It's actually borderline dangerous to keep me away from proper cooking for a week. I get antsy. And then I usually go a bit overboard.

The inspiration for this meal? Liz was coming over with some tomatoes, basil, and parmesan. Which I know sounds like the start of a fucking Barefoot Contessa episode, but bear with me. It was also going to be stink in' hot, so the A/C would be fighting it out with the sun and the kitchen. So when I did a bit of shopping, it was based around loose ideas of cooking gradually over the course of the afternoon, then serving things mostly chilled.

I knew I wanted a white bean puree, because I really like them and I hadn't made one in forever. I also knew I wanted roasted garlic in at least two of the dishes, so that's the first thing I got started when I got home from the store - three heads, cloved out, oiled, salted, wrapped in foil, and thrown in a 400 degree oven for an hour.

During that hour, Cathy made polenta. This is where the dangerous part of a week off sets in - I get an idea in my head to try something for the first time. In this case, crispy polenta squares. I triangulated between three recipes from the Epicurius iPad app, and settled on a basic 4-1 water to cornmeal mix, salted and simmered for about an hour. Then spread and cooled and cut into squares and lightly pan-fried.

The white beans went into the food processor, where they got about half the roasted garlic, two raw shallots, salt, pepper, a bit of white wine vinegar, and a couple of stalks of fresh oregano. Pureed along with a drizzle of olive oil until nice and smooth.

For the main dish, I'd bought a bag of orecchiette. This is my all-time favorite pasta. I love the texture and the shape. But it is problematic as all fuck. First, it's like two to three times as expensive as other shapes of pasta. I don't know why. And second, every single fucking time I cook it, there are a dozen instances of three of them suctioning together in a pot to form Voltrocchiette, a lump of pasta too dense for boiling water to defeat. But I love them anyway.

So I started by halving the tomatoes, which were a lovely batch of heirloom grape- and cherry-, and just seared them off in a hot pan with some olive oil for a couple of minutes. Then I transferred them to a metal bowl in the fridge to cool.

Once I boiled the pasta, I rinsed it under cold water to get its temperature down, because I didn't care about losing the surface starches. I made a roasted garlic oil with the other half of the roasted garlic, olive oil, and a stick blender. Tossed the pasta in that to keep it from sticking, added in about a quarter cup of fresh basil, and stashed that in the fridge.

By the way, this is all being done in a sort of as-i-remember-the-narrative order, because I was not of a mind to take notes. This isn't an experiment in Hunter S. Thompson stream of consciousness food blogging.

OK. So the finale. The pasta salad was finished by tossing the grated Parmesan, the seared tomatoes, and the pasta together, then providing some fresh mozzarella to shave on top.

The white bean puree was spread on thick slices of Pugliese from Rustica down the street, then sprinkled with a bit more of the Parmesan.

And the polenta was cut into nine rectangles and cooked on high heat in olive oil for about four minutes per side. This was a messy, sloppy, and sticky business until I got the hang of it near the end, producing the lovely crispy brown square you see in that picture. One mistake with the spatula and the crusty layer would separate from the inside, stick to another of the polenta pieces, and lead to a giant mass of connected cornmeal. Still tasted good, though, and I have every intention of refining and codifying it for future enshrinement here at FB.