linguine with heirloom tomato, capers, anchovies, and chile/roasted broccoli and garlic with lemon juice and grated cheese

OK, I am officially getting repetitive, but you know what? I am just going to power through and go with it. This is how I cook: with an admittedly nearly bottomless appetite for pasta! And you know what? I don't get tired of it, so hopefully you all can get through one more tomato sauce and spaghetti recipe. Just hang in there, and I'll reward you with a nice broccoli dish. You can do it!

blt spaghetti

OK so this post is basically "spaghetti with tomatoes and some other stuff part two." I hope that's alright. I know that everyone who cooks regularly has their usual fall back tricks in the kitchen, and I am anything but an exception. Yes, I will admit it: I am entirely too dependent on pasta and tomatoes and garlic and cheese and onions and cracked black pepper. I just can't help myself. Can you accept me as I am? Please? OK great, thanks.

pasta with sun gold tomatoes

Hi guys. Just another little pasta dish for you all. I am nothing if not an inveterate collector of pasta recipes, as you have probably come to realize. This one appealed to me largely due to the name: pasta with sun gold tomatoes. Sun gold! How delicious does that sound? A good adjective will get me every time. For example: farm fresh. Call me a total sucker, but I am probably about 15% more likely to order something if it is described as farm fresh. Embarrassing, but true.

charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint and red pepper flakes

Just one simple dish for you today: charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint. Originally it was supposed to be "with harissa and mint," but I don't have harissa. Actually, I didn't even know what it was, but I looked it up, and it's a spicy hot chili sauce from North Africa, so I decided I could just use chili powder. As you probably know, I'm kind of a wimp about spicy food anyway, so I didn't lose too much sleep over it.

grilled mustard chicken with scallions/shredded kale salad with avocado and tomatoes

So it's a rare opportunity that I get to grill anything, being that I am afraid that I would set the roof of my building on fire were I ever to follow through on my dream of dragging a webber up there. Therefore, I was really excited when my brother suggested we commander mom and dad's grill one evening and throw a barbeque for our friends back in August, before he went back up to Cobleskill for school.

Of course, that failed to take into account that our parents live an hour from the city, and that none of my friends were going to come out after a long week of work for a Friday night dinner party. So instead Nathan and Matt and I cooked everything for Mom and Dad instead. I think they were pretty happy to get to eat all the good stuff we made, and it was a really nice family meal, on a beautiful cool summer night, out in the backyard, crickets chirping. Our friends definitely missed out!

creamed corn two ways/warm corn and tomato salad with sesame oil and soy sauce

It's still pretty warm here in New York. Yesterday it was like 65 degrees, and as I sat outside in a blazer at lunch and read my book, and I could almost imagine it being a cooler June day! But alas, it is November, and the holidays are rapidly approaching, and beautiful fresh summer corn is a distant memory....

But I am still going to talk about it. Three different recipes for it, no less.

salad nicoise

Salade Niçoise is pretty complicated, as far as salads go. I mean, most salads do not involve cooking multiple components in what is ultimately a cold dish, lightly dressed in vineagrette. Not that I'm complaining, because a Niçoise salad is really good, and while it is filling enough to be a meal on its own, it isn't totally gluttonous to the point that it negates all the healthy connotations that go along with eating a salad for dinner. It's got potatoes and hard boiled egg, and some salty anchovies and capers, but all in all it is light and fresh. Laura suggested we make it one day when we had green beans and lettuce and tomato and potato from the food co-op, and it turned out delicious.

eggplant parmesan

The first time my parents (and I think my brother) met Nathan, he came out to Long Island and he and Matt and I went out to a medieval festival in Port Washington. We tried on chain mail head pieces and watched some cool jousting and a Maypole and then there was a fight for the crown and the queen was abducted and there was a siege of the castle with flaming arrows and oh my god what was I talking about?

Gosh that was awesome. We went back the next year and it was pretty much exactly the same, so much of the novelty had worn off, but that first year was pretty magical. And how about that first dinner with Nathan and my family?

Before the medieval fair, my dad and I woke up early and thinly sliced a bunch of eggplant, salted it and layered it between sheets of paper towels. Then we stacked some heavy books on top and let gravity do the work, pressing out the water. If you haven't guessed already, we made some delicious eggplant parmigiana.

roasted tomato and onion pasta

You know I can't resist my spaghetti. If I don't know what to make for dinner, 75% of the time it'll wind up being up pasta. On this particular night I started out with a basket of plum tomatoes, and decided to roast them with some onions, olive oil and salt and pepper.

Of course, when they were in the oven and I was deciding what to serve with them, I fell back on that old stand by, spaghetti.

rosemary lemon garlic lamb chops grilled with tomatoes and onions/horseradish potato salad/grilled pineapple with vanilla ice cream

This past weekend Nathan's mom and stepmom came to New York to visit, and we spent Saturday battling the storm, only to eventually retreat back to Nathan's grandma's house to prepare an easy, rib sticking dinner to help us warm up from the sleet and snow.

This is not that meal. Instead, I am going to turn back the clock to the dinner that I prepared with Nathan's help the last time I saw Tenli and Marie, back in sunny California this summer. Just as I did when I stayed with Aunt Elise and Uncle Ed at their home, I wanted to prepare a nice meal as a thank you for their hospitality.