Beautiful Food

My mom was not the cook in our house growing up.  She mostly left it up to my dad, which meant lots of yummy BBQ and other simple things.  So I didn't learn to cook in the most conventional way, through my mom.  Also I didn't really have much of an interest in cooking until almost 2 years ago.  I was in art school getting sick of my creative outlets getting judged day in and day out.  So I turned my creative efforts to cooking and found great joy in the process.  Needless to say I LOVE to cook!  And I want you to know how simple it can be if you know Flavor Profiles. You already know a lot of flavor profiles in your head....things that taste yummy together...like peanut-butter and apples etc.  Here is a really simple recipe that I made when I was learning about flavor profiles... It take 5 ingredients (besides salt and pepper) really! It's that easy!

First you're going to lay out some foil on a baking sheet. Fold up the edges a little bit to make a tiny rim.  Then wash your grape tomatoes and put them on the foil along with some cloves of garlic.  Drizzle pretty generously with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and season with lots of salt and pepper.  Pop that into the oven at 350 for 20-30 mins (extra time is not going to hurt anything, I did 20 and my garlic wasn't as soft as I wanted it)

As that is cooking start the water boiling for the pasta...that is pretty self explanatory but remember to Salt the water. It's the only time you can flavor the pasta...and it makes a huge difference.  Then when the time on your tomatoes is getting near the half way point go ahead and chop your basil.

Take your basil leaves and place them one on top of the other and then roll like a cigar.  Then cut into little strips.  You don't want to bake the basil because it doesn't need it and the flavor won't be the same.

When your pasta is done so can everything else be done too.  Put your pasta in a bowl and then pick up the foil (carefully, because you want all the oil and everything) and pour it on top of the pasta.  Put your basil in and mix together and you're done it's so so easy and so so good!  

Recap of the Ingredients: (so easy, and we went all organic)
Grape tomatoes
Garlic cloves
Fresh Basil
Olive Oil
Pasta
Salt and Pepper

Please give it a try!