About a year and a half ago, I went to Italy with my
grandparents. Lake Garda – Gardasee
–, at the edge of the Dolomites, is about a four hour drive south-east of their
house in Bavaria, where I was visiting, and Monika suggested it would make a
nice excursion. Y’know, just pop down to Italy for the weekend, like you do.
Not a suggestion I’m apt to turn down. So we did, and it was indeed a lovely
weekend. I discovered I’m terrible at windsurfing – Garda’s apparently a mecca
for it, with reliable winds off the mountains, but I spent more time in the
lake righting my board than upright on it, and kudos to my instructor for his
patience with that. I got caught on the summit of Monte Baldo in a thunderhail
storm, and made it to shelter soaked through, muddy, and barefoot – slippery
wet sandals are slippery – just as the deluge let up. (Did I mention this was
August?) And on our last day there, Monika decided we should drive out to Valpolicella
to find a vineyard and taste/buy some wines. After a lot of winding down dirt
roads through rows of vines, we found a guy who said he’d let us into his
winery, just let him drive home and get the key to open the place up. So we had
our own private tasting, except he poured us nearly full glasses instead of
tastes, and the wine was delicious, and Monika bought a case. Driving back to
Torbole, where we were staying, it got to be around dinner time, so we stopped
at a hotel on the mountainside to eat. I ordered a pasta dish with roasted
tomatoes, sausage, and sage. It was phenomenal.
Valpolicella Roasted Tomato-Sausage Pasta
2 links Italian pork sausage
Roasted tomatoes, roughly chopped**
Fresh sage, chopped
Garlic, minced
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
Grated Romano cheese
Good-quality short pasta, like cavatelli or orecchietti
1) Heat a bit of olive oil in a pan. Crumble in the insides of
the sausage, and brown.
2) Meanwhile, set some pasta water to boil. Cook the pasta to
al dente while sauteeing other things.
3) Add the chopped tomatoes and garlic. Sautee until soft
& fragrant. Add the sage, and cook a minute more. Put in a good dose of
cheese, then salt & pepper to taste.
4) Add the cooked pasta and a splash of its water to the pan
and toss everything to combine. Serve with more grated cheese, olive oil for
drizzling, and Italian wine.
 |
| Stuff in a pan, before it becomes stuff on pasta. |
**Roasted Tomatoes, or Summer in a Jar
Basically just follow Smitten Kitchen’s recipe:
In August, when there’s more tomatoes than you know what to
do with, slice a pile of plum, cherry, or normal (not gigantic heirloom)
tomatoes in half. Set them on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and
a bit of oregano or marjoram. Add a few whole smashed garlic cloves. Drizzle
the whole thing with olive oil. Bake at ~225 for about three hours, until
things get all caramelizedy around the edges. Store in a jar in the fridge, with
olive oil high enough to cover everything.
If you didn’t plan ahead, or used up all of your tomatoes
already, or whatever, you can use store-bought jars of tomatoes in oil or sun-dried tomatoes soaked a for a bit in
hot water to soften.
