Pasta alla Norma

the accidental garden

Sep 06, 2023

We didn’t have much color in our yard this summer, so mid-season I picked up this begonia at a local nursery. It was a little worse for wear as it had been living outside and experienced several torrential downpours. The woman working at the nursery assured me that it would bounce back and sure enough, it did. The plant adds a festive air to our patio table when we dine outdoors. We hung a hummingbird feeder just a few feet from the begonia and now I am wondering if the bright, red color will help to attract the birds.

The torrential rains and the cool spring were not exactly a boon for gardens, but perhaps that is just the excuse I am using for my pitiful harvest of garlic. I proudly wrote about buying organic garlic, so that I could plant the cloves and grow my own, at a festival in Easton, Pa. last October. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my heads of garlic are smaller than your average radish! Ironically, the other day I noticed a curious vine growing in the middle of our lawn sporting gigantic leaves. I assumed that it was some super weed, but upon closer inspection, I noticed little yellow flowers and what appeared to be cucumbers the size of my fingernail. Within a couple of days the “vegetables'“ had assumed a more bulbous shape and the mystery continued. It now appears to be a melon, right? The mystery plant is growing in a spot where we had filled in a dip in our lawn with compost, so clearly, the compost is where the seeds for the accidental garden came from.

Some of the farmstands that I visited this summer, both here in New Jersey and in New York, displayed baskets of garlic that also seemed undersized. This did make me feel that circumstances beyond my control affected the garlic crop this year in general. My husband’s pal, Shirley, seems to have had a successful growing season. Shirley heats her home with wood. Whenever we lose a tree due to blight or one simply topples in a storm, Shirley takes the logs away in her pick-up and thanks us with jars of homemade pickles, farm-fresh eggs, or vegetables from her garden. I think that we have the better end of the deal. We lost a small tree after a storm a couple of weeks back, and John used his chainsaw to cut the trunk into manageable lengths. Shirley arrived with a bag of heirloom red and yellow tomatoes and green peppers, that unlike the air-brushed versions in the grocery store were perfect due to their minute “imperfections”.

We enjoyed the tomatoes in our dinner salad, out on the patio, the first couple of nights. As they began to over-ripen I decided to use them to make the Sicilian dish, pasta alla norma, even though the tomatoes were not ones that you would typically cook with. August is the perfect time to take advantage of the local eggplant and basil that star in this recipe. Although this dish could be made entirely in a sautee pan (other than cooking the pasta), I first roasted the eggplant in the oven in order to maintain its texture and caramelize the outside. You can roast the eggplant earlier in the day if you want to save time at dinner hour.

Pasta ala Norma

Ingredients

Eggplant, about one pound

Yellow onion, 1/2 cup diced

Tomatoes, 3 cups of cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, or plum tomatoes. Diced.

Garlic, 2 large cloves. Minced.

Olive oil

Red pepper flakes, crushed

Basil, 1/2 packed cup, coarsely chopped

Salt and pepper

Pasta, your choice. I use cavatelli.

Parmesan or assiago cheese, grated.

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut eggplant into chunks that are slightly larger than bite-size as they will shrink when roasting. Toss with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Place eggplant in a single layer on a cookie sheet that has been covered with parchment paper. Roast for 20 minutes. Turn the eggplant over with a spatula. Roast for another 5 minutes. Allow to cool on pan.

Since I was using a frozen cavatelli that cooks in about five minutes, I put the heat on high under my large pot of water shortly before starting the sauce. My pasta and sauce were ready at the same time. Remember to adjust your time depending on the type of pasta that you are using.

Heat a large sautee pan on medium. When the pan becomes hot, add olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot, add the onions and cook until caramelized. Toss in the garlic for the last 30 seconds or so. Add the tomatoes and red pepper flakes and cook for about four minutes until the tomatoes have released some of their juice. As you are about to take the pan off the stove, throw in the basil and give everything a stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. You are ready to join the sauce with the pasta.

This makes two ample servings.