Escarole and Tomato Pasta

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I have a fridge full of beautiful, organic produce and I’m picking more up on Monday, so I’m sort of forced into getting a little more creative, stepping out of my comfort zone in an effort to utilize all this beautiful food I’m lucky enough to have access to.

I  had never prepared escarole before, so I was a little nervous.  I remembered eating it at a friend’s house when I was a teenager and was pretty sure that I could duplicate that dish.  Here’s what I did:

1 bunch escarole washed and roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic chopped
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/3-1/2 c. bread crumbs (I really didn’t measure – it doesn’t matter)

Put a big pot of water up to boil, add salt when it reaches a boil.  Drop the escarole in and allow to cook for a minute or two.  We just want it slightly cooked and bright green.  Drain and allow to rest in the colander.

In a heated, shallow pan, pour the olive oil and when it “ribbons” add the garlic and saute for a minute or so, add the bread crumbs and cook, stirring continuously until it crisps a bit.  The bread will soak up all the oil, you don’t have to add more.  Add the escarole and saute to coat and combine.  Remove from heat.

This was so delicious and I was tempted to eat it right then and there, but this was about making meals for the week so I let it cool and then put it in a tightly sealed container and put it in the refrigerator.

Today I decided we had to eat it, so I looked through the rest of the produce for what I could add to it and found the magnificent, heirloom, cherry tomatoes… and decided that escarole and tomatoes would be just wonderful with some penne rigate.

I put up a pot of salted water to boil and washed and halved the tomatoes.  I cooked two pounds of the penne rigate, drained them into the colandar, put that pot right back on the burner and added a couple of tablespoons of Olive Oil and the tomatoes.

I let them cook for a couple of minutes, just till they started to soften and release their juices.  Then I added the escarole mixture from yesterday.

Cooked it until completely heated and then added the pasta back in and tossed to combine and coat the pasta.  It seemed a little bit dry so I added a couple of splashes of vegetable broth.  Served it with a little parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and we all made grunting noises instead of having a normal family conversation around the dinner table.

Easily feeds six.

You could also use just 1lb. of pasta and have a more vegetable heavy dinner, which is what I would do next time, but this fed the whole family and had plenty for Jim’s lunch at work tomorrow.

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