Tag Archives: tomato

Arugula Pasta Salad

11 Feb

Because eating more salads is one of my New Year’s resolutions… this is one of the versions I came up with.  They not all have to be with only fresh vegetables, you know.

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ARUGULA PASTA SALAD

¼ pound of whole wheat pasta – I used penne, but any short tubular pasta will do
1 fresh tomato, peeled and diced small
5-6 sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
5-6 fresh basil leaves, torn small or cut thinly
About 3 tbs of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp of fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, smashed
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
2 handfuls of arugula leaves, washed well and dried
½  cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced small
  1. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic clove, salt and pepper.  Mix well together and let the mixture marinate while you set up the rest of the ingredients.  While you’re preparing the rest of the ingredients, toss the mixture every so often to mix well.  You can do this a bit in advance if you want to let the mixture marinate more time… that’s up to you.
  2. Set water to boil pasta.  Boil pasta in plenty of salted water according to package directions.
  3. While pasta cooks, wash arugula lettuce well and spin dry.  Set aside.
  4. When pasta is ready, drain well and return to pot where you boiled it.  Add the tomato mixture, removing the smashed garlic clove, and coat well.  Add the parmesan cheese and toss together.
  5. Serve the lettuce in a salad bowl and place desired amount of pasta on top of the lettuce.  The olive oil in the marinated tomatoes will be your salad dressing.  Add the cucumber and sprinkle more Parmesan cheese on top if you’d like.

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Roasted Garlic and Tomato Pasta

20 Nov

When November comes around, it’s birthday time!!!!  My aunt’s, my dad’s and mine… so I decided to host a lunch to celebrate all our birthdays.  And to top it all, my sister came in from Miami to visit too, so the family was complete.

Everyone invited was not vegetarian, but because the lunch was hosted at my house, vegetarian fare was a MUST.  I had planned to make pasta – it’s the safe and easy choice; Non-threatening to the skeptical.  I was originally planning on making a pasta with gorgonzola – a dish inspired by a dinner I had in Old San Juan a couple of weeks ago.  Then, I saw 30-Minute Meals and was totally inspired by a dish Rachael Ray made…   I do not recall how she called it, but my version is called Roasted Garlic and Tomato Pasta…

 roasted-garlic-and-tomato-pasta

ROASTED GARLIC AND TOMATO PASTA

1 pound of short whole-wheat tubular pasta, penne rigate or rigatoni works well
3 handfuls of grape tomatoes, about 2 pints
1 whole head of garlic, roasted
2 handfuls of a shredded 4 cheese blend – Fontina, Parmesan, Asiago and Pecorino
1/2 cup basil leaves
3 generous handfuls of fresh baby spinach leaves
¼ cup of grated Pecorino Romano
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
  1. I roasted the head of garlic the night before…  Just take the head of garlic, cut the top off and place inside a sheet of aluminum foil.  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle a bit of water.  Close the aluminum foil to form a packet and roast in a toaster oven at 350F for 30-40 minutes.
  2. If you do not have time or just did not plan ahead… just open up the head of garlic into cloves, smash them all individually with the side of a knife.  Place them together with the grape tomatoes on a baking sheet to roast side-by-side.  Drizzle the tomatoes and smashed garlic cloves with olive oil, salt and pepper liberally.  Roast in a 350F oven for about 20-25 minutes.  The garlic smell will tell you when it’s done.
  3. When the tomatoes/garlic are about to be done, set a large pot filled with water to boil.  Salt the water as soon as it comes to a boil and drop the pasta.  Stir well to avoid the pasta sticks.  Because we’re using whole-wheat pasta, it’ll take a little longer to cook… about 12-15 minutes.
  4. In a large bowl, place all the roasted garlic cloves with the skins removed.  Smash them into a paste with a large fork. 
  5. As soon as pasta is about to be done, turn the stove off.  Take about 1 ½ cups of water and pour on top of the roasted garlic.  Mix the garlic and water and create like a “tea” of roasted garlic.  Add the roasted tomatoes and smash them together with the garlic tea. 
  6. Drain the pasta.  I always drain the pasta over a Pyrex glass bowl to reserve some of the pasta water, just in case I need some more.  Return the pasta to the pot and pour the tomato/garlic tea over it.  Mix together well so the pasta absorbs the roasted garlic liquid.  While the pot is still hot/warm, add the basil leaves and baby spinach leaves.  Mix together well so the heat of the pasta will wilt them nicely.  Add the shredded 4 cheese blend and mix well.  Cover pot for about 5 minutes to help the spinach wilt.
  7. After the 5 minutes have elapsed, serve in a beautiful pasta bowl and sprinkle with the grated Pecorino Romano.

We had a great time… everyone loved the food, specially my dad, who served himself 3 helpings.  And he’s one of the biggest skeptics of vegetarian food.  Hope you like it too… This is a very easy and delicious pasta that will feed a crowd.  It took almost no-time to make – Very care-free and perfect for entertaining.

Hope you try it and like it too…

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Tomato Mozz Salad

19 Oct

This salad is a way to rearrange the same ingredients found in a Caprese Salad, plus adding some greens in the form of lettuce to increase the nutrition and the volume.

I first did this salad in this way when visiting my sister when she was living back in Indiana.  She had all the ingredients for a caprese salad – tomato, fresh mozzarella, great olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  The only thing was that the size of the ingredients were not the traditional ones to fix a traditional caprese… we had delicious grape tomatoes and bocconcini mozzarella.  So this is how I rearranged the ingredients to make it work for us…

 

TOMATO MOZZ SALAD

10 – 12 grape tomatoes, sliced in half
4 thick slices of fresh mozzarella or 6-8 bocconcini balls, cubed
6-8 romaine lettuce leaves, sliced and hard core pieces removed
Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar
Salt and Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
2-3 fresh basil leaves – optional

 

  1. In a small bowl, mix together the tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  Add now also the basil leaves, if using.  Marinate tomatoes and cheese for about 20-30 minutes.  You can do this first and they can marinate while you prepare the rest of your meal.
  2. In a salad bowl, add the lettuce leaves and mix together with the tomato/cheese marinated mixture.  Toss to combine.  The extra mix of oil/vinegar will dress your salad beautifully.

 

The balsamic vinegar kind of “stains” the mozzarella and it looks “dirty”.  Even if the looks are not the best, the flavors are.  My sister called me once after I had left to remind her of the ingredients because she wanted to make it for company.  That’s how tasty this is…

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Easy Breezy Salad

5 Oct

Not all salads must include lettuce… especially during avocado season.

Growing up, a few slices of tomato or opening a can of corn were considered a salad side dish.  Nowadays, when I am running all over the place, and have little time to prepare a full-on meal, I usually go to my quickie salad fixes – very similar, but very different from what I used to do.

 This is a quickie and easy salad at its best…

 

EASY BREEZY SALAD

2-3 slices of avocado, chopped
½ a tomato, chopped
¼ cucumber, sliced and quartered
Extra-virgin olive oil
A sprinkle of Kosher salt

 

  1. Place all the avocado, tomato and cucumber pieces on the side of the plate.  Drizzle with a bit of the olive oil and sprinkle some salt over them.  Done!!!

 

It’s refreshing, crispy and delicious.  No need to bother with a dressing, but if you want, you can drizzle any vinaigrette you might have on hand.  It’s up to you…

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Guacamole

13 Aug

I just came back from a few days visiting my family in Miami.  And in Miami, just like in Puerto Rico, people sell produce at the street lights.  A few days back we bought 4 avocados for $5.  Amazing…  because they were all good avocados.  Sometimes when they sell them to you that cheap is because they’re not so good on the inside.  And with avocados, it’s a crap shoot.  Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you need to throw a whole avocado away.

I said they were all good, but some were too ripe and they were smashed underneath the skin next to the ones that were still under-ripe.  And that only left me one alternative to enjoy them – make an awesome Guacamole.

 

 

GUACAMOLE

1 avocado, if the flesh is firm, cut into small pieces
½ large tomato, peeled and finely diced
¼ medium onion, finely diced
The juice of 1 criollo lemon or lime
A drizzle of olive oil – about 1 tbs
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 tbs of fresh parsley (optional)

 

  1. Mix everything in a medium sized bowl.
  2. Let it stand in the fridge for a few hours so the flavors meld together. 

 

This version ended up being more mashed than what I usually like it.  But remember we started out with mashed avocados.   When I make it again, I post another picture so you can see the difference in texture.  And That’s really the only difference because the taste is equally delicious.

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