Spaghetti with Red and Yellow Tomatoes

I’ve been in a bit of a food funk ever since I got back from the Grand Canyon. The cool weather made me wish that I could fast forward the next few weeks until it is fall in Vegas. I’m fed up with summer produce and I feel like I’ve eaten my weight in zucchini and tomatoes this summer.

Instead, I’m craving crisp nights where I can put the oven on and not have to worry about the house turning into a sauna. The new food magazine issues arriving in our mailbox aren’t helping either as they are filled with stick-to-your-rib comfort foods that I want to make, even though it is still far too hot to consider cooking a chili.

All of these feelings gave me total cooker’s block and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to make for the rest of the week. Yesterday I decided to go to the Farmers’ Market and hope that I would find some food inspiration. There were tons of great looking tomatoes at the Farmers’ Market and I was reminded of Barbara Kingsolver’s beautiful and intelligent book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

In this book, Kingsolver and her family decide to spend a year eating only what they can grow in their garden or can source locally. She eloquently describes the passing of each growing season and the anticipation of spring and summer vegetables after a long cold winter with little fresh produce. Thinking about this book made me turn my focus from wishing for the fall crop to arrive to focusing on enjoying the remaining fruits of summer. There are only a few more weeks left to enjoy top notch tomatoes and I know that in a few months, I will be craving for those kind of tomatoes that only summertime can produce.

To celebrate the last days of summer, I made a really simple Spaghetti with Red and Yellow Tomatoes for dinner last night. The tomatoes are the stars in this dish and reminded me that I can handle a few more weeks of summer for sure, even if it is for the sole purpose of eating good tomatoes. This pasta recipe feeds 4 people at $1.62 per serving.

Spaghetti with Red and Yellow Tomatoes
12 ounces spaghetti
1/4 cup olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
4 cups red and yellow cherry tomatoes (about 2 pounds)
1 tablespoon white balsamic or white wine vinegar
1 large bunch watercress, trimmed
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for serving

Good looking tomatoes have finally come back to our Farmers’ Market now that the weather has “cooled” down a tiny bit and the tomato plants are no longer being fried by 110+ degree weather. If you can’t find yellow cherry tomatoes, you can just use some extra red tomatoes. Or if you live in a place where you get tons of different kinds of cherry tomatoes, add as many different kinds as you can.

Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water according to the package directions until the pasta is al dente.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper, and stir for around 30 seconds. Add all of the tomatoes, and saut?© just until they are heated through, about 2 minutes. Add the vinegar and season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and save some of the cooking water to thin down the sauce.

Add the pasta to the spaghetti and stir in the watercress and 1 cup of Parmesan cheese. Toss everything together until the watercress wilts and the tomato sauce coats pasta. If you need some extra liquid in the sauce or need to thin it out, pour in a little bit of the reserved cooking water.

Serve the spaghetti with a sprinkle of fresh grated Parmesan.