Cherry tomatoes = Dinner!

They multiply like fleas but maybe not so annoying. But if you are not a gardener (nope, not me) you are always saying "yes" to anyone who offers you fresh picked anything from their garden. Even zukes! But tomatoes, well of course, sure, yes, bring 'em on, I will take them!  And suddenly you find that you have a bushel of cherry tomatoes.  (The bigger tomatoes you can always skin, chop and freeze without cooking but the little ones, nope, doesn't work.)  

Tonight I came home and the three dozen cherry tomatoes I remembered had turned into six dozen it seemed.  I needed to eat them tonight. What to do?

Here's what I did and it was perfect.  Cut about three dozen very small cherry tomatoes in half.  To that bowl I added about ten kalamata olives that were cut in smallish pieces. I had no basil or parsley but I had some arugula, so I chopped up about a half cup of that and tossed it in the bowl. Then I added about a quarter cup crumbled goat cheese into the bowl because it was getting too old to keep.  Then some salt and pepper and a couple of shakes of red pepper flakes. I  took a small garlic clove and minced it really well and added that.  Finally I took my piece of parm cheese and used the vegetable peeler to peel off a few skinny threads of cheese into the bowl.  Added a couple of tablespoons of really good fruity olive oil, stirred it up and let it set for about an hour so it was at room temp and flavors had melded. 

Boiled some orecchiette pasta and tossed it with the room temp sauce, and the heat of the pasta melted the goat cheese just enough to make it all saucy and delicious.  The heat also made the cherry tomatoes sing with their juicy sweetness and the saltiness of the olives was the perfect counterpoint to that sweetness.  Tossed and poured into warmed up bowl (crucial with an uncooked sauce) it was the perfect meal.

It was a long weekend, driving to Sonora, doing the Mom Memorial thing, leaving there this morning and driving home......  the trip home seemed to take forever. So making a pasta sauce like this from what was in the fridge and on the counter was excellent. 

And those cherry tomatoes that were taunting me.... in my belly!

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