Every time I come upon a tomato grown in our garden, I exclaim, “hello, gorgeous!”

My garden and the farmer’s market are booming juicy ripe tomatoes.  We have been enjoying tomatoes with reckless abandon with simple preparation: in BLT’s, in a caprese salad or sliced on their own.  Another delicious and simple preparation that honors a juicy tomato is this uncooked tomato pasta sauce that I tossed with hot whole grain spaghetti.  It contained sliced and chopped tomatoes, two chopped sweet Italian peppers, a clove of garlic- minced, chopped flat leaf parsley, basil, and a few dashes of red wine vinegar and the tiniest drizzle of olive oil.  I mixed up the sauce and left it raw, then tossed it with the pasta, cooked al dente.  I topped it with fresh cracked pepper, a little salt and a ball of Buratta: fresh mozzarella with a creamy center, opened for scooping a spoonful on to each plate. The Burrata is a nice texture compromise between ricotta and regular fresh mozzarella and really made this lush.  This was a fabulous summer pasta and an easy way to focus entire meal on tomatoes, raw and in their finest form: juicy and warm from the vine.  Summer’s lease hath too short a date!  Dig in!  My recipe is a mash-up of recipes from Martha Stewart (here and here) and from a recipe from Bon Appetit, with the addition of Burrata from my own imagination.

After a break from blogging over the summer, I’ve decided to make shorter posts more the norm.  I’ll be interested to hear what you think.