Monday dinner without breaking a sweat

Do you ever have one of those evenings where you feel completely, deeply satisfied with how everything turned out?  Well Monday was one of those evenings for me.  I came home from a zumba class, knew that I had a little bit of time to get dinner ready (instead of the usual feeling of being under the gun to get food on the table before 9:30) but also wanted something that wasn't going to be entirely labor intensive either.  I knew that we had a good number of tomatoes and squash still left over from the farm share, and not a whole lot of protein options at home without having to make another trip to the grocery store.  I wasn't really feeling pasta but after a few minutes of pondering it came to me...we were going to make Mark Bittman's Tomato Paella!!!  I know, I know...paella for a Monday night when you are just getting back into the swing of the work week sounds daunting but I promise this was one of the easiest meals that I've made in a long time but it comes out of the oven looking all piping hot and delicious like you slaved away for hours so change up the usual weekday routine with this different dish.  I had all of these ingredients on hand (if you don't have a stash of Spanish rice on hand you can also use arborio which is the rice used in risotto), used one bowl to slice up and marinate the tomatoes and had the kitchen pretty much cleaned by the time the paella came out of the oven.  This was also one of those one pot dishes (I might be overly domesticated in the cooking department but my cleaning and laundry skills fall far short of where they should be) so in the height of the summer when you want to be doing other things besides scrubbing pots it just felt like a great move.  Quick tip:  whenever a recipe calls for heating up water or stock in a pan, I pour my liquids into a microwave safe large measuring cup and heat it that way so then it's easier to pour into the main pan when you are ready for it and you have one more burner free on the stove.  The original recipe doesn't call for any protein on top (and I know there are a lot of people out there who have embraced the trend of having "meatless Mondays"  but if this is going to be a main dish, I think it needs a little something to make it all the more complete so I had a few frozen shrimp leftover in the freezer that I did a quick defrost on and tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper that went on top of the rice 5 minutes before it finished cooking. 

Once the pan goes into the oven, you have a few minutes to leisurely have a glass of wine, clean up and because I knew the rest of my family wasn't coming home for a little bit I took the opportunity to make myself a quick snack with the leftover half tomato that has now opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me on how good this little snack was.  There are so many people that are absolutely obsessed with tomato season come August.  All of the tomato crops are fully producing, it's heirloom season where you can have your pick at the farmer's market of all of the beautifully colored and different tasting varieties and everything just tastes so much more fresher then the poor colored stand ins you find at the grocery store during a majority of the year.  There is something in my family and I have no idea what happened on Old New Haven Avenue when my mother and my uncles were growing up but all of them have some level of aversion to tomatoes with my Uncle Frank who won't even touch tomato sauce to my mother the youngest who is not an overly big fan of the raw tomato with Uncle John falling somewhere in the middle.  All of us laugh about it but thankfully the next generation of Rak/DeTullio kids don't have any issues with the tomato plant so hopefully it was an isolated issue that can stay right there. 

This little snack doesn't even need a recipe but here is the rundown:  take a slice of toasted white bread (don't even think about using whole wheat or any other healthy alternative as an option for this...a little bit of white flour isn't going to kill you!) and give it a healthy spread of mayonnaise. (People either love mayo or they hate it.  I'm firmly in the camp that loves it and only Hellman's regular will do.)  Arrange your cut tomato slices on top and sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  That's it.  Your finished.  Take a moment, enjoy the open-faced sandwich and you will be just as much as in love as I am and it was the perfect snack to hold me over.  Considering I had another tomato sandwich for dinner on Tuesday, I have a feeling this is going to become quite the habit for the rest of tomato season.  Good thing we only have a few more weeks to go!!

so simple yet so delicious

To go back to the paella really quick - it makes great leftovers the day after especially with a fried egg on top.  I served my paella that night with some simple grilled yellow squash and zucchini and deeply satisfied we all were.