After grumbling and grumbling that the tomatoes weren't ripening, then the blight, now the late hot weather has made them all ripen up at once! We have a tower of bowls of tomatoes at different stages of ripe! (Bottom bowl is green+ripening, with a banana; next bowl is ripe-but-hard; next bowl is ripe; next bowl is "please eat me now!!". Plus a couple of wrinklies)
What to do with them all??
The boys took a tub each of tomatoes for morning snack yesterday. They had tomato with their tea, tomato with their breakfast. I took a tub of tomatoes for snacking on at work. Today I bit the bullet and decided to cook with some.
I always feel guilty cooking with them! Of course, they're tomatoes, they're meant to be better for you when cooked (unlike most veg, which are better for you raw). But after all that effort of growing them, they should be in salads and sandwiches, or just eaten raw!
However ...
Tomato, garlic and rocket spaghetti (adapted from a recipe in Tesco Vegetarian, 2003)
Cook 9oz spaghetti + drain.
Meanwhile heat 4tbsp olive oil (seemed a lot, but who am I to argue?) in a frying pan. Add 2 large crushed garlic cloves (originally recipe said 6!! 2 was plenty) and fry until they just begin to change colour. Add 1lb 11oz very ripe vine tomatoes (or whatever mix of tomatoes you happen to have at the top of the bowl tower!), deseeded and chopped (hmm. Or just throw them in chopped - mine was a bit runnier than I think was intended! But it didn't harm it) and 12 pitted black olives (Benjamin chopped these into tiny bits, and I put them on at serving rather than now, as I don't like olives).
Heat through and add the pasta.
Finally mix in 2oz rocket (I put in a Co-op £1 bag of rocket, didn't bother to weigh it!) and toss thoroughly to help the leaves wilt in the heat. (I carried on cooking with the rocket in till it looked like cooked spinach!). Served sprinkled with grated cheese, but without the cheese would be vegan-friendly.
If Co-op didn't have rocket I was going to use baby spinach instead, which I think would have worked equally well.
I also thought about adding green beans, courgette and baby sweetcorn, but ... well, I didn't. Maybe next time.
Supposed to serve 2, served me + 2 boys for lunch, plus I have enough left over for a decent sized tea.
Calories from original recipe: 758, (30g fat, 107g carb, 21.8g protein, 178mg calcium, 5.7mh iron, 0.66g sodium, no added sugar)
I suspect the calories will be mostly the same, plus the cheese, which won't have been counted as it wasn't on the original ingredient list.