No-Cook Tomato Sauce Pasta For The Scorching Days of Summer

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Beat the heat with this fresh, no-cook tomato sauce with basil and mozzarella over pasta.
Beat the heat with this fresh, no-cook tomato sauce with basil and mozzarella over pasta.

When it’s way too hot to contemplate cooking most anything, and your gardening-goddess friend Annie gifts you a bushel of home-grown tomatoes, what do you do?

You make “No-Cook Tomato Sauce Pasta.” And thank the stars that you did.

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit magazine. But I tweaked it a little by making enough sauce to coat not 12 ounces of spaghetti, but 1 pound, so it can serve four easily. I also added in a generous handful of diced whole-milk mozzarella to go with all the fresh, torn basil leaves.

Thanks to my friend Annie with the super green thumb.
Thanks to my friend Annie with the super green thumb.

The result is a fresh, bright tasting pasta that comes together in a cinch and tastes every bit like a Caprese salad with noodles.

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Join Yours Truly For Not One — But Two — Macy’s Chef Cooking Demos

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In celebration of my new book, “East Bay Cooks: Signature Recipes from the Best Restaurants, Bars, and Bakeries” (Figure 1), please join me for a signing event plus cooking demo at Macy’s Union Square San Francisco at 1 p.m. Sept. 14; as well as at Macy’s Valley Fair in Santa Clara at 2 p.m. Sept. 21.

The cookbook spotlights 41 of the East Bay’s best restaurants and bakeries.

The Sept. 14 event in San Francisco will feature Co-Chefs Paul Manousos and Jacob Alioto of Alameda’s East End, who will be cooking up one of their signature dishes from my cookbook.

The Sept. 21 event in Santa Clara spotlights Rana Saluja-Kapoor, co-founder of the Bay Area’s slew of Curry Up Now restaurants and food trucks. She’ll also be creating one of her recipes from my cookbook.

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Light A Fire For Chicken Al Carbon

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A family-style feast of chile-marinated chicken, grilled veggies and warm corn tortillas.
A family-style feast of chile-marinated chicken, grilled veggies and warm corn tortillas.

With backyard grills sure to be blazing this long holiday weekend, there’s no time like now to get your chicken al carbon going on.

This smoky spatchcock chicken with a spicy brick-red marinade gets plenty charred, so don’t be alarmed at the blackened edges. It’s the sugar in the orange juice that gives it a sweet citrus taste and makes it singe easily.

“Chicken Al Carbon” is from the new cookbook, “Tex-Mex Cookbook: Traditions, Innovations, and Comfort Foods from Both Sides of the Border” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy. Loaded with recipes that fuse Texan and Mexican sensibilities, it’s by Chef Ford Fry, a native Texan with a slew of restaurants in Atlanta, including the El Felix and Superica; and food writer and native Texan Jessica Dupuy.

As the book’s intro states, “Tex” and “Mex” were at one time one and the same, with Texas and Mexico both part of the same Spanish colony known as New Spain in the 16th century. It’s no wonder that Texas’ food traditions borrow heavily from Mexican ones. In fact, many of the Tex-Mex specialties in this book will be quite familiar if you’ve dined regularly at Mexican restaurants in California and Texas.

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Theo Chocolate’s Big Daddy Is Big Yum

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Theo Chocolate's take on S'Mores.
Theo Chocolate’s take on S’Mores.

I admit this Food Gal is more of a B&B Gal or Resort Gal than a Camping Gal.

I’ve been camping once, and while it was a blast, I readily acknowledge I am not one for roughing it regularly. What can I say?

Thankfully, one of the best things about camping, well, doesn’t really require sleeping outdoors in a tiny tent. And that is S’Mores.

Theo Chocolate’s version may not be melty from a campfire, but it is every bit as blissful to eat.

The Seattle bean-to-bar chocolate company, the first organic and fair-trade chocolate factory in North America, has created the Big Daddy ($9.99), a three-piece collection of S’More confections that I recently had a chance to sample, along with some of its other new products.

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Shrimp with Cilantro, Lime and Peanuts — As Easy As It Gets

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This dish comes together in a flash.
This dish comes together in a flash.

Now that the kids are back in school, and summer getaways have done come and gone, it’s time for quick-cooking dishes that require little thought but deliver way more than anticipated.

“Shrimp with Cilantro, Lime and Peanuts” is that kind of dish.

It’s from “Martha Stewart’s Grilling: 125+ Recipes for Gatherings Large and Small: A Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter), the new cookbook by the Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living, of which I received a review copy.

I’d already tried out one recipe from this cookbook that boasts more than 125 to choose from. Since it came out so delightfully well, I couldn’t resist trying my hand at another one before the grilling days of summer end.

This shrimp dish takes barely 10 minutes to put together. You’d be hard pressed to find another that cooks up faster with this much punch.

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