Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Bounty...

While winter lingers, long and cold, it is hard to remember how bountiful the earth is. Last night I had a sweet reminder of last year's garden harvest, as I took the last of the grape tomatoes from the freezer to add to my pasta sauce.

Artichoke & Spinach Sauté

Sauté in 2 TBSP olive or canola oil:
1 medium red onion, halfed and sliced thin
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

Spash in 1/4 cup wine (red or white) or flavorful vinegar

Add the following:
1 14oz can artichoke hearts
1 1/2 cups frozen (or fresh) chopped spinach
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas or white beans
1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes quartered or halved

Season with black pepper, herbs, and a seasoned salt mix to taste. (I used black pepper and Jane's Mixed Up Salt.)

Drizzle with a bit more oil or with vegetable broth. Serve over whole wheat pasta, couscous, or just eat it in a big bowl with some bread and a salad on the side.

Notes: To make this *really* low fat, skip the oil in the first step and use only fat free veggie broth. Also, next time I hope I have mushrooms on hand. They would be amazing in this!
The amazing photo of a Jelly Bean Grape Tomato was taken by Haiku last summer!
Photo 2 by Aisling, February 27, 2007

2 comments:

Nan said...

Ah, the tomatoes of summer. I can almost taste them. How did you freeze yours? I stew and strain mine.

Marcie said...

Nan, I usually blanch my tomatoes, remove the skins and freeze them. These were just tiny grape tomatoes though, so I just rinsed them and froze them without processing. I put them on a cookie sheet in one layer until frozen, then pour them into freezer bags.