From its beginnings a little more than five years ago, The Skillet Chronicles has been great fun.  For a veteran food journalist used to working in collaboration on assignments, it has been exhilarating to connect directly with readers and write about whatever fascinated me at the moment.  I learned so much along the way, exploring unfamiliar produce and expanding my culinary chops.  The best part was hearing from you, dear readers, about recipes that delighted you and nourished your families.

Now, I’m afraid I need to take a sabbatical for at least a couple of months. Some health issues require me to focus my attention elsewhere.

But I didn’t want to take my leave before I shared with you this simple snack cake recipe I’ve been fiddling with for nearly a year.

My mother used to make this Depression-era treat, which she called Hobo Cake, on the spur of the moment. The ingredients always could be found in her pantry. It made a terrific little cake with rich flavor, great texture, and an irresistible broiled coconut topping. It didn’t even require a mixer.

I had the recipe, handwritten on note paper, stashed away in my files for years. Then my mother was gone and the recipe vanished. I searched my files now and then, hoping it had slipped behind another recipe or had been stashed in the wrong category. But I never found it again.

Last winter I decided that the recipe surely would show up somewhere on the Internet if I just dug deeply. Though I eventually found a number of Hobo and Hillbilly cakes in obscure cooking forums, none of them was quite right. Too many started with cake mixes and the frosting, my favorite part, always missed the mark.

The big breakthrough came when I decided to check out my mother’s old 1945 edition of “Better Homes and Garden Cook Book,” tucked away on a bookshelf with several later editions. I might page through them now and again for sentimental reasons, but I never used them.

Right there at the top of Chapter F, Page 21 was the recipe for broiled coconut frosting that I had been looking for. It called for cream rather than the sweetened condensed milk in my mother’s original recipe, but I could tell immediately that it would be perfect.

So, here it is, my mother’s Hobo Cake revived. It may be humble in origin, but it still tastes as great as it did so many years ago. It would be a shame to lose such a wonderful old recipe.

Hobo Cake

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

45 mins

 

My mother used to make this Depression-era treat, which she called Hobo Cake, on the spur of the moment. The ingredients always could be found in her pantry. It made a terrific little cake with rich flavor, great texture, and an irresistible broiled coconut topping. It didn’t even require a mixer.

Author: Evelyn Polk (adapted by Aleta Watson)

Serves: 9 servings

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup butter or margarine
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

For the frosting:

• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• ⅔ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 1 cup moist, shredded coconut
• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch square baking pan. Stir together flour, soda, and walnuts in a small bowl.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine raisins, water, sugar, butter and spices. Bring to a boil, then let cool for 5-10 minutes. Stir in flour and walnut mixture with a wooden spoon just until all the flour disappears into the batter. Scrape batter into prepared baking pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 25 minutes, until a small, sharp knife comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake.
3. Just before the cake is done, stir together the melted butter, brown sugar, cream, coconut and vanilla in a small saucepan until sugar melts and ingredients are thoroughly blended.
4. Switch oven temperature to broil. Spread frosting mixture evenly over top of warm cake and slide under broiler, watching carefully so the topping browns nicely but does not burn.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 9

3.2.2929

There was a dusting of fresh snow on the ground this morning and warm pumpkin scones on the kitchen counter.

I’ve been on a pumpkin kick lately.  Cold weather seems to call out for the sunny color and mellow flavors of  winter squash. Besides, nothing goes better with festive spices, fresh cranberries and walnuts.

These scones began with my efforts to use up the pumpkin puree left over from my Thanksgiving dinner rolls.  As I cast about for ideas, I stumbled upon this recipe in “The Cheese Board Collective Works,” a compendium of great baked goods from the members of Berkeley’s Cheese Board Collective (Ten Speed Press, 2003). I substituted yogurt for the heavy cream and added fresh cranberries and walnuts.

In contrast to most biscuit-like scones, these are soft and cakey with a crackling cinnamon sugar crust.  The pumpkin gives them a velvety texture and rich flavor that pairs well with the wintry spices of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Whole fresh cranberries add zing and walnuts contribute crunch.

They’re great with a morning cup of tea but I’m thinking of serving these at a holiday brunch.  I’ve stashed a batch in the freezer just in case I get my act together to pull off a last-minute party.

The Cheese Board recipe calls for mixing the dough in a stand mixer, but the results are much better if you work the butter in by hand.  If you want to try it, check out this earlier post for some tips on technique.

Just avoid the food processor unless yours is extremely large and powerful. I nearly killed my 11-cup Cuisinart when I tried it to use it for one batch of the heavy, sticky dough. The blade stopped whirling in the middle of the job and refused to budge.

I’ve added a little more flour to the recipe to make it less sticky, but I’m still not going to risk the food processor again.

Scones as good as these are worth the extra effort of mixing them by hand.

Pumpkin Scones

 

Print

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

In contrast to most biscuit-like scones, these are soft and cakey with a crackling cinnamon sugar crust. The pumpkin gives them a velvety texture and rich flavor that pairs well with the wintry spices of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Whole fresh cranberries add zing and walnuts contribute crunch.

Author: Adapted from “The Cheese Board Collective Works” by Aleta Watson

Recipe type: Baking

Serves: 16 scones

Ingredients

• ½ cup Greek yogurt or heavy cream
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 3¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
• ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter cut into ½-inch cubes

Topping:

• ¼ cup sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking sheets.
2. Stir yogurt, buttermilk and pumpkin puree together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Stir topping ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.
4. Into a large mixing bowl or the work bowl of a stand mixer, sift together the flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and sugar.
5. To mix by hand, stir salt into the sifted ingredients. Sprinkle butter cubes over the flour and work in with your hands or cut in with pastry blender until the butter is the size of small peas. Make a well in the center of the flour and butter mixture and pour in the pumpkin mixture. Stir with a large silicone spatula or wooden spoon just until the dough comes together. It will be a little shaggy still and some flour will be left in the bottom of the bowl.
6. To prepare in a stand mixer, stir salt into flour mixture on low speed for a few seconds. Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is well-distributed and the size of small peas, about 4 minutes. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, add the pumpkin mixture and mix briefly on low speed, just until the dough begins to come together. It will be a little shaggy still and some flour will be left in the bottom of the bowl.
7. For both methods, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured bread board or clean counter and knead gently by hand a couple of times to blend in all the excess flour. If the dough is too sticky to manage easily, use a bench scraper (pictured above) if you have one. Working quickly and with a light touch, divide the dough into two pieces and shape each one into a disk about 1-inch thick. Cut each disk into 8 pie-shaped pieces.
8. Place the triangles, well-spaced, on a baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.
9. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm if possible. Scones are best the day they’re baked.
10. Note: The scones may be mixed and shaped ahead of time. Place in a single layer on baking sheet and freeze, uncovered, until solid. Store in a container or zippered storage bag until ready to bake. Before serving, place still-frozen scones on prepared baking sheet and bake in preheated oven until golden brown and slightly firm to the touch. You may need to cover with aluminum foil briefly to keep them from getting too dark but they won’t take much longer to bake than thawed dough.

3.2.2929

The finishing touch for any Thanksgiving feast is warm homemade rolls on the table.

Far too often, though, it’s the last straw for the harried cook.  Who has time to wait for rolls to rise when you’re up to your elbows in turkey, pies, salads and vegetables?

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois have the solution: make your dough ahead, stash it in the fridge, and bake it off with only half an hour resting time before it goes in the oven.  You even can take it a step further and partially bake the rolls until they’re almost done. Then pop them back into the oven to brown while the turkey is resting before it’s carved.

I’ve been a fan of their process ever since “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” came out in 2007.  Now they have an updated edition, “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” (St. Martin’s Press, 2013) with a slew of fresh recipes and ideas.  Some are a little wild–bake bread in a slow cooker anyone? Others are very useful, such as the section on gluten-free breads.

I’ve converted their Oatmeal Pumpkin Bread into rolls for Thanksgiving this year.  It’s a snap to make, even if you’ve never worked with yeast before. The pumpkin makes it a natural for the holiday table while the oatmeal adds body.  A touch of rye flour and the fermentation from time in the refrigerator introduce a pleasantly sour note.

Because these contain whole grains, they’re sturdier than the traditional soft and squishy dinner rolls of my youth. That’s a good thing. These days I prefer my bread to be a little more substantial.

Fresh out of the oven, the rolls are nicely fluffy inside and will stand up to the rest of the menu rather than disappear into the background.  Add a pat of good unsalted butter and I’m happy.

Just think how much better they’ll be when they’re  stuffed with leftover turkey and cranberry sauce.

Thanksgiving Oatmeal Pumpkin Rolls

 

Print

Prep time

50 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

 

Fresh out of the oven, the rolls are nicely fluffy inside and will stand up to the rest of the menu rather than disappear into the background

Author: Adapted from “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoe Francois

Recipe type: Baking

Serves: About 28 rolls

Ingredients

• 2 cups lukewarm water
• 1 tablespoon granulated yeast (See Note)
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• Plus 2 tablespoons butter for brushing rolls
• ⅓ cup honey
• ½ cup old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• ¾ cup whole wheat flour
• ¾ cup rye flour
• 4 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Mix yeast and salt with water, 5 tablespoons of melted butter and honey in a 6-quart bowl or lidded (not airtight) food container.
2. Add rolled oats, pumpkin puree, and flours and stir with a wooden spoon until all the flour disappears into the dough. Do not knead. You may, however, find it easier to mix all the ingredients together if you use wet hands to incorporate the last bit of flour.
3. Cover the container lightly and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses (or flattens on top), approximately two hours. You may use the dough immediately after this initial rise but taste better with some time in the refrigerator and will handle easier when cold. Dough can be refrigerated and used as needed over the next seven days.
4. On baking day, butter one or more 8-inch round baking pans, depending on how many rolls you want to bake. A pan will hold eight rolls.
5. For each pan, cut off a 1-pound ball of dough, about the size of a grapefruit, and divide into eight 2-ounce pieces. (A kitchen scale helps immensely with this step.) Quickly shape each piece of dough into a ball, stretching the top smooth and pinching the dough together on the bottoms, and place in the baking pan, bottom side down.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and allow the rolls to rest for 30 minutes while the oven is heating. Just before baking, Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of melted butter and use it to brush the tops of rolls before putting them into oven. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.
7. If you like, you can partially bake the rolls ahead of time. Remove them from the oven when they’re just starting to brown and firm to the touch. Return to the hot oven before serving and allow to brown completely.
8. Brush again with melted butter and serve slightly warm if possible.
9. Note: Use whatever dry yeast is available, whether it’s labeled granulated, active dry, instant, quick rise, or bread machine yeast. It all works well.

3.2.2929

Apart from the turkey, few dishes are sacrosanct on our holiday table. Mashed potatoes are one of them.

It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a big bowl of fluffy mashed potatoes to serve as a counterpoint to all the bold, savory flavors of the feast.  We may steer away from spuds most of the time in the interest of limiting carbohydrates, but not on the fourth Thursday of November.

For years, only one variety of mashed potatoes ever graced our table–the “Silver Palate” recipe introduced to us by a co-worker at the Mercury News.  It’s an indulgent dish, loaded with butter, and cream cheese that’s hard to beat.

Then I ran across this recipe for Cauliflower, Aged Gouda, Mashed Potatoes while checking out the new “Le Pigeon: Cooking at the Dirty Bird” by acclaimed Portland chef Gabriel Rucker (Ten Speed Press, 2013).  It’s definitely going to be on the Thanksgiving menu.

Although the cookbook is great fun, with an irreverent narrative and truly imaginative recipes, I knew I wasn’t likely to be making lamb tongue fries, smoked rabbit pie or beef heart with broccoli and Parmesan anytime soon.

These mashed potatoes, though, caught my eye.  The recipe was so simple and the flavors so intriguing.  Rucker specifies aged Gouda for its deep, almost caramel taste.

The finished dish was amazing.  It was mashed potatoes but more–the earthy potato flavor balanced with sweet top notes from the cauliflower and the deep bass undertones of  savory cheese.  Rucker doesn’t stint on the butter or cheese either.

Perhaps best of all for the harried holiday cook, these are some of the easiest mashed potatoes I’ve ever made.  Everything is done in one pot and, although you could use a ricer for a more elegant, velvet texture, an old fashioned hand masher does a great job of smooshing everything together. I actually prefer the more rustic texture.

If that weren’t enough, the potatoes reheat beautifully.  You could make them ahead, refrigerate them, and return them to the oven to warm up while the turkey is resting before it’s carved.

As long as we’re talking about cooking ahead, why not make the turkey gravy in advance, too.  This Kitchn recipe, adapted from the New York Times, is terrific, although you may want to increase the roux a bit to thicken it a little more.   I stashed a quart of it in the freezer last week.

Next up: Pumpkin rolls

Cauliflower & Aged Gouda Mashed Potatoes

 

Print

Prep time

45 mins

Cook time

35 mins

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

 

A simple recipe with earthy potato flavor balanced with sweet top notes from the cauliflower and the deep bass undertones of savory gouda cheese

Author: Gabriel Rucker (adapted by Aleta Watson)

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets
• ½ cup unsalted butter
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 4 ounces aged Gouda, grated
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1. In a large pot of salted water, combine potatoes and cauliflower and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer so the potatoes don’t explode. Cook until potatoes are fork tender, about 15 minutes and drain in a colander.
2. In the cooking pot, off the heat, combine the butter, cream and grated cheese. Return potatoes and cauliflower to the pot and mash them with a potato masher, rotating the masher and stirring as you work to mix the ingredients well. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

3.2.2929

The Thanksgiving countdown has begun.

Right now, we’re still deciding the menu.

There’s no question a large bird will take place of honor at the center of the table. After years of experimenting, I’ve finally determined that a free range turkey, roasted simply,  beats all elaborate preparations hands down.

The big decision is what to serve with all that protein.  Every year, I like to introduce something new just to mix things up.

Family tradition dictates so much of the feast that side dishes are among the few places where the cook can introduce a fresh perspective.  If one of the guests doesn’t care for fennel or parsnips or chestnuts, it’s not a disaster.  There will be plenty of other dishes on the table to choose among.

This year, I’ve been trying out variations on Brussels sprouts, which are at their best in the fall.  There was a time when I turned up my nose at these miniature cabbages, but that was before I learned to roast them: The high heat of the oven caramelizes the residual sugars in the sprouts and mellows their flavor.

Now I can’t get enough of them.

Since Thanksgiving calls for a festive dish, I decided to turn the roasted sprouts into a salad that could be served warm or at room temperature. Mild, sweet butternut squash offer a contrast in texture as well as a shot of color.  Dried cranberries contribute a bright counterpoint and toasted hazelnuts deliver crunch. To bring everything together, there’s a vinaigrette with a hint of maple and mustard.

The beauty of this dish is that you can make it ahead and allow the flavors to marry while you handle all the last minute details of the banquet.  It just gets better as it waits.

As a bonus, this is one Thanksgiving dish that you can eat with abandon and not a trace of guilt.  Vegetarians  will love it, too.

Next up: A new take on mashed potatoes

Brussels Sprout Salad with Harvest Flavors

 

Print

Prep time

45 mins

Cook time

50 mins

Total time

1 hour 35 mins

 

Roasted Brussels sprouts salad that can be served warm or at room temperature. Mild, sweet butternut squash offer a contrast in texture as well as a shot of color. Dried cranberries contribute a bright counterpoint and toasted hazelnuts deliver crunch. To bring everything together, there’s a vinaigrette with a hint of maple and mustard.

Author: Aleta Watson

Recipe type: Thanksgiving side

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 2 pounds small Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
• 1 pound butternut squash, cut into ½-inch cubes
• ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, divided use
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup, preferably Grade B
• 1 tablespoon Dijon stone-ground mustard
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup dried cranberries, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
• ½ cup hazelnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two large, rimmed baking sheets with foil.
2. Place Brussels sprouts in a single layer on one of the baking sheets and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Toss sprouts to coat evenly with oil and set aside. Place cut up butternut squash in a single layer on the other baking sheet and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Toss cubes to coat evenly with oil. Season sprouts and butternut squash cubes with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with thyme.
3. Roast the sprouts and butternut squash cubes for about 30 minutes, until they begin to brown and can be pierced easily with a small, sharp knife. They may take different times to cook and the butternut squash should be fairly soft but hold it’s shape.
4. While the vegetables are roasting, whisk together the remaining oil, maple syrup, mustard and vinegar in a small bowl. Set aside.
5. When vegetables are done, scrape them into a large bowl and dress with about half of the maple and mustard vinaigrette. Toss well. Sprinkle with dried cranberries and chopped nuts and toss again. Add as much of the remaining dressing as needed to coat all the vegetables and adjust the levels of salt and pepper to suit your taste. Toss one more time.
6. Let salad stand at least 20 minutes for the flavors to marry before serving. Salad can be made a day ahead and stored in the refrigerator, too. In that case, remove it from the fridge at least an hour before serving to allow it to come back to room temperature.

3.2.2929

Sadly, the tomatoes and cucumbers are gone.  The plants just quit producing when temperatures dipped into the 40s at night, so they had to go.

But the spinach and arugula plants are still pumping out plenty of leafy greens. Paired with bold Mediterranean flavors and chewy grains, they make a salad perfectly suited for fall.

The inspiration for this salad came from the wildly popular cookbook, “Jerusalem: A Cookbook,” by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Ten Speed Press, 2012).  This book is such a hit, it even has its own Facebook page and hashtag (#tastingjrslm).

It’s no wonder so many people are cooking their way through the recipes from front to back. The flavors and textures of the dishes are amazing.

Every recipe I’ve tried so far has been impressive.  But the way the authors bring together the tang of lemons, the deep savor of olives, the crunch of toasted almonds and the sweetness of golden raisins in the bulgur  topping for one of their eggplant dishes is nothing short of genius.

I decided to build my salad on a similar flavor profile, using puffy, chewy wheat berries as the grain.  The results were even better than I had hoped.  The wheat berries add an extra layer of texture and a slightly nutty flavor that plays well with the other ingredients.  Each bite is better than the last.

The dressing uses preserved lemons and I added a little smoked paprika for a mildly spicy edge. You can preserve your own lemons from this recipe or buy them at a well-stocked grocery store or Middle Eastern market.  Or feel free to substitute grated lemon zest.  It won’t be quite as complex, but it will bring its own zing to the salad.

This dish does require a little advance planning.  The wheat berries usually take 30 minutes to an hour to cook, depending on the variety and age.  You can cook the berries with just a little attention while you’re doing other things in the kitchen, though.  And you can make them ahead, although the berries absorb the dressing better when warm.

After that, the salad comes together fairly quickly and is so hearty and filling it could be served as the main event for dinner.  It would be a good vegetarian addition to a holiday potluck, too.

As a bonus, the leftovers are terrific.

Football season is upon us. Some of us–that would be me–don’t really care about the sport.  But the snacks?  I’m a fan!

Give me some good nibbles, and I might even pay attention for a quarter or so while the football fiends yell at the big-screen TV.

This year, I’m offering pimento cheese dip.  It’s a variation on the spread that I’ve written about before, but tamed down to appeal to people who didn’t grow up on the bold flavors of the original Southern staple.

My husband, who politely sidesteps the spread, endorses this dip.  So, apparently, do my neighbors, who cleaned the bowl when I took it to a block party a few weeks ago.

The flavors of cheddar cheese and roasted pimentos are still rich and satisfying, but they’re a little less in your face.  Whipped cream cheese and sour cream smooth the edges and produce a very scoopable dip.

Southerners may object but everyone else will be happy.

The big slicing tomatoes and medium salad varieties are slowing down in our planter boxes by the curb, but the cherry tomatoes continue to run riot.

The Sungold vines have enveloped the other varieties in their box and the little orange orbs festoon the plants like Christmas lights.  The larger Isis are a little less vigorous but a dozen or so ripen every day in beautiful colors that blend from red to pink and yellow.

We eat them in salads, pop them into our mouths as snacks while we work in the garden, give them away to anyone who will take them and still we can’t keep up.

Hoping to get ahead of the crop, I’ve started roasting the cherries slowly in the oven with garlic cloves, olive oil and basil to make a pasta sauce with surprisingly intense flavor and brilliant color.  Tossed with farfalle pasta and some salty kalamata olives and feta cheese to balance out the natural sugars, it makes a memorable lunch or dinner with very little work.

This is barely a recipe.  I offer some suggested quantities here but feel free to wing it. I often make a double batch.

It should take only a few minutes to put together the sauce ingredients and shove them in a 300 degree oven.  In about an hour, the tomatoes will start to collapse and release their juices for a light sauce.  Use it right away or stash it in the fridge for later.

I first made this with the idea of a hot pasta dish, and it was the ideal summer supper–light, refreshing and loaded with vivid Mediterranean taste.  But the leftovers also were great the next day as a cold pasta salad.

Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 20 mins

 

A colorful bow-tie pasta that brings out the flavor in an abundance of cherry tomatoes.

Author: Aleta Watson

Recipe type: Pasta

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 3 Cups

Ingredients

• 2 pint baskets of mixed cherry tomatoes
• 4 cloves garlic, or more to taste
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• About ½ cup fresh basil leaves, sliced crosswise into slender ribbons
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 pound farfalle (bow tie) pasta
• ½ cup kalamata olives, halved lengthwise
• 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Wash and stem cherry tomatoes, cutting the larger ones in half to get a roughly uniform size. Place in a 1 quart baking dish in a single layer.
2. Slice garlic into thick slivers and toss with tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil over all, sprinkle with a couple tablespoons of basil, season with salt and pepper, and stir a couple of times to mix.
3. Slide baking dish into the oven and roast for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are starting to collapse and release their juices.
4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of liberally salted water to boil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and place in a large serving dish.
5. Remove sauce from the oven and spoon over the pasta. Sprinkle olives and feta over the pasta and toss. Garnish with the remaining basil and season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve hot or cold.

3.2.2802

Late summer is my favorite time of the year in the garden. The flowers are fading, it’s true. But the tomatoes are coming on strong and nothing beats a fresh tomato plucked straight off the vine.

This year, the tomato plants are going crazy in the raised beds we built in the parking strip between the sidewalk and the curb.  Even though we’re in Portland, there have been plenty of hot, sunny days to turn our six plants into monsters threatening to reach out and grab passersby.

We have a  gazillion little Sungolds and the vines are drooping under the weight of the early-ripening Stupice, orange Jaune Flamme and almost purple Japanese Black Trifele.  Even the heavyweight Box Car Willies are beginning to ripen.

We’ve been gorging on tomatoes in every possible manner–salads, sandwiches, pasta, side dishes.  Then, the other day, I began fixating on the idea of a BLT pizza.  We’d cook it on the grill since it was much too warm in the house to turn on the oven.

The idea was to layer garlic, bacon, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and–yes–lettuce on a round of pizza dough and top it with a shower of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.  The lettuce would be crunchy Romaine, which I knew holds up nicely to a grilled Caesar salad.

My family was game to try but we were a little hesitant to go whole hog the first time out.  So we baked one pizza with a light sprinkling of romaine and topped another with fresh lettuce as it came off the grill.  The cooked lettuce won, hands-down.  Everyone was surprised by how good the grilled lettuce was.  It added an extra layer of texture and mild flavor, slightly sweet and a barely bitter, that played well against the tomatoes.

Next time out, we were much more generous with the lettuce before we slid the pizza onto the grill. It was even better.

If you’ve never grilled a pizza, you’re in for a treat.  We’ve tried several approaches and prefer to use pizza stone tiles in our gas grill for convenience.  We put the tiles on the rack, preheat the grill to it’s highest temperature–600 degrees in our case–and slide the unbaked pizza onto the stone.  About 7 minutes later, we have a great pizza with a crisp, properly charred crust and lightly browned toppings.

For easier handling, I usually place the rolled-out pizza dough on a piece of parchment paper atop a peel or rimless baking sheet before I add the toppings.  We slide the whole package onto the preheated stone, then pull the paper out a couple of minutes into the baking time.  If you’re cooking several pizzas in succession, you’ll want to give the grill a few minutes to recover lost heat before you put the second one in to bake.

You don’t have to make your own dough.  I often use the fresh dough from the supermarket cold case.  But I get the best results when I make my own, preferably with low protein flour like King Arthur’s Italian-style flour, which I found at Sur La Table.  This flour produces a soft dough that is easy to roll out and crisps up beautifully.  A warning, though:  it requires less water.  If you don’t adjust your usual recipe a bit you’ll end up adding a lot more flour at the end in order to roll out the floppy, sticky dough.

We’ve found some phenomenal pizza in Portland.  At the moment, though, this home-grilled BLT is our favorite.

At their best, cookbooks are more than collections of recipes.  They’re friends with stories to tell and ideas to share. No wonder so many food lovers toss a cookbook or two in with the novels to read at the beach or summer cabin.

This trio is my nomination for your reading pleasure this summer:

“Vegetable Literacy,” by Deborah Madison (Ten Speed Press, 2013), is the only traditional cookbook in the lot.  It’s filled with tantalizing recipes for summer’s best produce and many of them are simple enough to make in the kitchen of a rented house with vegetables plucked from the farm stand.

But it’s so much more. Madison, who’s been the go-to source for vegetarian recipes since she wrote the “The Greens Cookbook” in 1987, has taken a radical new approach in her ninth cookbook.   She writes from the perspective of a curious gardener, grouping vegetables and herbs into 12 botanical families from which the members are often interchangeable with one another.  Along the way, she blends botany, history, gardening tips and kitchen wisdom with recipes that celebrate the essence of each plant.

I can’t wait until I have enough ripe tomatoes to make her Tomato and Cilantro Soup with Black Quinoa.  Or when the Delicata Squash are ready to be roasted, tossed with Dukkah (an Egyptian condiment of toasted nuts and seeds with cumin) and served with a tahini-yogurt sauce. Until then, I’ll lose myself in Madison’s fascinating exploration of the plant world and the beautifully understated photographs of Christopher Hersheimer and Melissa Hamilton.

No doubt, I’ll pick up a wheelbarrow load of ideas for next year’s garden before I’ve made my way through the families from carrots to morning glories, which include sweet potatoes. The Sweet Potato Flan with Maple Yogurt and Caramel Pecans sounds irresistible.

“Relish, My Life in the Kitchen,” by Lucy Knisley (MacMillan, 2013) breaks the mold with a graphic memoir sprinkled with recipes.   This is a charming book of a young woman’s introduction to good eating as the daughter of foodies.

Knisley grew up coloring in the kitchen while her mother worked at Bouley in Manhattan, shucking oysters in her uncle Peter’s take-out food shop, and helping out at farmer’s markets after she and her mother moved to the country.  By the time she went to art school in Chicago, she was saving her money to eat at the temples of gastronomy.  One was a 13-course meal at Alinea, which she immortalized in her comic strip journal.

The drawings are fresh and charming with a gently humorous edge.  The recipes – which range from an architectural rendering of huevos rancheros to step-by-step instructions for rolling sushi – are great fun.  My family loved her chocolate chip cookies with an extra pinch of salt.

Enjoy this book on a lazy afternoon and then pass it on to that teenager you’ve been trying to get into the kitchen.  Knisley makes cooking look like fun.

“Eating In with Lynne Rossetto Kasper,” by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (American Public Media, 2013) is one of the best cookbooks I’ve seen that is designed specifically to take advantage of the bells and whistles the Internet has to offer.  It’s set up for reading on your laptop,  iPad or Kindle with links to sources for ingredients and episodes of Kaspar’s podcasts.  Of course, you’ll need wifi or a cell phone connection to use them all, but it will stand on its own, too, if you’re out in the boondocks this summer.

Kasper, host of  “The Splendid Table” food and cooking talk show on National Public Radio, is releasing installments of this book quarterly at the bargain price of $3.95.  This, her second offering, revolves around a summer grilling party.  Written in the chatty, we’re-all-in-this-together voice that’s made her radio show such a hit, these little books are filled with helpful tips and techniques as well as beautiful photographs.

The centerpiece of this installment is a cut of meat Kaspar calls, the Bargain Steak Nobody Knows About.  It’s the large, vaguely triangular piece of meat at the top of a boneless chuck pot roast.  Kasper trims it away from the tougher segments of the roast, marinates it in a red wine sauce, and then grills it slowly over low heat.  The results were truly impressive.

We don’t eat much steak, in part because the good cuts are so expensive they practically require a bank loan to buy. This cut makes good more less of an investment.

The green herb salsa Kasper suggests to go with her secret cut of beef is an inspired combination of parsley, basil, mint and oregano whirled in the food processor with scallions, capers and – believe it or not – the tiny pickles the French call cornichons.

This salsa would be a good accompaniment to fish, pork, chicken or shrimp. Kasper suggests using it on pasta or pizza.  I would be happy to just eat it with a spoon.