Hey, Good Lookin. What'cha got cookin?

Tomatoes cored and scored with and "x." Ready for the hot water.

Plunged into a cold water bath and losing their skin.

Diced and ready to simmer down.

Saucy.

I'm not a great cook. No one gets overly excited at the prospect of coming over to my house for a meal (not like we do when we get to eat John and Lindsay's food!). I'm all right at it. But chef or not, I was pretty productive in the food department this past week.

After making the summer squash and potato torte I tackled this pesto pasta recipe. I neglected to take a photo, but, trust me, it was delicious. I'd highly recommend it. After reading this post, I decided to make my pesto with my mezzaluna instead of blending it. It was deliciously gritty instead of pasty. Try it.

But, wait, there's more. Before we drove off into the Michigan sunset for the long weekend (wherein we took a night off to see the Silver Jews!) I panicked and went about freezing most of the produce in our refrigerator, lest it go bad. I froze bell peppers, leeks, an enormous amount of sweet corn, etc. Then I looked at the pile of roma tomatoes overtaking our small kitchen and decided to tackle this tomato sauce. I've never made tomato sauce from scratch. It's quite involved, but not difficult, per se. After an hour and a half the 15-20 tomatoes had simmered down to about a quart-sized bag worth of sauce. Not much, but enough to make me feel like it was worth it. I think.

All that freezing and preserving made me feel like a good old fashioned settler for a minute. But after the Volvo ride North, the Ipod shuffling, magazine reading, Jimmy John's sub, and Silver Jews extravaganza, I came back down to reality. And unhooked my bun.