Sundried tomatoes to the rescue

Posted by Michael on Feb 19, 2010 in Recipes | 0 comments

The February blahs.

Everybody has them.  Some worse than others.  Some solve the February blahs with a trip to a sunny locale, while others go through five bottles of expensive 4 Copas tequila in February, 2009 *cough*.

This year, the blahs are not so bad with the Olympics in Vancouver giving us a lift each day with a new reason to cheer, but still, the days are long, mostly dark and mostly dank at this time of year.

I find I tend to eat a lot of spicey, garlicky food at this time of year and look specifically for any ingredients that can provide a real lift to a dish.   Sundried tomatoes work magic with all kinds of foods.  They’re cheap, absolutely packed with flavour and healthy to boot.

Here’s a simple dish I came up with to let garlic, sundried tomatoes and pepper shine on your plate.   It goes together in the time it takes to boil some pasta so it’s a great weeknight dish, especially when it’s 6 pm and already dark outside.

Put a little sun in your next dinner!

Pasta with sundried tomato and garlic cream

Pasta for two, any stubby one will do

5-7 sundried tomatoes

2 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, peeled and very finely minced (just smash the crap out of ‘em)

1 cup 18-per cent cream (coffee cream)

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Basil, pinch of dried or a few chopped leaves of fresh if you can find it

salt and (lots of) fresh ground black pepper to taste

Bring a generously salted, large pot of water to the boil and drop in your pasta.  Scoop out a cup or two of boiling water and add it to your sundried tomatoes in a bowl.   Let that soak for a good five minutes to soften them up.   While the pasta is cooking, heat a fry pan over just medium heat (we don’t need anything browning here) and add the butter.  Once it’s just about done foaming, add the garlic and saute just for 20 seconds or so.   Add the cream and bring to a simmer.   Once the sundried tomatoes are soft, drain and chop them up.  Add to the cream and let simmer until your pasta is ready.  Just before draining the pasta, season the sauce with basil, salt and pepper and then add the parmesan cheese.  Add in the drained pasta and let simmer and soak up the goodness for a couple of minutes.  Make yourself a basil mojito or something like that at this point.   Add a bit more cream if it’s too tacky, then plate up your pasta.   Top with more parmesan cheese.