Raising Locovores

Dad here...

As fathers, heck, as men, we often times come up with hare-brained ideas that come out of our mouth before the brain has had a chance to fully vet them. Such was the sinking feeling when I came home from work and told the girls, "you get to make dinner tonight...just don't set anything on fire."

They booted me out of the kitchen and went to work. I mean to tell you, there were levels of cooperation I hadn't seen since they were trying to close the deal on getting a puppy. And to see what the two of them turned out in about 30 minutes was enough to give me faith that somewhere along the line, they accidentally learned something about preparing a healthy meal. 

Now, we've had several discussions in our house, about eating things that are grown locally, so that we didn't have to waste the gas to fly an apple 17 hours from New Zealand just for us. We've stopped short of hanging Michael Pollan posters in their rooms, but the missus and I hoped to get the point across. 

As I stared at this gorgeous bowl of pasta put before me, I started thinking about what a great locovore example the girls had produced:

Tomatoes - traveled 15 feet to the kitchen

Garlic - traveled 14 feet to the kitchen

Basil - traveled 10 feet to the kitchen

Pasta - traveled 29,568,000 feet to the kitchen (Admittedly this hurts the average, but if you're going to bring a plane all the way from Marche, Italy, I'll bet the pasta brought some really good wine along with it, so let's call this one a "cultural compromise.")

I'll turn it over to the chef to share her recipe...


Hey guys,
I got this recipe directly from the internet, at myrecipes.com, but I have adapted it just a little, teeny, tiny, little bit with the hopes that we don't get sued or something.


Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 5 cups chopped (small) tomatoes (about 2 pounds)
• 6 cups hot cooked pasta (about 12 ounces uncooked pasta)
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

• Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add minced garlic; sauté 30 seconds. Add chopped tomatoes; cook for 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally. Add pasta, basil, cheese, salt, and pepper, tossing gently to combine.
• Enjoy!