Slow Roasted Tomato Basil Spaghetti

I’ve always wanted to be in an infomercial. In fact, I’ve always wanted to host an infomercial. I’d like to be one of those women with the mousy hair and button down shirts that follows the ‘chef’ around as he whips up creations with his latest gadget, exclaiming, ‘Oooh! My kids would go crazy for those peanut butter flapjacks!’ or, ‘This is the BEST ham-and- mushroom-soup casserole I have EVER tasted!’ I’d even settle for being one of the members of the audience that enthusiastically nods on cue or murmurs to my neighbour in commiseration about how hard it is to get the omelet out of the pan.

The energy level of the infomercial has always amazed me. How can they possibly muster that level of fake excitement over a sandwich maker or a food dehydrator? Have they ever walked outside? Seen a thunderstorm? Had a baby? There are plenty of things in life that require that level of excitement, but a panini press isn’t one of them.

The one kitchen tool that I would happily get that enthusiastic about, though, is the oven. ‘Well, yes,’ you say, ‘I’m sure people were excited about it…200 years ago.’ But see, my love affair with the oven is fairly recent. Up until a few years ago, I cooked everything on the stove. For some reason, the oven intimidated me – I liked things I could stir and watch constantly, like a curry or a soup or a scrambled egg.

Then I discovered roasting and my whole life changed. This is the part of the infomercial where I would get up from the audience, grab the mic and say, “Hi, I’m Maureen, a dental hygienist from Ohio, and I’ve got to say, Ron, your invention of the oven has changed my life! Just a half hour in the oven, and my vegetables are bursting with flavour! My fruits are caramelized and golden! Now my husband loves my cooking!”

And it’s true. It all began by throwing some sad-looking February tomatoes in the oven. I wasn’t expecting much, but I didn’t have anything else in the pantry, so what the hell, right? Chop up some tomatoes, a squirt of olive oil, a pool of balsamic, some salt and pepper. Whatever.

Oh, my.

I can confidently say that those were the best tomatoes I have ever had. Meltingly spicy and sweet at the same time, velvety smooth and swimming in their own sauce. All I had to do was ladle them over pasta and sprinkle some basil and some goat cheese on top. They formed a lovely rose sauce with the cheese, and with a glass of Pinot, they were the perfect escape from a February day. Oven, you have won me over.

Now I make that recipe a few times a month, winter or summer. It is the easiest recipe I have, but somehow it always ends up elegant and absolutely bursting with flavour. This will become your go-to recipe for the summer, or your money back (shipping and handling not included.)

Slow Roasted Tomato Basil Spaghetti

Adapted from this recipe.

Note: This recipe is endlessly forgiving. Throw in cumin powder instead of the coriander powder, swap in coriander leaves for the basil; it will still taste delicious.

Ingredients

• 12 oz (340 g) spaghetti
• 1/4 cup minced fresh basil, approx
• 1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
• 4 -5 medium tomatoes (still on the vine), cut into 1” chunks (I cut them in half, and then each half into quarters) (about 1 lb/500 g)
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1-2 tsp dried coriander powder (I like mine more heavily spiced)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large pinch hot pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 325°F.

In 13- x 9-inch metal cake pan or roasting pan, toss together tomatoes, garlic, oil, vinegar, coriander powder, salt and hot pepper flakes. Roast in oven until tomatoes have collapsed and have released their juice, about 30 – 40 minutes. Make sure to take them out every 10 minutes or so and give them a good stir so the juices don’t burn.

When tomatoes are almost done, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but firm, 8 to 10 minutes.

Drain spaghetti. Add the tomatoes to the pot and mix it up. Plate and sprinkle generously with goat cheese and basil.

Serves 4 (though A. and I usually seem to gobble it up greedily in one sitting.)

  

Notes on changes/substitutions:

• If you don’t have a cake pan or a roasting pan, you can use a rimmed cookie sheet – just make sure you stir the tomatoes around frequently as the sauce will burn more easily in a shallow pan.
• The longer you roast the tomatoes at a lower heat, the more luscious they will become. If I have nothing to do on lazy Sunday, I will set the oven at 200 and let it go for four hours. The tomatoes transform into syrupy caramelized manna and the house will smell like a Tuscan restaurant. Sometimes I even preheat the oven to 350, turn it off and leave the tomatoes inside as I run errands – that way I can come home to the perfect dinner.
• If your baby, like mine, loves flavour, give these tomatoes a whirl in the blender and they make the perfect baby food (just leave out the red pepper flakes.)

Mastering the Art of an Interesting Life

On a recent trip to a little bookstore, I happened across Julia Child’s My Life in France. I picked it up, rifled through it, and decided to take it home and give it a try.

People, I am in love with this book.

I knew the basics about JC before I started the book – I’d seen the movie (who hasn’t?), but that was about it. I’d never watched her TV show, much less picked up her books (Mastering The Art of French Cooking seemed so intimidating to me; my shelf is full of books with names like Easy Healthy Family Meals. Pedestrian, perhaps, but certainly doable.)

If only I’d known what I was missing all this time. Julia Child (with her great-nephew Alex Prud'homme) covers the years she and her husband Paul lived in Europe and her introduction to the world of cooking. What I love most about it is that it is not an Under The Tuscan Sun Tra-la-la-I-live-in-a-romantic-country-and-have-only-the-most-trivial-of-worries type book.  This book is a about a giant (6’ 2”!) woman from Pasadena, California and her smaller, balding, dapper diplomat husband who move to France, despite strenuous objections from her Conservative family. She knows not a word of the language. She has no idea what she wants to do in life. She sticks out like a sore thumb. They live in an archaic apartment with no heat and Paul’s job is a maze of bureaucracy. Still, she discovers cooking, saves up her money to eat at the best restaurants, goes out of her way to make French friends, and leads the most interesting, fulfilling, amazing life.

Early on in the book she says matter-of-factly, “[My father] had assumed I would marry a Republican banker and settle in Pasadena to live a conventional life. But if I'd done that I'd probably have turned into an alcoholic, as a number of my friends had.” Now, that is extreme, but how many of us have struggled with living the comfortable life vs. what we really wanted to do? She knows her own mind and doesn’t entertain the easy road option for a minute. She doesn’t sit there and say, ‘Yes, but my family wants me to stay in the US, I don’t know anything about cooking, it will be hard, we will have no money, blah blah blah.” She just jumps right in, and despite the discomforts, she leads a life a million times richer than she would have in America, because she chooses to. She could have just as easily gone to Paris and said, “This sucks. I have no French friends. I don’t know what to do with my life. I am wearing 5 coats and huddled around a tiny space heater. Back to America for me.” But she didn’t. She went out of her way to create her new life, as hard as it was. She approached people and charmed them. She wore all those coats and sweaters and mufflers in her own living room and put up with it. She tried cooking and dealt with all sorts of conflicts from the Cordon Bleu. She lived her life on her terms, even though it was hard. If she hadn’t, how many of us would have read a book or watched a movie about an alcoholic wife living in the California suburbs? Reading this book makes me more convinced to follow my own path.

Child fully follows her passion. Hers is not about the idealistic world of Pinterest quotes on following your passion, but the real thing. She exemplifies the hardships, the multiple rewrites, the rejections, the broken relationships, and, ultimately, the fulfilled life that can come from living your passion.

Though I am still likely never going to make a sole meuniere or paté en croûte, I admire the guts, grace and chutzpah of Julia Child and will aim to be a little bit more like her every day. What she’s taught me is simple: life shouldn’t be easy; it should be interesting. Follow what you love and though it will be hard, you will live an interesting and fulfilled life.

Supermarket Snack Hacks – Plain Yogurt

Fresh cherries in coffee-chocolate flavoured yogurt. See? I told you yogurt wasn't boring.

As I promised in this post, I am back with a list of ideas on how to add some snazz to your plain yogurt.  Since most flavoured yogurts include sugar and fillers, a much better option is to buy plain yogurt that you doctor up yourself. It may may seem as dull as mud, but the trick is to think of it as a blank canvas. Because of its creamy texture and mild flavour, plain yogurt is the ultimate versatile ingredient. With a few easy switch-ups, there are a ton of possibilities! I’ll present a few of my favourites in the coming days – hopefully some of them will be new to you. I'll start with some sweet options:

Yogurt + baby food

Say what?!? You heard me, baby food. If you want your fruit-on-the-bottom fix, this is the way to do it. Baby fruit purees are essentially the same as the fruit in the fruit-flavoured yogurt but without all the pseudo-sugars and yucky additives. Keep some in the fridge and you can mix it in with your yogurt in a snap. As with many flavoured products, stick to the basic flavours - the more exotic ones (pomegranate, mango, lychee) are usually mostly apple or banana anyway. 

Yogurt + fruit puree

If the thought of taking baby food to the office is mortifying, try fruit purees, which are usually beside the puddings in the supermarket. The ones with no sugar added are a perfect complement to yogurt.

Yogurt + jam
Another great mix-in is plain old fruit jam, which is basically the fruit on the bottom without the additives. Deee-licious, people. Just watch how much of that jam you spoon in as it is very high in sugar (a teaspoon is usually enough.) Also, choose a jam that lists fruit first in the list of ingredients (you'd be surprised how many have more sugar than fruit!)

Yogurt + frozen fruit
My favourite way to jazz up plain yogurt for work is to pop in some frozen fruit before I leave in the morning. By the time I am ready for my snack, the fruit has thawed, leaving all the delicious juices to meld with the yogurt and make it really tasty. You can do this the night before and keep the yogurt in the fridge for a really flavourful snack, or even do 5 of them assembly-line style on Sunday night for the week ahead - it takes 5 minutes, tops. I always buy the pre-chopped frozen fruit to make things as simple as possible, and if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll top with nuts, honey, vanilla...whatever I have handy. Instant parfait. 

Yogurt + coffee (+ chocolate...)
There's lots of different options if you are among the fruit-averse. Pour some of your morning coffee into your yogurt, or mix some instant coffee with water and a touch of sugar and add it in. If you're feeling adventurous, add some cocoa powder or even some dark chocolate chips - it's a creamy, indulgent snack with zero guilt.

Yogurt + chai spices
I love me a cup of Indian tea, and I like to add chai spices to everything. Add some cinnamon, a touch of nutmeg (not too much - it's strong!),  some ground cardamom, and some honey to your yogurt for a refreshing summer take on chai.

Yogurt + mango
When I was pregnant, I was craving mango lassis (Indian milkshakes) almost every five minutes - I'm surprised Baby M. wasn't born yellow. I still make them every once in a while - they are refreshing, icy and absolutely delicious. Just whiz some yogourt, honey, ice, mango, milk and a pinch of salt in the blender. If you are using canned mango, skip the honey as it often has added sugar. 

Now, tell me that each of these options doesn't sound infinitely better than your plain old strawberry fruit-on-the-bottom! And the best part is, you can come up with millions more creative ideas that are just as delicious. What are your favourites?