Meatless Monday: Penne With Roasted Tomatoes
Tara Donne
One of my favorite recipes from Ellie Krieger is her Penne with Roasted Tomatoes, Garlic, and White Beans. Ordinarily, I'm no fan of out-of-season, winter tomatoes, but when you roast them, it deepens their flavor and makes them sweeter. And the garlic in the recipe is roasted, too, making its flavor more mellow and sort of nutty. The roasting part of this recipe takes about 40 minutes, but if you've got the time, it's totally worth it; it makes it seem as if tomato season wasn't seven months away.
The roasting is inactive so you'll be able to do something better with your time while you're waiting for the tomatoes to be ready. Once the tomatoes are done, the recipe comes together in about 10 minutes.
Yield:4 (1 1/2 cup) servings
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Slice each tomato into 8 wedges and discard the seeds. Put the tomato wedges and garlic into a 9 by 13-inch roasting pan. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and a few turns of pepper. Roast in the oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.
Drain the beans into a large colander in the sink. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain the pasta into the colander containing the beans, so the hot pasta water will warm the beans. Return drained pasta and beans to the pasta pot.
When the tomatoes are done, pick out the garlic cloves, squeeze the garlic out of the skin into a small bowl and mash with a fork. Pour the roasted tomatoes into the pasta pot, add the garlic, the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the basil and additional salt and pepper, to taste. Toss to combine. Serve topped with the Parmesan.
Since the Meatless Monday movement took off, chefs and restaurants have joined, offering meat-free specials to patrons on Mondays; celebrities have spoken and tweeted about their commitment to Meatless Mondays; many schools and universities now offer more meat-free options to students, especially on Mondays and national food brands offer special discounts and coupons on meatless products. But food bloggers have one of the largest collective voices when it comes to giving up meat once a week.
Some -- the vegan and vegetarian bloggers -- have always been so, but others choose to go meatless on their blogs every Monday, in support of the movement. Check out the list of bloggers who go meatless every Monday, like Foodie Tots, Appetite for Conversation, Circle B Kitchen and Mosaic Kitchen, and if you're a food blogger who goes meatless on Mondays, let the folks at Meatless Monday know so they can add you to their round-up.
