Recipe Flash: Labor Day Pork Burgers with Fennel

THE BEST LABOR DAY COOKOUT MENU: Avocado Quesadillas (on the grill); Pork Burgers with Thyme Mayo & Red Cabbage Crunch; String Beans with Mustard Dressing and Cured Shallots; Pomodoro Fresco Pasta Salad; Watermelon Ice Cream Cake; Spiked Lemonade

Since I was a vegetarian until recently, I haven't been a burger lover for long. In fact, throughout my life, I've never liked the texture of burgers and instead have been partial to veggie burgers and other types of patties, croquettes, and cakes. But ground beef? Not necessarily my favorite thing to mix, shape, and grill (or fry).

Enter the pork butt. Alex calls pork the Cadillac of meats, and last week at dinner we explained why to our guests at my mom's house. It's just so fatty. And fat makes a great burger.

Pork burgers are simple, flavorful, and a great change of pace if you've been grilling regular burgers all summer long. They take really well to condiments too. Mark Bittman sung their praises a while back, which is the original inspiration for this recipe. I recommended Bittman's take on the burgers to my sister Jill, who successfully made them (and who insists you must eat them on honey-wheat English muffins, which I failed to find). Jill, in turn, recommended the burgers back to me.

They were easy to make with guests in the kitchen--well, perhaps that was because I had the guests, Peter and Eileen, working as sous chefs.

those are not my hands doing the chopping

And they were easy enough to grill in the dark, though it was Peter doing the grilling, not me. (It is nice that you cook pork to a uniform done-ness, so the grillmaster is not stuck trying to suit eaters' rare, medium, or well done desires.) With the creaminess of herb-spiked mayo and the crunchiness of my mom's cabbage slaw, these burgers say Labor Day to me. Repeatedly and quite, quite loudly. Now they're yours to make this weekend.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipes**

Pork Burgers

Serves 10

Ingredients

3.5 lb ground pork*
1 stalk fennel, minced (about a cup)*
1/2 yellow onion, minced (about half a cup)*
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Lots of fresh pepper

Thyme Mayo (recipe below)

Red Cabbage Crunch (recipe below)

12 to 14 English muffins, toasted, preferably on the grill

*Tip: if your market does not have ground pork, buy the pork butt itself. Ask your butcher to cut it into 1-inch chunks. Then process the cubes in your mini prep or food processor. You can also use the processor to chop up the fennel, onion, and garlic--it's fine if they're almost like a paste.

To make the burgers, combine the ground meat, onion, fennel, salt, and as much fresh pepper as you can grind before your hands get paralyzed. Shape the burgers into 12-14 patties. (They should have a diameter of 5-6" and be 1 1/2" thick.)

Grill on a medium-high fire, with the grate set about five inches from the flames. Cook for 5-6 minutes per side, until the burgers are firm, slightly smaller than when you started, and have just the slightest trace of pink in the inside. Push the burgers to the outside of the grill, away from the flame, and grill the English muffins.

You can also broil the burgers for the same amount of time. Or you can cook them in a cast-iron pan over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes per side.

Arrange the burgers on a platter, along with the English muffins. Set out the Thyme Mayo and the Red Cabbage Crunch, and allow guests to assemble their burgers.

Thyme Mayo

Ingredients

1/3 cup mayo
1 tablespoon fresh thyme

Combine the ingredients. Scoop into a small bowl for serving.

Red Cabbage Crunch

Ingredients

1 small red cabbage, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon salt

pepper

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon neutral oil

Combine all the ingredients. Allow to sit for at least an hour. Taste and add more salt, sugar, or vinegar as needed.

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Cooking For Others: The Long Weekend Getaway

On July 4th, we shared some of our cooking strategies for long weekends away with friends with the folks over at Dine & Cook. Since Labor Day is almost upon us, we're posting them again here. We want to make sure you do your weekend (cooking) right.

One of the best parts of the long weekend away, in general, is the group eating. Unless we’ve wound up in the most rustic little cottage, preparing meals in the comfort of a breezy house kitchen is a pleasant change of pace from those made in our dinky apartments back in the city. But the cooking challenges of a group getaway are many. There are a lot of mouths to feed. There are no bodegas on the corner. There’s more planning and less reliable equipment. There may not be a fully stocked pantry. There are expensive trips to the grocery store. And, perhaps worst of all, there are hungry friends, hovering around, who, in spite of varying levels of kitchen prowess, insist on “helping.”

As more experienced cooks, there’s a part of us that wants to be the CEOs of the weekend’s meal plan. We want to eat well, spend some time stirring and sautéing, and perhaps work with some local ingredients. But we also don’t want to slave away during our two days of relaxation. And we certainly don’t want to spend a fortune. To have fun, our proprietary instincts must be diffused a little, our grip on the menus ever so slightly loosened. We’ve perfected a strategy, honed at weekends at friends’ houses during college and at summertime getaways in the three summers since we’ve graduated school.

It’s not a plan to follow exactly, but it does have a couple crucial rules of thumb we’d like to elaborate on. Read on for the secrets to feeding hungry quarter-lifers during a Labor Day weekend away, or any other opportunity you and your friends find to get out of town.

From our kitchen, moved as far from the city as possible, to yours,

Cara and Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOKS

**Strategies**

Pack a Meal
Make a dish before you leave town. Pack it in good tupperware and stow it in a tote. This can be a baked chicken that keeps and reheats well, without requiring the oven to be on for hours upon arrival. Or grilled vegetables and pesto on baguette for a picnic in the car en route. It could be quickbread or muffins for breakfast. It could be cookies. But while sweets double as a hostess gift, they don’t necessarily count as a meal. When you bring a fully made meal, you prevent group decision-making and shopping. You can buy the ingredients at a store you’re used to and where you know where the bargains are. Plus, you’ve got your pantry and your tools to cook with. And no friends hanging around to distract you. People will be really happy to sit down to a whole meal, especially after a long trip.

Portable Recipes: Chicken Marbella (pictured); Ancho Chicken Sandwiches with Avocado and Chipotle Mayonnaise; Carrot Cake

Delegate the Meat
We’re forward-thinking, modern women, but we’re able to admit the truth in some gender stereotypes. Which is why we say: Grill for dinner, and put the dudes in charge. They’ll shop, marinate the meat (which they’ve spent more money on than you would have), light up the barbecue, all with great enthusiasm and pride. The meat will be good, genuinely really good. This may not have been the case if you tried to delegate say, the salad. While the guys are grilling, everyone else can make sides: bread, corn, salad, pasta—whatever.

Recipes: Guinness-Marinated Steak (recipe follows); Carne Asada with Chipotle Mango Salsa; Man Burgers; Turkey Burgers; Mediterranean Lamb Burgers

Make Guacamole
Guacamole is the most delicious summer snack food. Everyone likes it. We think we have the best recipe (find it below). Granted, if you make it in a group, you’ll find that everyone thinks that. But since you can’t mess up guacamole (with the exception of using unripe avocados...don’t do that), that’s an acceptable delusion. One guy Cara spent a weekend with sprinkled dried cumin in his guac. She was skeptical, but it was great. And the best part of guacamole is that it’s a unifier. It’s vegetarian, not unhealthful, and satisfying. All you need for completion are tortilla chips, and maybe some carrot sticks for dipping. You don’t need any other snacks around at all if you have enough chips and guacamole, though we do allow for a purchased salsa or two. This preserves focus at the grocery store, and it saves money.

Recipe: Guacamole

Breakfast
Breakfast may be the best meal to take complete control of, especially if you’re an early riser—or are relegated to sleeping on the couch by the kitchen. No one cares exactly when it happens, and people tend to be much less picky about how it happens. You can spend a nice quiet 45 minutes in the kitchen before anyone gets up, which can be a nice pause in a weekend full of people, drinking, and fun.

Recipe: Breakfast Burrito Buffet; Yogurt Pancakes; Spinach Hash Browns

Find the Cleaner-Uppers
There’s not much worse than waking up after a night of boozing by the pool to find browning guacamole on the dishes that are scattered all over. In a given group, there will be people with high guilt reflexes. These are the people you need to locate. Make one tiny reference to the fact that you’ve done all the cooking and they’ll jump on the chance to clean. Suddenly, you’re no longer in charge. Bring in a few plates from the table, ask if you can do anything to help, but you’re no longer the one responsible. However, if it’s the host who gets stuck spearheading the clean-up, our morality says you do need to get back on the bandwagon, pick up a broom, and get moving.

**Recipes**

Guinness-Marinated Steak
Makes 10 servings

2 cloves garlic, pushed through a press, or finely minced
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons salt
1 pint Guinness
4 pounds flank steak

In a large dish or bowl, combine the garlic, mustard, salt, and guiness. Stir to combine. Place the steak in the marinade and place, covered lightly, in the fridge for 1-2 hours (it may take this long for the guys to figure out how to use the grill). Grill to medium-rare. Slice and serve.

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Cooking For Others: New Chickpeas

MORE ABOUT MOROCCO: What I Ate in Morocco; Fish Tagine with Chermoula, Mint, and Preserved Lemon; Fig and Walnut Cake; Merguez and Green Chard Tagine; Preserved Lemon Aioli

Getting back from Morocco, everybody (including Ms Phoebe) warned me that my culinary predilections would take a turn towards the North African. Whereas I've returned from some vacations tired of local food and aching to get back to my regular meals ("no more croissants!" "please, enough of the gelato!"), when I arrived home after ten days away, I wanted to keep eating the tagines, flatbreads, and simple sautes I'd been enjoying. Not to mention the Schweppes Citron, which grew on me as an afternoon refresher perhaps more than I should admit.

Though I left Morocco with only taste memories of certain foods, I did import my fair share of ingredients. In my carry-on were cinnamon (ground and in stick form), awesome saffron, ras el hanout, m'sakhen, and preserved lemons. A day or two after arrival, these chickpeas are what I made.

One thing I learned from eating--and cooking--in Morocco is the difference between spiced and spicy. At home, I don't go crazy with the spices, but I have been known to overdo it on the cayenne. I'm used to making spicy foods. In Morocco, hot pepper doesn't seem so important. But the spoonfuls of pretty much every single other spice were far more copious than I'd seen or imagined. I also discovered a high proportion of onions in Moroccan food. For every small onion in my standby tomato sauce, there would be three to four onions, I think, if the tomato sauce were Moroccan.

When I went to make these chickpeas, I was much less modest than I usually am about drowning them in cumin, paprika, turmeric, and my new baggie of ras el hanout. It was fun to be so extravagant about something, even if it was just spices, which unlike money sort of do grow on trees.

The other part of this meal, a flatbread, was my first attempt to recreate the rich, flaky, stretch flatbreads that were everywhere in Morocco. Though what I made were definitely good, they were by no means what I was after. I'm going to consult some Paula Wolfert, some more internet recipes, and look into Jamaican roti, which are actually sort of similar. Then I'll report back on the flatbread. For now, be content with these spiced, melt-in-your-mouth chickpeas and the flatbread recipe-in-progress.

From my kitchen, spicing up beans, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipes**

Moroccan Chickpeas

Makes 3 servings

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons ras el hanout

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 cans chickpeas

2 tomatoes, peeled* and coarsely chopped

*To peel tomatoes, bring a small pot of water to the boil. Submerge them in the water for 1-2 minutes. Remove. When cool enough to handle, slip off the skins.

Warm the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for about another minute. Put in all the spices, substituting a little extra of each for the ras el hanout if you don't have any. Pour in the chickpeas with about half of their liquid, and add the salt, the chopped tomatoes, and 1/3 cup water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for fifteen minutes, checking to make sure the chickpeas don't dry out (add some more water if so). Taste for seasoning, and serve.

Attempted Flatbreads

Makes 4 breads

Ingredients

1/2 cup flour

2 tablespoons cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup oil

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Pour 1/4 cup of lukewarm water over, and stir to turn into a ball.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Cover with the overturned bowl and leave for another ten minutes.

Divide the dough into four pieces. Take one, and using your fingertips, stretch it out as thin as it will go without breaking.

Brush liberally with oil. Fold it into thirds, by folding the two edges in towards the middle. Turn ninety degrees, then fold into thirds again. Repeat with the remaining breads.

Heat a castiron pan over medium heat for several minutes. When it's hot, stretch one of the breads out slightly, so it's about 3 inches by 5 or 6 inches. Cook it in the dry pan for 2-3 minutes until it has developed some dark marks, then flip it. Brush the top with more oil. After another 2-3 minutes, flip the bread again, brushing the second side with oil. Flip once more, cook for just 1 more minute, then remove. Repeat with the remaining breads, keeping the finished ones warm under a cloth.

Serve as soon as you're done cooking all the breads.

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Recipe Flash: Creamy Gazpacho

WEEKEND LUNCH: Creamy Gazpacho; Radicchio and Mozzarella Toasts; Coffee-Toffee Ice Cream Sandwich Squares

I didn't notice this recipe published in the Times (oops), but luckily someone else did: my mom's friend Shelly. She served it to my mom for dinner, (complete with the pecorino crisps Melissa Clark paired with the soup), and it made such an impact I was duly notified of it the next day. The following weekend, Mom and I made it for lunch, starting off with this beauty of an heirloom tomato.

Altogether, it was a very, very easy meal, not just because we paired the gazpacho with cleaned and cooked shrimp and pre-made cocktail sauce. Whereas in many gazpachos, you've got to dice lots and lots of vegetables, in this one you stick everything into the blender and boom, lunch is served.

How have you tweaked basic gazpacho recipes? I'm curious to hear about experiments with this soup, from the most authentic to the most bizarre. Do share in the comments!

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Creamy Gazpacho
Adapted from The New York Times
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 large tomato (about 1/2 pound), cored and roughly chopped
3/4 cup (6 ounces) plain yogurt, nonfat, lowfat, or regular
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
10 basil leaves
1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped
1 scallion (white and light green parts), roughly chopped
1/2 jalepeno pepper, cored and minced
2 ice cubes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, more to taste
Ground black pepper to taste.

Place tomatoes, yogurt, olive oil, 6 basil leaves, garlic, scallion, jalepeno, ice cubes, salt, vinegar, and black pepper in a blender. Purée until smooth. Taste and add more salt and vinegar, as necessary.

Pour the soup into two bowls and garnish with olive oil and the remaining four basil leaves. Give it a good grind of fresh pepper.

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Working With What You Have: Preserved Lemons

DISHES: Zucchini-Fennel Slaw; Tuna Burgers with Lemon Paprika Aioli
TYPE: Casual Weeknight Dinner
MAIN INGREDIENT: Preserved Lemons

Over the course of the past year, three of my close friends have been to and from Morocco. For me, this has meant lots of gifts, in the form of lots and lots of spices. I transferred most of them from their various plastic baggies, jars, and sacks into empty canisters on my spice rack. And now that time has passed and the Berber blends have doubled, I have no idea what any of them are.

When Cara returned from Morocco last month, I knew she wouldn't come empty handed. I was even more thrilled, however, to see that in her hot little hand was not a bundle of spices, but a jar of preserved lemons. I've been told you can make these from scratch, but when my mother and I have tried our hand at various tagines--mainly this fish version--she's always ordered them from here.

I was very excited to have the real thing at my disposal. Preserved lemons have this incredible flavor that almost tastes like perfume. In fact, when I worked in fragrances, I often thought how someone should attempt to recreate the taste of preserved lemons as a scent. As you can imagine, this quality means a little goes a long way. But that didn't stop me from adding the rind, and a hint of that perfume-y quality, to every aspect of this meal.

I made this dinner for Caitlyn, who, since she is no longer my roommate for the summer, I don't get to see as much as I would like to. She came uptown, and I hoped she didn't mind that I went a little crazy with the preserved lemons. The slaw I made was reminiscent of some of the cold vegetable salads that usually start a meal in Morocco--less due to the fennel, and more the heaps of cilantro, lemon juice (regular), and lemon rind (preserved) I used to flavor it.

But perhaps my best success with Cara's gift was the lemon-paprika aioli I used to top these tuna burgers. I've since used it to jazz up a turkey sandwich and as a condiment for fries, which has kept the preserved lemon love flowing for quite some time.

From my kitchen, where a little lemon goes a long way, to yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipes**

Zucchini-Fennel Slaw with Preserved Lemons and Cilantro
Makes about 3-4 cups

Ingredients
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 medium zucchini, coarsely grated
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced preserved lemon peel
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and toss to combine. Serve alongside the burgers, or use it to top them.


Tuna Burgers with Lemon Paprika Aioli
Makes 2 burgers

Ingredients
1/2 pound yellowfin tuna, finely chopped
1 tablespoon hot Dijon mustard
1 small shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 whole wheat burger buns, toasted
1/4 cup lemon paprika aioli (recipe follows)
1 handful arugula

Combine the tuna, mustard, shallot, garlic, lemon juice, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Fold together with your hands until well combined. Form the mixture into two large patties. Set aside on a plate and chill, covered, in the fridge until ready to use.

Coat a large skillet with olive oil and set it over high heat. When very hot, add the burgers. Cook on the first side until very brown--the sides will begin to become opaque--about 3-4 minutes. Flip the burgers and cook for another 2 minutes, until the other side is beginning to become opaque, but the burger is still raw in the center.

Slather both sides of the buns with aioli, top them with a burger and a handful of arugula. Serve immediately.


Lemon Paprika Aioli
Makes about 1/2 cup

Ingredients
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tsp minced preserved lemon peel or lemon zest
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash cayenne pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small food processor, or whisk together by hand. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

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Baking For Others: Watermelon Cake

Surprise!

This green semi-sphere is not something Shrek shed on my mom's counter.

It's a watermelon cake. And I'm posting about it to celebrate my sisters' birthdays--Jill's was yesterday and Kate's is tomorrow. Happy Birthday Jill and Kate!!

I've got an autumn birthday myself so I don't know the pain firsthand, but from what I remember of elementary school, summer birthday kids got a little short-shrifted when it came to celebration. Those of us with birthdays from September to June got our own day, our own batch of cupcakes, and our own rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," and it wasn't hard to plan weekend birthday parties, since no one's on vacation in October.

But before everyone dispersed for family vacations or camp, I remember the summer birthday kids would share one batch of cupcakes, on one afternoon, to the tune of one "Happy Birthday to You [plural]." My sympathy was not even lessened by the thought that they were guaranteed good weather or by the fact that we always had fun celebrating my sisters' birthdays.

As we've mentioned before, we don't love turning on the oven in the heat. In August, birthday cakes are therefore often less involved than their winter and springtime counterparts. Kate and Jill sometimes got the famous chocolate cake for dessert, but they sometimes requested something cooler. Such as this watermelon cake.

My mom first made this dessert at some time during my childhood. It was as awesome then as it is now, and it inspired a lifelong affection for raspberry sorbet topped with chocolate chips aka watermelon seeds. It's simple in that it only requires four ingredients, but it is a little complicated in terms of technique--you're working with melty ice cream in the heat, and that can turn thing sticky. Crazily enough, Phoebe and I made this in the makeshift condo kitchen on our spring break trip to Costa Rica a few years ago, somehow serving it to twenty friends before it melted.

I think it's become harder to find green ice cream or sherbet recently. We used to buy a cheap, unbranded gallon of pastel green lime sherbet from the supermarket, but apparently health consciousness has done away with the availability of that. My mom's friend Renee suggested using green tea ice cream, which she found at Walbaum's. After spending a while at the freezer case, I wound up buying three cartons of Edy's Spumani ice cream and fishing out the green pistachio from the strawberry and chocolate that shared the gallon. The pistachio tasted delicious, so it was all for the best. Worst case scenario, you can use vanilla--just dye it green with food coloring before using. And don't criticize me for using fake green ice cream. This cake is worth it. Just imagine the delight of your sisters or guests when you slice into this big round green thing to find it looks just like a watermelon, and tastes even sweeter.

From my kitchen, wishing my sisters the happiest of birthdays, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Watermelon Cake

Makes about 20 servings

You can modify this recipe according to what you have. If your bowl is smaller, reduce the quantities; if larger, increase them. Just be sure to clear a space in the freezer for the bowl you choose, and make sure that space also fits whatever platter you serve the cake on. On the off chance that there are leftovers.

Ingredients

3 cups green ice cream or sherbet

2-3 cups lemon sorbet

5 cups raspberry sorbet or sherbet

1 cup mini chocolate chips

Clear a space in your freezer that will fit the bowl you're using. I like to turn down the freezer temperature a notch or two.

Leave the green ice cream out on the counter until it reaches an icing-like consistency. You want it to be easy to spread, but not at all liquidy.

Meanwhile, cover a 10-12 cup bowl with overlapping sheets of tin foil.

Spread the softened green ice cream evenly across the bowl. If it starts to slide down from the top edges, freeze it for 30 minutes or so, then press it into place. Freeze the bowl for about 2 hours, until the ice cream is quite hard.

While the green layer is chilling, soften the lemon sorbet. Spread a thin layer across the surface of the green ice cream, smoothing to cover it completely. Freeze again, until the lemon sorbet is hard.

Soften the raspberry sorbet and place it into a large bowl. Sprinkle in the chocolate chips and stir to distribute them evenly.

Remove the green and white watermelon cake from the freezer. Spoon the raspberry sorbet into the cavity and smooth the top. Cover with plastic wrap, then a tight layer of tin foil.

Freeze overnight.

When you're ready to serve, invert the cake on a flat serving platter. Lift off the bowl, then carefully peel off the foil. Smooth the cake with a plastic spatula dipped in warm water before. Serve immediately--quick! before it melts.

To store the cake, flip it back into the bowl in which you made it. Cover with plastic wrap and foil and freeze.

The damage: a sorbet and ice cream-soaked paper towel, with candles
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Recipe Flash: Capellini with Roasted Yellow Tomatoes

TOP 5 SUMMER PASTAS: Linguine with Littlenecks, Tomatoes, and Corn; Garlicky Angel Hair with Shellfish; Pomodoro Fresco Pasta Salad; Summer Squash Angel Hair; Rainbow Rice Noodle Salad with Chicken

If you're not already outside firing up the grill, pasta is as good a way as any to get in and out of the kitchen very fast. Capellini or angel hair takes only 4 minutes to cook, so if your strategy is to minimize heat and maximize speed, these long skinny shapes will be your savior.


But this summer I'm not afraid to turn on my oven--especially when the result of doing so is baked tomatoes. After my success with the larger versions, I popped a few cherry tomatoes in the oven to let them get blistered, sweet, and caramelized. After 10 minutes or so, they burst, and the pan became saturated in their juices. As they continued to cook, the sauce thickened and became an ideal topping for a vehicle like simple chicken breasts or, in this case, pasta.

You can roast the tomatoes in advance, then toss them with the capellini, and a little bit of the pasta water when you are ready for dinner.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Phoebe, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Roasted Yellow Tomato Capellini
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients
1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes (you can use regular)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pound capellini
1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil
2 tablespoons grated parmesan (optional)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.


In a large cast iron skillet or baking dish, toss the tomatoes together with the salt, sugar, and olive oil. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the tomatoes have released a lot of liquid and their skins have begun to burst.

Turn the heat up to 500 degrees and cook for another 10 minutes, until the skins are blistered. Set aside to cool.


In the meantime, bring a pot of salted water to boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente (about 3 minutes). Drain and add to the pan with the tomatoes. Toss to combine and taste for seasoning. Sprinkle with fresh basil and parmesan (if using), and serve immediately.
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