Oh, tomatoes. How I love thee...

Woke up early on Saturday, had a lazy breakfast with Fred and ended up at Findlay Market. It's my favorite Saturday morning activity. We were a but rushed, unfortunately, but I picked up these beautiful tomatoes. At left are green zebra and garden peach varieties.
Heirloom tomatoes, with all their unconventional beauty, put supermarket hot-house varieties to shame. The memory of a cold, mealy, watery pink beefsteak tomato quickly fades. The grower let me try a garden peach, and I ate it, like a peach. Sweet, with a yellow color and a lovely peach blush that tells you when they're ripe, these are mild and delectable. The skin in slightly fuzzy, too.
The green zebras are quite good, too. I've had them before, and the first time I tried them I was a bit intimidated. They are striped with lime green and goldenrod, juicy, with a pale green interior.
Best part: These are grown without pesticides!
Then I walked to the next booth, where they had these little darlings:

Tiny salad tomatoes in every shape, size and color, including several yellow pear varieties. So sweet, so rich, like nature's candy.
Tonight for dinner, I made a slightly decadent but terribly simple pasta.
1 package fusilli (this kind is whole wheat and flax, from Trader Joe's)
5 tomatoes (garden peach and green zebra)
handful tiny tomatoes
fresh basil, from the growers who sold me the green zebras
olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
salt, pepper
fresh mozzarella

Cook the pasta. While it's cooking, quarter the large tomatoes. Leave the small ones whole. Chop or tear the basil and cut the cheese. (Stop laughing? Are you 12?)
When the pasta's done, quickly drain it, reserving two tablespoons of pasta water. Immediately toss back into hot pot with basil, tomatoes and cheese. Drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper, stir well and put the lid on the pot. Let sit one minute in the pot, then serve. The residual heat warms the tomatoes and softens and starts to melt the cheese.

Oh, so marvelous. Fred and I dined in the living room, silently, to a soundtrack of Madeleine Petroux. It's rare that we don't converse during dinner. But the tomatoes were that good. They required our full attention.
Stop reading this. Go to the nearest farmers market and enjoy the bounty of tomatoes. I've still got about half of them left. Tomorrow night's dinner will be avocado and tomato salad, I think. I've got a ripe alligator pear in there just dying to be used.

Hodgepodge part deux

More healthful summer veggie-heavy meals:

Roasted portobello mushrooms: a drizzle of balsamic and olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and cracked black pepper. Bake at 400 for 5-7 minutes on each side.

Zucchini is so fresh and full of water that you don't always need olive oil. I sliced it thinly and sauteed it with basil, oregano, a bit of pepper and a roasted orange pepper that I had made the night before.

I doctored a jar of Trader Joe's No Salt Added Marinara. It was really, really bland, so I added an anchovy to some olive oil along with some garlic. (Don't wrinkle that nose! The anchovy melts into the sauce and adds a rich depth to the sauce.) I also added some red wine that was a few days old. The sauce was finished with some fresh oregano from my pots. Oh, so good!
The finished product!

Spoiled.

Life's good when you can walk out your back door and grab a handful of fresh herbs to freshen up your dinner. (That's flat-leaf parsley, oregano and basil, grown by moi.)

Lately, I've been making light pasta dishes for dinner. I'm slightly obsessed with variations on this pasta: whole wheat spaghetti or linguine, with white wine, fresh tomatoes, red pepper flakes, a couple of handfuls of herbs, cracked black pepper and a bit of parmesan cheese or olive oil. It's so light, so delicious, so easy. Add the hot pasta to a pot with the wine, tomatoes and peppers. Cook for about a minute, then toss with the herbs.

Oh, so yummy!