Sunday Night Cooking

I'm finally posting about food in keeping with our bloc theme! Tonight I've had an Anne quote stuck in my head: "There's so much more scope for the imagination...." That's one of the things I like about cooking. Don't have ground nutmeg? Try a pinch of coriander instead. (Although why we have coriander and not nutmeg...)

This evening I wanted to make an Amanda Hesser recipe for pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and corn. But there was no corn, so I decided to sauté onions instead. (Sautéed onions is one of my favorite smells.) And while I was changing the ingredients, I might as well add garlic and a dash of hot curry, too, huh? That part I think was a success.

Amanda's tomatoes didn't go as smoothly. I picked fresh, ripe cherry tomatoes, sliced them in half, and put them cut-side up on a cookie sheet as per instructions. Then I drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled on salt and pepper, added breadcrumbs, and stuck them in the oven at 425 degrees. After 15 minutes, I sprinkled on some parmesan and let them cook for another 10 minutes or so. (Not exactly as she described.) But I don't think A.H.'s look like mine when she takes them out of the oven. Apparently I didn't add enough oil; the bottoms of the tomatoes were completely blackened and I had to scrape out the insides, which is mostly seeds - not the best part of a tomato! Now there's a pan with black crusted tomato guts to be scrubbed. Oh well. So we'll see whether the pasta's any good for lunch tomorrow...

My other project tonight was making nectarine shortcake from Martha Stewart. You can't go too wrong with that, can you? I followed the recipe (other than substituting a peach for two of the four nectarines), but the dough was such a sticky, gooey mess that I just scooped cakes of it onto a baking sheet instead of cutting neat little circles. They just came out of the oven and are rather flat, unbiscuit-like things. But they taste just fine, so I suppose Martha didn't let me down after all!