Lobster Bruschetta

So, the Southern husband and I have this thing we do on Saturday nights called The Restaurant Project, and it goes like this: every Saturday night we go to a new restaurant we have never been before.  We started it about a year ago and it has been a year of fabulous dinners, a few clunkers, and some adventurous expeditions where I have said fervent prayers of thanksgiving that someone out there invented the GPS.

One of the rules of the restaurant project is that in addition to getting two different entrees, we also must order at least one dessert.  All of which adds up to good substantial eats on Saturday nights...and why I have decided I need to institute an addition weekly tradition which I am kicking off with this scrumptious lobster recipe, and which I am christening "Friday Night Lights." 

In a nutshell, we are going to cuddle up on the sofa every Friday night while the teenager is out gallivanting around, and we are going to have a light but still wonderful supper that is an appetizer only...something new every Friday night.  This will both balance out (I hope) the Saturday extravaganza, and also give me the chance to work my way through my teeteringly tall pile of appetizer recipes.  Because while I would love to have weekly fancy dinner parties wherein I make fancy finger foods, somehow I haven't figured out a way to work that into my life yet.  I'll try to be organized enough to post these on Thursdays so you can follow along with us on Fridays if you want to!

So here you go, the first Friday Night Lights supper: a quick and easy bruschetta.  Lightly toasted slices of Italian bread brushed with olive oil and topped with a mixture of chopped lobster, red onion, shallots, tomato and fresh torn basil, all tossed with a little bit of Madeira wine.  

Where did I get the fresh basil in the midst of the winter, you ask?   Well let's just say that the Aerogarden has been so successful that I am now making herb bouquets and distributing them around the house.

But that is a topic for a whole 'nother post.  Meantime, Friday Night Lights, baby.  It's not just a great television series anymore.

Lobster Bruschetta, adapted from Bon Appetit

• 2 1 1/2- to 13/4-pound lobster, steamed, shelled and torn into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
• 8 ounces tomatoes (about 2 medium), each cut into 6 wedges
• 1/2 cup finely chopped celery
• 1 small shallot, finely minced
• 2 peeled garlic cloves; 1 minced, 1 whole
• 2 tablespoons Madeira
• 3 extra-large basil leaves, torn
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus additional (for drizzling)
• 4 5x4x1/2-inch slices sourdough bread

1.  Mix onion and vinegar in large bowl; let stand 5 minutes.
2. Add lobster meat, tomatoes, celery, shallot, minced garlic, Madeira, basil, and 1/4 cup oil to bowl with onions. Toss to coat. Let stand 30 minutes for flavors to blend.
3. Lightly toast bread. Rub with whole garlic clove. Drizzle with oil. Divide lobster salad among toasts.  

Click here for printable recipe

Cauliflower Soup with Lobster Dumplings

I am head over heels in love with this recipe, because it looks and tastes so incredibly fancy and elegant and complicated.  And it definitely IS fancy and elegant, but it definitely ISN'T complicated.  I just love it when that happens.  The soup itself is a simple puree of cauliflower and shallots and chicken broth with just a teeny hit of cream.  The dumplings are a quick mixture of bread crumbs, a little egg, some chopped fresh tarragon, a hint of soft butter and (here comes the beauty part), just a little bit of chopped up cooked lobster.

The rest of the lobster (and you only need one lobster for every two people in this recipe, so you don't have to take out a second mortgage to make this) you chop up and divide among the soup bowls.

After you puree the cauliflower and chicken broth into a nice smooth soup, you drop in your teeny little dumplings and cook them for about 5 minutes, just enough to make them hold together.  Then you ladle out the fabulous soup and dumpling mixture over that lobster in the soup bowls.

Then you stand back and let the love and adoration and amazement wash over you.  Even though the whole thing took 30 minutes from start to finish.

Important note: I used one steamed lobster to make this recipe for the Southern husband and myself for dinner, and because I am a girl who gives credit where credit is due, I need to tell you that the Southern husband went out in a pretty good-sized snowstorm to fetch the aforementioned steamed lobster.  Evidence of the good-sized snowstorm below.  This footage was taken about an hour before I started making the soup.

Names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent.

Anyway, if you are looking for a show-stopper of a soup that is pretty dang easy, you have come to the right place.  Or if you just like lobster.  Or cauliflower.  Or badly-filmed videos of crazy hound dogs.

Cauliflower Soup with Lobster Dumplings, adapted from Michael Symon's Food Network recipe

• 4 ounces butter
• 4 tablespoons shallots, minced
• 1 head cauliflower, greens removed, head cut into small pieces
• Salt
• 6 cups chicken stock
• Lobster dumplings, recipe follows
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 pinch nutmeg
• 3 (1 1/2 pound) whole lobsters, cooked, meat removed from shell, 1/2 cup tail meat reserved for dumplings, tail meat sliced into rounds

1. Heat butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Add shallots and cauliflower and season with salt. Saute the cauliflower until it begins to lightly caramelize and become tender. Add stock and simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are completely soft.  Meanwhile make the dumplings (directions below).

2. Puree mixture until smooth in a blender, or right in the pot with an immersion blender. Add the heavy cream and nutmeg and bring the soup to a simmer.

3. Add the dumplings and poach them in soup for 3 to 5 minutes. Check your seasoning and remove from heat.

4. In a soup bowl place the lobster meat and 1 claw in center and pour 8 ounces of soup and dumplings on top.

Lobster Dumplings:

• 1 1/2 cups white bread crumbs
• 1/2 tablespoon softened butter
• 1 egg beaten
• 2 teaspoons chopped tarragon
• 1/2 cup chopped cooked lobster meat
• Milk, to bind if needed
• Salt and ground white pepper

 

Mix all ingredients together and roll into small firm balls about 1/2-inch in diameter.

Click here for printable recipe

Lobster BLT Salad...and the Stonewall Kitchen Cookbook Winner!

If I ever had to make the agonizing decision between lobster and bacon, I'm not sure what I would do.  They are two of my favorite taste sensations in the entire world, and so when I read about the Lobster BLT Salad that is on the menu at the Stonewall Kitchen Cafe, I just had to take a whack at it.  Someday I am going to make it up there to Maine to try the real thing, but for now I had to be satisfied with doing my own imitation of it.  The menu description went like this:

Cafe Lobster BLT Salad - Local lobster meat, tossed lightly with mayonnaise & chopped celery served on a bed of chopped baby iceberg lettuce. Topped with crumbled cherrywood-smoked bacon, slices of vine-ripened tomatoes and housemade croutons. 

So I sent the Southern husband off to the store to pick us up a couple of steamed lobsters (because I am a complete sissy when it comes to cooking my own lobsters.  I'm sorry, but it's true.).  I had some nice farmer's market tomatoes, and of course you know I had bacon in the house already.  I used romaine instead of iceberg, although I'm sure iceberg would be perfectly fine.  A leftover hunk of French bread turned into some lovely croutons.  The restaurant menu says that their BLT salad is served with the dressing of your choice -- I found that the lobster salad provided enough "dressing" taste for the salad, but go for addition dressing if you like.  I'm sure the original is even better, but for a New Jersey version, this was pretty dang good.

Meantime, thank you to EVERYONE who commented on the giveaway post for STONEWALL KITCHEN FAVORITES, the amazing cookbook from my friends at Stonewall.  What a great group of suggestions for summer favorites!  My menu for next summer is now completely figured out!  As usual I went to Random.org to pick out the winner, since I can't bear to choose on my own, and the lucky winner of the signed-by-the-authors cookbook is Holly, who commented that marinated flank steak is one of her favorites.  YUM, me too!

Here's the recipe, and onward to fall...

Lobster BLT Salad, inspired by the Stonewall Kitchen Cafe

• Two lobsters, cooked, shelled and torn into pieces
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 ribs of celery, chopped
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• One head romaine lettuce, torn into bite sized pieces
• 4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 2 large tomatoes, sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup large croutons

1. Mix lobster, mayo, celery and pepper together.
2. Place lobster mixture in large bowl with all other ingredients and toss gently until well mixed.
3. Add your choice of dressing (if desired - we didn't use any) and toss again.  Serve at once.

Click here for printable recipe

Lobster Rolls and a Cookbook Contest!

Yes, that is a good old-fashioned lobster roll in front of you, and it come from one of my new favorite cookbooks, STONEWALL KITCHEN FAVORITES. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I would basically like to move into the Stonewall Kitchen and live there for the rest of my life. Click here for just a few of the many, many, many reasons why. At any rate, the folks at Stonewall Kitchen heard about my adoration and were nice enough to send me a copy of their amazing cookbook. First of all, the food photography made me both deliriously happy AND think I better practice a little more with my own Nikon. It's just glorious. And the recipes...every bit as wonderful as I hoped they would be.

And happily, I have one more of these fabulous cookbooks to give away!



More info on how to enter for the giveaway at the bottom of this post...but first we must discuss the lobster roll, which (of course) came from this fabulous cookbook.

Among the many, many other talented things that the Southern husband does is keep an eye on all the various supermarkets in the area for when lobster goes on sale. We just LOVE lobster in this house (who doesn't?), but it does make me squirm a little when the price of cooking dinner starts rivaling the mortgage payment. So whenever he spots it on sale he makes sure to pick up a few of those babies, and to have have supermarket steam them up so they are cooked and ready for action. I have a few recipes that I go back to again and again that call for cooked lobster, but some days there is nothing like a good old-fashioned lobster roll.

Enter the Stonewall Kitchen Favorites, which has a lobster roll recipe that has now become my favorite lobster roll recipe of all time. It's light and creamy and classic and perfect. And EASY. You take a couple of lobsters-worth of lobster meat, tear it into bite-sized pieces, and mix it up with lime zest, lime juice, fresh ginger, chopped scallion and just the teeny-tiny-est bit of mayo.

Then lightly toast a few hot dog rolls. In an ideal world, you will have top-split hot dog rolls (which are sometimes called New England-style. Why? I have no idea.). Butter them lightly, and then spoon the lobster salad into the rolls.

You have now pretty much achieved Lobster Roll Nirvana. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Recipe is below, but first the giveaway: I have one glorious copy of Stonewall Kitchen Favorites to give away to a lucky winner, and get this: it is also signed by the authors. All those spectacular recipes, and signed by the authors as well...it's almost as good as that lobster roll! Just leave me a comment on this post telling me your favorite summer recipe, and next Sunday I will pick one lucky, lucky recipient of this amazing cookbook. My beloved email subscribers, you can enter by clicking the post title, which will take you to the website where you can comment.

But first...lobster roll!

Lobster Rolls, adapted from Stonewall Kitchen Favorites

1 1/2 cups cooked lobster meat

1 teaspoon grated lime zest

1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon grated, peeled fresh ginger

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 scallion, white and green parts, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Two hit dog buns, toasted and buttered

1. Mix together the lobster, lime zest and juice, ginger, mayonnaise and scallion in a small bowl until well combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Serve in a lightly toasted and buttered hot dog bun.

Click here for printable recipe

Tarragon Lobster Salad with Corn and Tomatoes

Here we are smack dab in the heart of summer. It's hot, hot, hot out there, and while I do my share of complaining about the hazy hot and humidness, I secretly love it, and will take it over February any day of the week.

We are also happily right in the middle of fresh Jersey tomato season. None of those hard, pale-red supermarket February tomatoes...we have THESE now, in every variety from tiny heirloom varieties to big old beefsteaks...

...and along with tomato season comes fresh corn season. Fresh, sweet corn that is so tender you sometimes don't even have to cook it.

Which is the case with this recipe. Now, you know my philosophy on lobsters, which is that cracking and eating lobster out of the shell is something that is better done in a really great seafood restaurant at the shore, where someone else gets to both cook the lobster and clean up all the flying pieces of lobster shell and lobster juice that sail all over the place. If you are going to go to the time and extravagance of making lobsters at home, let's make it a happy, peaceful experience that even the cook (ahem!) can enjoy. My all-time favorite recipe for this is something called The Way Life Should Be, but I think this gorgeous salad of fresh lobster, sweet corn and summer tomatoes is a close second.

Two preparation notes. You really do need one lobster per person to make this dish all that it should be, and ask your supermarket to steam it for you right in the store, so you are going home with nice freshly cooked lobster. Then all you need to do is talk someone into taking the meat out of the shell. (I don't even have to ask the Southern husband to do this any more. He sees the lobster come in the door and he springs into action. There is, after all, a great dinner in it for him at the end.)

And the corn...as I mentioned above, if you get great young corn, you don't even have to cook it. Just cut those kernels off the cob and toss them in the bowl. They will be perfect just as they are. If you really need to cook your corn to feel like everything is right with the world, then drop the cut-off kernels into simmering water for about 1 or 2 minutes, tops. You want the corn nice and crunchy in this recipe.

Lobster, corn, tomatoes...do it now. Summer is speeding along!

Tarragon Lobster Salad with Corn and Tomatoes, adapted from Emeril LaGasse's recipe

• Two medium size lobsters, cooked (get your supermarket to steam them for you)
• 2 tablespo9ons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper
• 2 ears of corn, kernels cut off
• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1. 1. Combine the shallot, vinegar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Whisk in the 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the cayenne. Add the corn kernels and mix together. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Cut the tiniest heirloom tomatoes in half, and quarter the larger ones. Add the tomatoes to the corn mixture. Add the lobster, tarragon, and parsley, and mix gently to combine.

Click here for printable recipe

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese

I've been flirting with lobster macaroni and cheese for a looooong time. It's just that I love macaroni and cheese with a deep and abiding love, and I feel the same about lobster. And I knew that if it was made the right way, this could be the Endless Love version of lobster macaroni and cheese.

I also didn't want it to take forever and a day to make. In my quest for the great LM&C recipe, I have come across a whole variety of recipes that have asked me to do things like save the lobster shells, simmer them for hours, strain them through cheesecloth, run around the kitchen three times chanting incantations...you get my drift. I do want an amazing recipe, but I want to be able to eat it the same day without having to take a nap first. So when I came across Ina Garten's recipe on the Food Network website, I knew I had finally found the lobster macaroni and cheese love of my life. Lots of lobster (I was aiming at recipe that gave the lobster equal time with the macaroni). A combination of cheddar and gruyere cheese. Buttery bread crumbs on top. I'm having heart palpitations just reliving it as I type.

Now, here's my usual advice on the lobster. Get your supermarket to steam it for you, and get whomever is going to get the pleasure of dining on this dish with you to shell the lobster for you. After that, this whole thing is smooth sailing.

Lobster macaroni and cheese. Doesn't the very thought of it make you feel like all is right with the world?

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese, from Ina Garten

• Vegetable oil
• 1 pound cavatappi or elbow macaroni
• 1 quart milk
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 12 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated (4 cups)
• 8 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (2 cups)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 pounds cooked lobster meat
• 1 1/2 cups fresh white bread crumbs (5 slices, crusts removed)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don't boil it. In a large pot, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Still whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the Gruyere, Cheddar, 1 tablespoon salt, the pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooked macaroni and lobster and stir well. Place the mixture in 6 to 8 individual gratin dishes.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the fresh bread crumbs, and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the macaroni is browned on the top.

Click here for printable recipe

Lobster Pie

One of my very favorite cookbooks is one called POT PIES: COMFORT FOOD UNDER COVER. It is full of recipes for, you guessed it, pot pies...but not just the typical kind with the pastry crust. Nope, in this fabulous book basically anything that involves something covering the main ingredient counts as a pot pie, so this cookbook includes Shellfish Pie with Artichoke Crust. And Shepherd's Pie Topped With Garlic Mashed Potatoes. And Tuscan Braised Pork Pie with Polenta Crust.

But my very, very favorite recipe in this book is for something that is simply called Lobster Pie. So let me explain this one a little. It is actually Lobster Pie with a Buttered Parmesan Parsley Breadcrumb Topping.

I know.

I know!

You take two lobsters (which your supermarket has steamed for you and your significant other has shelled for you) and cut the meat into pieces, and heat it up in a sauce made out of butter and flour and clam juice and sherry and cream, and pour it into an oven-safe dish. You probably won't need all the sauce -- just use your best judgement to see how much you need to make it sauced but not too soupy.



Then you take some nice bread - I used french bread -- and whiz it up in your food processor. Add some melted butter and chopped parsley and fresh grated Parmesan cheese to the crumbs and spread it over your lobster mixture.



Bake it all up until the crumbs are golden.



I promise you, it is all you hope and dream it will be.

Lobster Pie, adapted from POT PIES: COMFORT FOOD UNDER COVER.

• 4 tablespoons butter, plus 6 tablespoons melted
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups clam juice
• 1/4 cup sherry
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 lobsters, cooked, shelled and meat cut into chunks
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 cups soft french bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add flour, whisking until smooth. Gradually whisk in the clam stock until the sauce is smooth and thickened, about 5 minutes or so.

2. Add sherry and cream and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and add lobster. Taste sauce and add salt and pepper to taste. Using slotted spoon, transfer lobster to oven-proof casserole and spoon just enough sauce over to cover the lobster without making it too soupy.

3. Preheat oven to 375. Place bread crumbs, parsley and cheese in mixing bowl, pour melted butter over top and mix thoroughly. Spread crumbs over lobster.

4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until crumbs are golden. Serve immediately.

Click here for printable recipe.

Indoor Clambake!

Right now, at this very moment, this is what my mailbox looks like:

I mention this because it is usually right at this time of year that I start getting this deep yearning for a clambake. Not in the middle of July and August, when a clambake is a reasonable thing to yearn for. No, not me, I am a "need to have a clambake in February" kind of girl. I know, I know. But where there's a will, there's a way, and so....

INDOOR CLAMBAKE!!!

Honestly, it's one of the easiest dinners you can make, assuming you can handle the trauma of putting the lobster in the pot. (I can't. I tried. But as usual, I ran out of the kitchen like the coward that I am and left that part to the Southern husband.) Here's what you need: Lobsters. Clams. Mussels. Baby red potatoes. Sausage - I like andouille sausage, but keilbasa or any other hearty, good-sized sausage will do. Corn on the cob, if you can find it. A couple of onions. Garlic. Lemons. A really, really, really big pot. Some Jimmy Buffett music. Ready?

OK, take that big old pot and layer (in order) the onions, the garlic, the lobsters, the clams, the mussels, the potatoes, the corn and the sausage. At this point the lobster will start waving at you from the pot and you will need to run out of the kitchen while braver people settle them back in there where they belong. If you are me. Then add about 5 inches or so of water or chicken broth. Cover the pot and turn the heat on high. Check it after 20 minutes or so, and if the lobsters are bright red and the clams and mussels are open, you're done! Melt some butter, cut up some lemon wedges, line your table with newspaper and you are ready to roll. I usually put the whole lot into one big bowl, scatter some lobster crackers around, and let the games begin. If you use a pretty thick layer of newspaper you can just let folks drop the shells right onto the table, and then clean-up is as easy as rolling up the paper with the shells inside.

It's almost like summer.



Only four months to go....in the meantime, recipe below.

INDOOR CLAMBAKE!

• 3 onions, peeled and quartered
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
• 4 lobsters
• 2 dozen clams, cleaned
• 2 pounds mussels, scrubbed
• 16 small red potatoes, halved
• 4 ears corn, husked
• 1 pound cooked sausage, cut into chunks
• Melted butter for dipping
• Lemon wedges for serving

1. In a very large pot, layer from bottom to top: onions, garlic, lobsters, clams, mussels, potatoes, corn, sausage.

2. Add 5-6 inches of water or chicken stock

3. Cover and cook over high heat for 20-30 minutes until lobster is red, clams and mussels are open and potatoes are tender. Serve with butter and lemon.

Click here for printable recipe

The Way Life Should Be

 

I really wish I had kept the original New York Times article that this recipe is based on. It went something along these lines: the writer had a summer house somewhere in New England, probably Maine, and had lots of summertime houseguests, many of whom had their hearts set on a lobster dinner. So they had many a suppertime filled with lobsters being boiled and cracked, with all the stuff that goes with that (pieces of errant shell flying all over the place, lobster juice drenching everything, etc, etc.). And the point of the article was, wouldn't life be wonderful if you could make a meal that included all of the lazy, delicious, summertime taste of lobster without all the shell-cracking, juice-flying, sticky drama?

At least I think that is how it went. It's been a while, and my brain isn't what it used to be.

In any event, I did keep the recipe, which is wonderfully and perfectly entitled "The Way Life Should Be." And when it comes to eating lobster, the way life should be is that the lobster is out of the shell, cut or torn into delectable bite-sized pieces, and marinated in a glorious bath of olive oil, fresh lemon juice, chopped garlic and a heaping amount of chopped up fresh mint, parsley and basil. (Very Important Note: the original recipe says these herbs are optional. They are NOT. They are MANDATORY. Otherwise the recipe is automatically retitled, "The Way Life Kinda Should Be.")

Anyway. You leave the lobster in this lovely marinade for 60 minutes, then you cook up some spaghetti, drain it, put in in a bowl and pour the whole lemony, lobstery, herby, garlicky concoction over the pasta. Toss it around a little and there you have it -- a summery lobster dinner that smells incredible and tastes even better.

We had this for dinner a few days ago, and it was a work day for me. When I got home, my hearthrob of a Southern husband had already put the lobster into the marinade and it was waiting on the kitchen counter. The kitchen smelled incredible -- all mint and basil and lemon and garlic and lobster -- and all I had to do was make the pasta, mix it up and not mess up the picture.

Now THAT is the way life should be.

THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE, adapted from The New York Times

Six lobsters, cooked, shelled and chopped into bite size pieces

1/3 cup lemon juice (from 2 lemons)

1/2 cup olive oil

2 minced garlic cloves

1/4 cup chopped parsley and basil

1/4 cup mint

Pinch of salt

1 pound cooked spaghetti

1. Combine lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, herbs and salt. Add lobster and let sit at room temperature for an hour.

2. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain and return to pot. Pour lobster mixture onto pasta and toss.

Print this!

Tagliolini with Lobster and Fresh Tomatoes

Ok, enough with all this creamy, grainy comfort food -- time to bring on the drama! And nothing says ooh-la-la, I am a DRAMATIC dinner like lobster. Now, lobster is usually something I save for eating at the beach (Red's Lobster Pot, Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. Go there at least in your life. Trust me on this.) But that is when we are talking about whole lobsters. Let someone else have the putting of the lobster in the pot guilt, never mind the mess of the shells that fling themselves across the room as you are cracking your way through dinner.

However, recipes that involve lobster meat as part of the dish? Bring 'em on, baby. In those cases we purchase the lobster at the supermarket, they steam it right there, and then all I have to do is talk my sous-chef husband into doing the hard part, which is extracting the meat from the shell and chopping it into succulent little chunks. I am then home-free on the rest of the dish, because (once again) he has done the serious work. He also cleans up the kitchen, by the way. Every night. No, you cannot borrow him, he's MINE.

This delightful, delicious, de-lovely lobster dish is from the cookbook that brought us the gnocchi recipe earlier in the week: ITALY AL DENTE by Biba Caggiano. This time of year I will try almost anything that calls for fresh tomatoes, because in New Jersey in the summertime the fresh tomatoes pretty much have us surrounded. This is a quick and pretty sauce that called for those tomatoes sauted in olive oil with garlic, sundried tomato, red pepper and (and this MAKES the dish) a handful of capers. Some lobster meat, a lacing of butter, some hot pasta, and your evening just got a whole lot better!

So next time you have some tomatoes hanging around your kitchen, go grab yourself a lobster and give this one a go. And if you are ever in Point Pleasant Beach...Red's Lobster Pot.

Red's Lobster Pot

TAGLIOLINI WITH LOBSTER AND FRESH TOMATOES

• 1 lobster, steamed, meat extracted and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon minced sun-dried tomatoes
• 1-2 tablespoons capers
• 1 1/2 pounds tomatoes, seeded and diced
• Salt to tase
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoons butter
• 8 ounces tagliolini pasta (use linguine if you can't find this)

1. Bring water to a boil in large pot and cook pasta according to package directions. Reserve one cup of pasta water.

2. Meantime, heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes and capers and stir for a minute. Add diced tomatoes, season with salt and cook for 3-4 minutes. Stir in parsley and turn off heat.

3. Add lobster and cooked pasta to skillet and toss with butter. Add a little pasta water to make a light sauce. Serve immediately.