Things You Can Do While Baby Is Awake (and Fussy)

1. Roast tomatoes.

Buy some tomatoes. This time of year, I buy Farmer's Market tomatoes, which are lovely. This method allows you to keep gazillions of them in the freezer all winter. But at other times of year, if you're craving tomatoes, doing this to them will make even crappy supermarket tomatoes pretty good.

Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees Farenheit. 215, 220 is fine, too. Just low.

Slice the tomatoes with a serrated knife (I use our bread knife, because it has a nice long blade). Lay them out on a cookie sheet with a silpat (or spray PAM on it or otherwise make it non-stick). I cut mine about 1/4 inch thick, but really it's just about how long you have to cook them. The thinner you cut, the less time it takes.



Once they're all laid out, sprinkle them with salt (I use kosher because it's crunchy and I can see it and it's less salty) and grind some black pepper over them (optional). Drizzle with olive oil.

Now, stick them in the oven and walk away. Far away. Leave them cooking for 6-8 hours. Or start them at dinnertime, turn off the oven at 11, and go to bed with them still in there. The point is: cook them low and slow. They're basically dehydrating. After a long time, they'll look like soft, gooey sundried tomatoes. They will taste fabulous - sweet, salty, slightly chewy.

You can freeze them (the oil helps with that), or use them in pasta, on meat (instead of ketchup, for example), or with veg (I sauteed yellow squash and added these.). The trays above represent more than 3 lbs. of tomatoes, which will cook down to about one pint-sized container. So if you're awash in tomatoes or you have a small freezer, this way you can keep summer flavors for winter without taking up tons of space.

2. Make and Bake Empanadas:

OK, these aren't the proper empanadas that people like the Frumins recognize. I love those, too. They're particularly good when eaten *with* the Frumins. These are more like a quick snack that comes in empanada form. You could as easily call them a pasty, but that's not as fun to say.

I sautee a pound or so of ground meat (usually beef) with carrots, onion, garlic, and herbs (tons of parsley, some oregano, basil, sage, whatever's around. A couple of good handsful, for sure. Fresh and chopped). I add some chicken stock base (the paste stuff, by the spoonful, with a little water), some ketchup, some Worcestershire sauce, and salt/pepper. When it's all cooked to something that looks good and is tasty (taste it!), I cool it off. I did that the other night.

So today I finished them. When it comes to pastry, I'm not what you'd call skilled. I tried and tried, but whatever magic you need for good pastry - I don't have it. So I buy Pillsbury. If you get the box with 2 pie crusts in it, you'll need about 2 boxes for the filling. Cut each circle into quarters. Hold it in your hand and fill, using egg wash to seal the edges. Do not overfill! Your empanadas will split and you will have to eat them all up right away. Seal the edges with a fork if you want.

Put them on a cookie sheet/silpat combo, brush with the rest of that egg wash, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until they're golden and smell good. Don't move them too much for a few minutes, because they need to firm up. And don't try to eat one hot out of the oven. You'll burn yourself.

You can wrap them in clear wrap once cool, freeze them indefinitely, and heat them up by unwrapping and then microwaving for a minute or so. They make a good lunch because you can take them frozen, let them thaw a bit, then zap them at noon and voila! Hot lunch. Add a salad and an apple and you're done.