By Early August. Junior year is two weeks off — Broken Arrow High starts its 2017-18 calendar on Monday August 14th. The twenty-fifth Saturday visit was Saturday morning. Cody is on day two hundred and fifteen of his sentence. He has been re-reading his chapbook pieces all week with the volunteer editors and is in the final round of edits. He told me at the visit, with a kind of careful steady voice he has earned this year, that The Sister at the Stove is going to be the lead piece in the chapbook. The lead piece is the first one in the book. The lead piece is the one the editors have decided to put first. Cody has the lead piece. I am keeping that on the page.
The reading is at the unit on Saturday August twenty-sixth at one in the afternoon. Family copies of the chapbook will be available there. Mama and I are driving in. Aunt Tammy is driving in. Mrs. Tilford is driving in. The volunteer editors and a few staff and the seven other inmate writers in the workshop will be there. There is going to be a small audience.
And the recipe Wednesday was twenty-minute tomato pesto pasta because the schedule for the week was tight and because the frozen pesto cubes from May were the right base for the dinner. I made the pesto from the windowsill basil plant in May before Easter, and I had frozen the second batch in ice cube trays. The cubes have been in a freezer bag in the door of the freezer for three months waiting for the right Wednesday. This was the Wednesday.
The recipe is from A Couple Cooks. The technique is fast and lean: cooked spaghetti tossed with thawed pesto, blistered cherry tomatoes, a small drizzle of cream, parmesan grated on top. Twenty minutes total from start to plate.
The math: a pound of spaghetti $0.89, two pesto cubes from the freezer (free, since the basil was free), two pints of cherry tomatoes from the markdown rack at Walmart $1.99 for both, four cloves of garlic free, two tablespoons of cream from the small carton in the fridge, parmesan from the wedge $0.30 worth. Total: about $3.30 for a dinner that fed Mama and me for two nights.
The technique I want to keep is the cherry tomato blister. The cherry tomatoes go into a hot cast-iron skillet with two tablespoons of olive oil and four cloves of minced garlic, over medium-high heat. You leave them alone for three minutes — do not stir. The bottoms of the tomatoes blister and pop. Stir gently and cook two more minutes — the tomatoes burst and release their juice into the skillet. The juice becomes a quick pan sauce.
You add the cooked spaghetti directly to the skillet (drained, but with a half cup of the pasta cooking water reserved). You add the thawed pesto cubes and the cream. You toss everything together with tongs, adding a splash of the reserved pasta water as needed to loosen the sauce. The pasta absorbs the cherry tomato juice and the pesto and the cream into a glossy bright-tasting weeknight pasta.
You plate. You grate parmesan over the top. You eat in twenty minutes.
Mama got home at seven-thirty Wednesday and the pasta was ready at seven-forty-five. She said, baby, this is the cleanest dinner I have eaten all summer. The bowl really was the cleanest summer dinner I have made — the pesto from May and the cherry tomatoes from August and the basil that started as a January gift on a windowsill, all in the same bowl, on a Wednesday in the household’s second summer of being two.
The recipe is below. The trick is the cherry tomato blister and the frozen pesto cubes — if you have not frozen pesto in cubes before, do; an ice cube tray of pesto in May feeds you in August.
20-Minute Tomato Pesto Pasta
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 12 oz spaghetti or pasta of choice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 (14 oz) can crushed tomatoes
- 1/3 cup basil pesto (store-bought or homemade)
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for pasta water
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup reserved pasta water
- Parmesan cheese, for serving
- Fresh basil, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Boil the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water, then drain and set aside.
- Sauté the garlic. While the pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add minced garlic and cook for 1—2 minutes, stirring frequently, until fragrant but not browned.
- Build the tomato sauce. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and stir to combine with the garlic. Season with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Simmer over medium-low heat for 5—7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly.
- Stir in the pesto. Remove the skillet from heat and stir in the basil pesto until fully combined with the tomato sauce.
- Toss with pasta. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water a little at a time to loosen the sauce as needed.
- Serve. Divide into bowls and top with grated Parmesan and fresh basil if desired. Serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 13g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 520mg