for the pasta in, and by the time the pasta is cooked, the tomatoes have broken down, and you have a delicious smelling pan of vegetables on the stove, waiting to be dumped upon the hot pasta. This dish might not be quite as pretty as the other one, but it's equally delicious.

Here's the recipe, from July 2008: Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes

Now, I have two different kinds of leftovers to eat this week, and while the chard and lettuce are still in my fridge, waiting for their turn, I can feel somewhat satisfied that most, if not all, of those vegetables I schlepped home so hopefully on Saturday are going to end up in my stomach rather than in the compost.

Enjoy!

Summer Vegetable Love, or, Pasta with Corn, Zucchini and Tomatoes

At some point later in the summer, about a month or so from now, I'll be cursing summer vegetables. Not because I'll be sick of them, really, but because I'll be inundated with them. My kitchen and dining room tables will be covered with bowls of tomatoes and stalks of basil in jars of water. My stove will be perpetually splattered with red. I will realize, once again, that my supply of quart containers has dwindled and needs replenishment. I will pat myself on the back, once again, for having bought a second freezer for my basement a couple of years ago. I will, for a few weeks from late August into the later part of September, be a slave to my garden produce, and thus I will complain. (Unless, of course, my garden doesn't produce as planned, and then I will complain about that.)

For now, though, there's not too much of anything. For one thing, the tomatoes on my plants all remain resolutely green, so the only tomatoes are what's at the farmer's market. For another, I was very restrained and only planted 3 zephyr squash plants, in the hopes of avoiding a glut of squash. And it's true that I can't drive past my favorite farm stand without stopping, so I often have more corn than I know what to do with on any given day, but that doesn't feel particularly oppressive, just bountiful. (One reason I love summer food (and living by myself) is that, if I want to, I can eat a couple of pieces of corn on the cob while standing around in my kitchen, and call it dinner. Yum.)

Tonight, I made one of my summer stand byes, taken from a 2004 Mark Bittman "Minimalist" column in the NY Times. What I love about it, besides that it's delicious, is that it requires bits of things rather than volumes of things. I used 3 ears of corn (of course from my favorite farm stand), 3 farmer's market tomatoes, 1 zephyr squash from my community garden, one onion of unknown origins, 1 clove of farmer's market garlic (though mine is just about ready to be picked) and a handful of basil from my garden at home--it felt like a very egalitarian dinner. It's not the prettiest dish (though the tomatoes give everything a faint pink tinge) nor the most elegant, but on a humid July evening, it's the perfect thing to eat. And even better, there are lots of leftovers, so I can eat it again tomorrow, and I won't even have to get the stove all dirty again.




Adapted from The New York Times

PASTA WITH CORN, ZUCCHINI AND TOMATOES
Time: 30 minutes

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or 2 tablespoons oil and 1 tablespoon butter

1 cup corn kernels (from 2 or 3 ears)

1 cup diced zucchini or summer squash (from 2 or 3 small vegetables)

1 medium onion or 3 or 4 shallots, diced

1/4 teaspoon minced garlic, optional

1 or 2 sprigs tarragon (I used basil instead)

4 plum or 2 large tomatoes, diced

1 pound cut pasta, like penne. (I used something fancy and twirly.)

1. Set a large pot of water to boil and salt it. Put 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add corn. Cook, stirring occasionally, until corn begins to brown. Add zucchini and some salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until zucchini begins to brown.

2. Add onion or shallots and garlic if you are using it. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add tarragon and cook for 30 seconds, then tomatoes. Put pasta in boiling water and cook until tender but not mushy, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. While pasta cooks continue to cook sauce, reducing heat when tomatoes begin to break down. If sauce dries out (with plum tomatoes, this is likely), add some pasta cooking water, about 1/2 cup at a time. When pasta is done, drain it, toss with sauce and remaining oil or butter, and serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings.