Spaghetti with Pesto & Roasted Garden Tomatoes

Here we are in August and gradually I've been harvesting tomatoes. This is my first year as an urban gardener and I have three tomato pots, two red cherry varieties and an heirloom, yellow pear. I guess my expectations were that I'd have a huge harvest and I'd literally be canning for months to use them all. Not that I'm disappointed. I've been picking them off in ones and twos for the most part but recently I was able to harvest one entire limb of a plant. I'm sure to seasoned gardeners this is not a big deal, but for me, it felt like a huge windfall.

But what to do with this bounty? Suddenly the pressure was on and now I felt that whatever these tomatoes went into had to be special, something I'd never done before, something amazing, because I'd grown these babies with my own hands. Today hunger and lack of groceries overtook me and so the tomatoes became the focus of my lunch. Something simple replaced something monumental.

So I roasted the tomatoes in a hot oven for a few minutes until they got tender and then tossed them into some pasta which I'd coated with some pesto from this year's basil plants. I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays so I have a small portion ready to use when I need it.

Simple, delicious and quick. And the tomatoes tasted so much the better knowing they came from my balcony. Next year who knows what will happen, but today, despite expectations, I was pretty happy with the delicious dish that found me. Although I may have some explaining to do on the home front when himself arrives home and finds I've eaten them all.