An Indulgence of Berries and Some Marinara Riffing

I went to the market seeking greens, and I found them!

• A half-pound of pearl oyster mushrooms, $4 from Joygrow
  
• A bunch of garlic scapes, $3 from Wilted Leaf
  
• A head of heirloom butterhead lettuce, $2.50 from Heritage Hill
  
• A bunch of cilantro, $1.50 from Onion Creek
  
• From Lee's Greens, one quart of strawberries ($6), four tomatoes ($6), and a bunch of basil ($1)
  
• Four cups of gooseberries, $7 from Walnut Creek
  
• A bunch of asparagus, $3 from Meow Acres

Last week the folks at Wilted Leaf said they'd have scapes this week, so I did a bit of online recipe searching and found this recipe for cilantro black rice with garlic scapes and asparagus. With that, I added asparagus, basil, and cilantro to my shopping list. I'd known I wanted to get mushrooms (I'd been hoping to get Lion's Mane mushrooms this week, but Joygrow didn't have this week), but otherwise I didn't have any major plans. And this was the first week they'd had tomatoes in--I got two "regular" tomatoes (on the left), and two the folks at Lee's Greens said were a bit sweeter.



The berries, of course, are the bank-breaker--and two different kind of berries is certainly an indulgence. But gooseberries are so rare to find! How can I pass those up?



As I've mentioned last week, I've got a ton of pasta, and with local tomatoes (HUZZAH), my choice was clear. I've made pasta sauce often enough that I can do it freestyle at this point, but this NYT recipe for fresh tomato sauce is a good place to start, if you haven't done this before.

To start off, I diced a whole white onion and set it to saute in the pan on medium-low heat. After they'd gone translucent--and a little crisp on the edges--I tossed in some minced garlic, about six cloves' worth. After about five minutes, I added in about 1/4 pound of mushrooms, also roughly diced up.







At this point, I added salt and pepper. I usually use these grinders when I'm cooking freestyle. This time around, it was 10 twists of salt and 8 twists of pepper.



After the mushrooms had reduced a bit, I added in the two regular tomatoes, which I'd roughly diced. (The NYT recipe has you grate the tomatoes so the skins are discarded, but I don't mind 'em so much.) Then I shook out some dried basil--it's rather un-strong at this point, but I'm loath to toss the bottle out. Then, saute for ten minutes or so.



After the tomatoes had reduced in side, I added in about a cup of red wine (zinfandel this time around). I let that simmer for about 15-20 minutes (the temperature was still on medium-low), then poured in a bit of heavy cream and about a tablespoon of tomato paste.




While the sauce was going, I boiled a couple of cups of pasta--mostly penne, but some fusilli as well, which added a nice visual pop. (I have a canister of all the leftover handfuls of pasta I end up with.) Once the sauce was sufficiently reduced, I mixed the pasta in. Add a generous handful of Parmesan when serving.



YUM.