Linguine with Balsamic Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes

Linguine with Balsamic Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes

As often happens in the OtherWorldly Kitchen, I see a picture of an interesting dish in a culinary magazine and then can’t locate it when I actually want to try the dish. I can’t bear to discard a great magazine, so there are stacks everywhere. That’s how this quick and easy midweek supper dish came to be: a vague memory of a picture in a magazine, several heirloom tomatoes on the counter begging to be used, and raging hunger.

As often happens in the OtherWorldly Kitchen, I see a picture of an interesting dish in a culinary magazine and then can’t locate it when I actually want to try the dish. I can’t bear to discard a great magazine, so there are stacks everywhere. That’s how this quick and easy midweek supper dish came to be: a vague memory of a picture in a magazine, several heirloom tomatoes on the counter begging to be used, and raging hunger.

I was intrigued by the idea of intensifying the flavor of the tomatoes by roasting them with herbs and aromatics and then simply laying them on top of cooked pasta. I confess that I did not expect the resulting dish to taste this divine. I merely wanted to throw together a quick meal after a demanding day at work. Isn’t it great when results EXCEED expectations?

Fresh Primer: Blueberries

Northwest Blueberries Close Up

Although blueberries are indigenous to American soil and were one of the first fruits encountered by early settlers, the blueberry industry was still a relative newcomer to Washington and Oregon agribusiness in the 1990’s when I first wrote about it in Pacific Northwest Palate: Four Seasons of Great Cooking. At that time, the industry was 25-30 years young by most accounts.

Fresh Primer: Strawberries

Honeoye Early Season Oregon Strawberries

If you ask ten people at random to name their favorite berry, eight of them will say, “strawberries of course.” And who’s to argue? In the height of Northwest strawberry season, it’s hard to imagine anything tasting better than these juicy, incredibly sweet, powerfully flavorful berries. They are simply perfection.

Spring Rhubarb & Apple Crisp with Toasted Hazelnut Streusel

Spring Rhubarb and Apple Crisp with Toasted Hazelnut Streusel

If there is a vegetable/fruit harbinger of spring in the Pacific Northwest, it is definitely rhubarb. Graceful, firm stalks of crimson red begin to appear in Northwest farmers markets in February, long before spring actually arrives. The first flush of rhubarb in the market is hothouse grown and typically paler in color and lower in [...]

Fresh Primer: Rhubarb

Boxes of Rhubarb at Portland Farmers Market

I have loved rhubarb for as long as I can remember. As kids, my brother, Daniel, and I would pilfer it from between the pickets of the deteriorating white fence that separated our yard from the neighbor’s. We thought of it as “high crime,” stealing if you will, but as I look back on our shenanigans now, I realize that no one but us gave a darn about that forgotten patch of rhubarb.

Hazelnut Honey Toffee Tart with Cranberry Variation

hazelnut-slice-white-plate

Every year when fresh cranberries hit the markets, I immediately stock up, and then almost as immediately, make this delectable tart. OK, to tell the truth, I am in the markets a few weeks early, whining to whoever will listen, or muttering to myself even, about the absence of cranberries. “Shouldn’t they be in by [...]

Fresh Corn & Chipotle Soup with Prawn, Avocado, & Lime Escabeche

Corn and Chipotle Soup

For this early Fall soup, I decided to keep the focus on the corn. It’s all too easy to overwhelm the sweet, subtle flavor of corn with other more assertive ingredients. By keeping the more assertive flavors separate, as in the accompanying escabeche, the contrasting flavors do a little jig on the palate, taking turns on center stage–rather than melding together in an incomprehensible mash.

Quintessential Mac & Cheese Roundup 2008

mac-and-cheese-ingredients

My favorite dish in the world is Mac & Cheese, especially in Green Corn Moon (September) when the leaves begin to turn brilliant shades of coral, crimson, and gold, and the shortening days begin and end with a decided chill in the air. But not just any Mac & Cheese, mind you. It must be [...]