Sun Dried Tomatoes and Chz Plz.

The Killer Tomato is a classic Montreal sandwich, rivaled only by the Smoked Meat sandwich and Me Between Two Dudes in tha Club sandwich. Jks, that's also called Smoked Meat.

I picked up some sun dried tomatoes in Taiwan and god bless, they are as good as I remember. For a killer Killer Tomato sandwich you need:

- A few sun dried tomatoes, soaked in H20 for half an hour (save this liquid for later)

- Fresh tomatoes

- Cream chz.

- Bread.

- Basil (optional, but highly recommended)

After the sun dried tomatoes have soaked chop them up in smallish pieces and do the same for the basil. Now smash both into some cream chz and then spread on both pieces of toasted bread. Add a layer of fresh tomato slices, salt and pepper, and enjoy.

The salad in the picture is fresh swisschard leaves, candied walnuts, kiwi, and green apple, tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I also used the tomatoes to make a Sun Dried Tomato Basil Pesto. This time you'll need some chopped sun dried tomatoes, a clove of garlic, a bunch of chopped basil, some walnuts (pine if you have them) and olive oil. Then just blast them to smitherines with your mortar and pestal until they're a paste.

I used this pesto with spagetti and homemade ricotta cheese which is totally easy to make. Simply bring a pot of milk to a simmer, not boiling, never boiling, and then add a splash of two of vinegar (depending on your milk quantities) and a pinch of salt. The milk will start to curdle and after a minute of stirring you can just skim the curds off the top of the whey (just like Miss. Muffet!) and put them in cheesecloth or a sieve to strain for 40 minutes or so. Add a little more salt and your in ricotta goodness heaven.

Toss your cooked and drained spagetti with the pesto and some halved cherry tomatoes, the water the tomatoes were soaking in and top with ricotta. Boner in my mouth.

Presto Parsley Pesto

My little basil plant isn't yeilding enough to make a traditional pesto so I used parsley instead and substituted walnuts in lieu of the elusive pinenuts and it made a deliscious, light, summer pasta. Parsley: not just a garnish at Denny's anymore.



Parsley Pesto
- bunch of parsley, chopped - 1500W
- some walnuts, chopped - 5000W for a big bag, I'd say I used 500 worth
- slog of olive oil - probably less than 500 worth
- 2 cloves garlic, minced - 300?
- baby tomatoes, halved - 1000W
- feta cheese - 2000W
- any kind of pasta - 2000W

Get the pasta cooking while you chop up everything. I smushed everything up with a mortar and pestal aftewards, but you can use a blender or your fist or whatever.

Drain the pasta, saving just a splash of pasta water in the pot. Toss everything in, mix to coat the pasta. Season with salt and pecker.

Total cost: 7,800 for two servings. El cheapo.