Sweet, ripe summer tomatoes don’t need as much help as, say, hothouse plum tomatoes in cooler months of the year. While nothing beats a slow roasted tomato that’s super unctuous and concentrated, here’s a fast technique for turning tomatoes into a component that can go into any number of dishes.

Fast Roasted Tomatoes

twelve or so ripe summer tomatoes
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Put tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for 30 minutes.

You can use these on sandwiches, stirred into risotto, as a fast pasta sauce with fresh basil, more olive oil, chopped garlic and a ton of parmesan, on a pizza, as a fish or chicken topping with chopped black olives and marjoram or parsley. And that’s just a start.

Before:

After:

—Hugh

While I love soft shell crabs, I’ve always thought of them as single-serving food: one or two crabs per person. And when you’ve got a family of four, that can get pretty expensive pretty fast. The fish guy at my farmer’s market only had two little crabs the other day, and necessity being a mother, I figured out an easy, satisfying, and cheap way of making the most of two little crabs for a family of four:

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2-4 softshell crabs, cleaned, chopped into bite size pieces
salt
pepper
1/4 cup chopped Italian/flat-leaf parsley
lemon juice

spaghetti (we use Barilla pasta plus, for its slightly nutty flavor and high protein, non-carb crashyness)

Boil water and start cooking the pasta. Meanwhile, in a big sautee pan over medium high heat, heat up the olive oil until shimmering. Add softshell crab pieces, salt, pepper, and garlic and sautee, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or until crab is cooked through. Turn off heat. Add cooked and drained pasta and parsley to sautee pan and stir until combined. Squeeze a bit of lemon over it. Taste for seasoning, adjust if necessary, and serve. (that’s sauteed chard on the side)
—Hugh