What I Made for Dinner: September 2, 2009

Pasta with roasted tomato sauce.

On Sunday night, as instructed by Everyday Food (September), I roasted fourteen tomatoes, cut in halves. (I could have roasted more, and may yet. Our tomato garden has given us an embarrassment of riches this summer.) Yesterday, a few of them were a side dish. Pretty good, too.

Tonight, I chopped up the rest, mixed them with olive oil, capers, and lemon juice, and tossed the mixture with hot penne. It was delicious, but that is not the most awesome part. This is: It took me literally twelve minutes to make dinner, not counting the time it took the water for the pasta to boil. I timed myself.

Instead of cooking, I listened to Alex have fun with his homework. His assignment was to read something and tally the "sight words" (the, and, in, on . . .) he found. He picked a children's cookbook and read through a bunch of recipes based on what looked good to him. He is an excellent reader, so the assignment wasn't really much of a challenge. But he had such a great time with it! He was studying recipes, an interest of his, and he was picking things out for us to try. And every time he found a sight word, he called it out like he'd been mining for gold. He likes first grade, and that makes me happy.